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Although various studies have reported a high prevalence of depression among Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, the pathophysiological mechanism of depression in PD (DPD) is still unclear. The core region of the reward network, the ventral striatum (VS), is critical in the occurrence and development of DPD. This study aimed to explore the altered functional connectivity (FC) of VS subregions in DPD. We recruited 20 DPD patients, 37 non-depressed PD (NDPD) patients, and 41 healthy controls (HC) matched in age, gender, and years of education. The patients' diagnosis with PD was de-novo. We then used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to detect the FC differences of VS subregions among these groups. The FC between the left ventral caudate (vCa_L) and the left middle occipital gyrus (MOG.L) was significantly increased in DPD than in NDPD patients or HC. Compared with HC, NDPD patients exhibited significantly increased FCs between bilateral ventromedial putamen and the left paracentral lobule, the right ventromedial putamen (vmPu_R), and the right precentral gyrus, the vmPu_R, and the left precuneus. Besides, a significant negative correlation was found between the FC values of the vCa_L with the MOG.L and the HAMD-17 scores in the DPD group. The hyperconnectivity between vCa_L and the MOG.L might be viewed as a compensatory mechanism for depression in the early stage of PD. This study provides new insight into the neural mechanism of depression in the early stage of PD and contributes to explore the potential neuroimaging markers for DPD.

Key message Seventy-three QTL related to grain color and tannin content were identified in Chinese sorghum accessions, and a new recessive allelic variant of TAN2 gene was discovered. Abstract Sorghum is mainly used for brewing distilled liquors in China. Since grain tannins play an important role in liquor brewing, accurately understanding the relationship between grain color and tannin content can provide basis for selection standards of tannin sorghum. We resequenced a panel of 242 Chinese sorghum accessions and performed population structure and genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify quantitative trait locus (QTL) affecting pericarp color, testa pigment, and tannin content. Phylogenetic analysis, principal component analysis (PCA), and admixture model were used to infer population structure. Two distinct genetic sub-populations were identified according to their corresponding northern and southern geographic origin. To investigate the genetic basis of natural variation in sorghum grain color, GWAS with 2,760,264 SNPs was conducted in four environments using multiple models (Blink, FarmCPU, GLM, and MLM). Seventy-three QTL were identified to be associated for the color of exocarp, mesocarp, testa, and tannin content on all chromosomes except chromosome 5, of which 47 might be novel QTL. Some important QTL were found to colocalize with orthologous genes in the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway from other plants, including orthologous of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) TT2, TT7, TT12, TT16 and AT5G41220 (GST), as well as orthologous of rice (Oryza sativa) MYB61 and OsbHLH025. Our investigation of the variation in grain color and tannin content in Chinese sorghum germplasm may help guide future sorghum breeding for liquor brewing.

Variants in the glucocerebrosidase (GBA) gene are recognized as a common and important genetic risk factor for Parkinson disease (PD). However, the impact of variant severity on the clinical phenotype of PD in the Chinese population remains unclear. Thus, the present study aimed to determine the frequency of GBA-related PD (GBA-PD) and the relationship of GBA variant severity with clinical characteristics in a large Chinese cohort.Long-range polymerase chain reaction and next generation sequencing were performed for the entire GBA gene. GBA variant severity was classified into five classes: mild, severe, risk, complex, and unknown.Among the total 737 PD patients, 47 GBA variants were detected in 79 (10.72%) patients, and the most common GBA variants were R163Q, L444P, and R120W. Complete demographic and clinical data were obtained for 673 patients, which revealed that 18.50% of early onset PD patients had GBA variants. Compared with patients without GBA variants, GBA-PD patients experienced PD onset an average of 4 years earlier and had more severe motor and nonmotor symptoms. Patients carrying severe and complex variants had a higher burden of nonmotor symptoms, especially depression, and more mood/cognitive and gastrointestinal symptoms than patients carrying mild variants.GBA-PD is highly prevalent in the Chinese population. The severity of GBA variants underlies distinct phenotypic spectrums, with PD patients carrying severe and complex variants seeming to have similar phenotypes. PD patient stratification by GBA variant severity should become a prerequisite for selecting specific treatments.

Sorghum is mainly used for brewing distilled liquors in China. Since grain tannins play an important role in liquor brewing, accurately understanding the relationship between grain color and tannin content can provide basis for selection standards of tannin sorghum. We resequenced a panel of 242 Chinese sorghum accessions and performed population structure and GWAS analysis to identify QTLs affecting pericarp color, testa pigment, and tannin content. Dendrogram, principal component analysis (PCA), and admixture model were used to infer population structure. Two distinct genetic sub-populations were identified according to their corresponding northern and southern geographic origin. To investigate the genetic basis of natural variation in sorghum grain color, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) with 2,760,264 SNP was conducted with multiple models (Blink, FarmCPU, GLM, and MLM). The four models identified 1090, 259, 32 and 251 SNP loci for the color of exocarp, mesocarp, testa, and tannin content, respectively. These SNPs were distributed in 440 SNP peaks. Some novel quantitative trait loci for sorghum pericarp color, testa pigments and tannin content colocalized with homologous genes in the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway from other plants, including an orthologue of maize ( Zea mays ) bz2 and homologues of Arabidopsis ( Arabidopsis thaliana ) TT2 , TT12 , and TT16 . Our investigation of the variation in grain color and tannin content in Chinese sorghum germplasm may help guide future sorghum breeding for liquor brewing.

Neuronal intranuclear inclusion disease (NIID) is a rare, progressive neurodegenerative disorder. This study aimed to investigate clinical, imaging, genetic, and dermatopathological characteristics of a family with adult-onset NIID. The proband was a 62-year-old woman with 3 brothers and 2 sisters. Of these, 4 had symptoms of paroxysmal visual field defect, extrapyramidal symptoms, dysautonomia, emotional changes, and cognitive dysfunction. Genetic examination revealed no abnormality related to cerebrovascular diseases. More than 200 CGG repeats of FMR1 gene cause fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) whereas repeats of the proband were found 29 times, which excluded FXTAS. Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and GC-rich-PCR identified an expanded GGC repeat (with ∼100 repeats) in the 5' region of NOTCH2NLC in the patient and her 2 younger brothers. Pathological examination found eosinophilic intranuclear inclusions inside adipocytes, fibrocytes, and sweat gland cells. Immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence staining revealed positive staining for ubiquitin and p62. The detailed pathological and genetic features of this NIID family provide a valuable contribution to the existing knowledge base of this rare disorder.

Depression, one of the most frequent non-motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD), was proposed to be related to neural network dysfunction in advanced PD patients. However, the underlying mechanisms in the early stage remain unclear. The study was aimed to explore the alterations of large-scale neural networks inWe performed independent component analysis (ICA) on the data of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging from 21We observed an ordered decrease of connectivity among groups within the ventral attention network (VAN) (dPDndPDHCs), mainly located in the left middle temporal cortex. Besides, dPD patients exhibited hypoconnectivity between the auditory network (AUD) and default mode network (DMN) or VAN compared to ndPD patients or healthy controls. Correlation analysis revealed that depression severity was negatively correlated with connectivity value within VAN and positively correlated with the connectivity value of AUD-VAN in dPD patients, respectively. Further analysis showed that the area under the curve (AUC) for dPD prediction was 0.863 when combining the intranetwork connectivity in VAN and internetwork connectivity in AUD-DMN and AUD-VAN.Our results demonstrated that early dPD may be associated with abnormality of attention bias and especially auditory attention processing. Altered neural network connectivity is expected to be a potential neuroimaging biomarker to predict depression in PD.

Depression is one of the most prevalent and disturbing non-motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD), with few dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) features measured in previous studies. Our aim was to investigate the alterations of the dynamics inWe performed dFC analysis on the data of resting-state functional MRI from 21Four distinct functional connectivity states were clusteredOur study demonstrated that altered network connection over time, mainly involving the DMN and CEN, with abnormal dynamic graph properties, may contribute to the presence of depression in patients with PD.

The lung is an important organ in systemic toxicity test of medical devices and is significant in safety evaluation. Based on the authors' understanding of medical devices, this study provides a brief analysis of the lung examination and common problems in systemic toxicity, so as to provide references for the pre-clinical safety evaluation of medical devices. It should be noted that a reasonable risk assessment should be made after comprehensive assessment for specific medical device products.

Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) have been proposed to be accessible biomarkers for Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, there is a lack of known miRNAs that can serve as biomarkers for prodromal PD (pPD). We previously identified that miR-31 and miR-214 were dysregulated in PD. The aim of this study was to explore the roles of miR-31 and miR-214 in pPD. We recruited 25 pPD patients, 20 patients with de novo PD (dnPD), 24 advanced PD (aPD) patients and 21 controls. Next, we investigated the expression of miR-31 and miR-214. Compared to controls, miR-214 was found to be significantly upregulated in pPD patients while miR-31 was significantly upregulated in aPD patients. In addition, the expression of miR-214 was lower in aPD patients compared to both dnPD or pPD patients, while the expression of miR-31 was higher in aPD patients compared to dnPD patients. In order to predict pPD via miRNA expression, the receiver operating characteristic curve was constructed and the area under curve (AUC) was calculated. For pPD prediction by miR-214, the AUC was 0.756. The optimal cut-off value of miR-214 was 0.1962, and the sensitivity and specificity were 72.0% and 76.2%, respectively. On the other hand, the AUC for aPD detection by miR-31 was 0.744. The optimal cut-off value for miR-31 was 0.0148, with a sensitivity of 87.5% and a specificity of 71.4%. In conclusion, miR-214 can distinguish pPD patients from controls and may be used as a potential biomarker for pPD diagnosis.

The characterization of virtual enterprises can facilitate companies to make full use of information technology to meet challenges such as market globalization and technological innovation. In this paper, virtual enterprises are shaped into a complex network and their characteristics are analyzed in detail. Firstly, the (N, E, W) model of virtual enterprise network is established by using complex shape theory. Secondly, the standard metrics for evaluating the performance of the virtual enterprise network are defined from both node and edge perspectives. The simulation results show the degree distribution of the VE1 network. Besides, the approach used in this paper provides a comprehensive picture of the characterization of virtual enterprise networks.

The insula, consisting of functionally diverse subdivisions, plays a significant role in Parkinson’s disease (PD)-related cognitive disorders. However, the functional connectivity (FC) patterns of insular subdivisions in PD remain unclear. Our aim is to investigate the changes in FC patterns of insular subdivisions and their relationships with cognitive domains. Three groups of participants were recruited in this study, including PD patients with mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI, n = 25), PD patients with normal cognition (PD-NC, n = 13), and healthy controls (HCs, n = 17). Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) was used to investigate the FC in insular subdivisions of the three groups. Moreover, all participants underwent a neuropsychological battery to assess cognition so that the relationship between altered FC and cognitive performance could be elucidated. Compared with the PD-NC group, the PD-MCI group exhibited increased FC between the left dorsal anterior insular (dAI) and the right superior parietal gyrus (SPG), and altered FC was negatively correlated with memory and executive function. Compared with the HC group, the PD-MCI group showed significantly increased FC between the right dAI and the right median cingulate and paracingulate gyri (DCG), and altered FC was positively related to attention/working memory, visuospatial function, and language. Our findings highlighted the different abnormal FC patterns of insular subdivisions in PD patients with different cognitive abilities. Furthermore, dysfunction of the dAI may partly contribute to the decline in executive function and memory in early drug-naïve PD patients.

Our study aimed to establish and validate a multi-class scoring system for preoperative gastric gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) risk stratifications based on CT features. 150 gastric GIST patients who underwent contrast-enhanced CT examination and surgical resection from hospital 1 were retrospectively analyzed as the training cohort, and 61 patients from hospitals 2 and 3 were included as the validation cohort. A model was established by logistic regression analysis and weighted to be a scoring model. A calibration test, area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC), and cutoff points were determined for the score model. The model was also divided into three score ranges for convenient clinical evaluation. Five CT features were included in the score model, including tumor size (4 points), ill-defined margin (6 points), intratumoral enlarged vessels (5 points), heterogeneous enhancement pattern (4 points), and exophytic or mixed growth pattern (2 points). Then, based on the calibration results, performance was merely assessed as very low and high* risk. The AUCs of the score model for very low risk and high* risk were 0.973 and 0.977, and the cutoff points were 3 points (97.30%, 93.81%) and 7 points (92.19%, 94.19%), respectively. In the validation cohort, the AUCs were 0.912 and 0.972, and the cutoff values were 3 points (92.31%, 85.42%) and 5 points (100%, 87.88%), respectively. The model was stratified into 3 ranges: 0-3 points for very low risk, 4-8 points for low risk, and 9-21 points for high* risk. A concise and practical score system for gastric GISTs risk stratification was proposed.

Objective. Xingnaojing injection (XNJ) is a well-known traditional Chinese patent medicine (TCPM) for stroke. The aim of this study is to assess the efficacy of XNJ for stroke including ischemic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), and subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH).Methods. An extensive search was performed within using eight databases up to November 2013. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on XNJ for treatment of stroke were collected. Study selection, data extraction, quality assessment, and meta-analysis were conducted according to the Cochrane standards, and RevMan5.0 was used for meta-analysis.Results. This review included 13 RCTs and a total of 1,514 subjects. The overall methodological quality was poor. The meta-analysis showed that XNJ combined with conventional treatment was more effective for total efficacy, neurological deficit improvement, and reduction of TNF-αlevels compared with those of conventional treatment alone. Three trials reported adverse events, of these one trial reported mild impairment of kidney and liver function, whereas the other two studies failed to report specific adverse events.Conclusion. Despite the limitations of this review, we suggest that XNJ in combination with conventional medicines might be beneficial for the treatment of stroke. Currently there are various methodological problems in the studies. Therefore, high-quality, large-scale RCTs are urgently needed.

Bioactive bone-inducing material (BBIM) is a collagen-based scaffold composed of demineralized bone matrix and collagen-binding domain bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP-2). BBIM is regarded as a promising bone-inducing scaffold to repair bone defects. In this work, we evaluated the biocompatibility and osteogenecity of BBIM. Using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, the level of BMP-2 on BBIM was detected and considered adequate. Kunming mice were used as the animal model to investigate the acute systemic toxicity, long-term bone regeneration, ectopic bone formation, and chronic systemic toxicity. Results show that BBIM induced no serious inflammatory reaction or acute and chronic systemic toxicity. Our analyses also demonstrated significant homogeneous ectopic bone formation as well as significantly high numbers of erythrocytes in the BBIM groups in the chronic systemic toxicity study, a phenomenon which may provide indirect proof of the bone regeneration capacity of BBIM, which may be considered as a bioactivity indicator in future studies. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 102A: 3093–3101, 2014.

Deadlock is an undesired situation in a highly automated system due to the fact that no system can allow its occurrence which may produce some unnecessary economic losses or serious consequences. There are three mathematical tools to handle deadlocks in resource allocation systems: graph theory, finite state machine, and Petri net. Due to its inherent characteristics, Petri nets are widely applied to manufacturing systems. Generally, these existing deadlock methods are classified into three strategies: deadlock detection and recovery, deadlock avoidance, and deadlock prevention. In this paper, a review of deadlock prevention policies and merits and drawbacks of these policies are presented. Then it gives the possible trend of the research in the future.

Vegetation Restoration, vegetation dynamic. Abstract: Taking the vegetation at the water-level-fluctuation zone(WLFZ) of Xiangxi River as the object of the research, we use the sampling method to study the composition of species, diversity of community and dynamic pattern in two years at different altitudes after the filling of the Three Gorges Dam Reservoir. The results showed that species richness presented a trend which increased with the increase of the altitude. The main plants are annual herbs, an average of 26 species, accounting for 66.2%.Next were perennial herbaceous plants. Plants which belonged to gramineae and compositae form a community of absolute advantage in this area. In general, plant are patchinesses or banded concentration distribution. With the elevation increasing, α and β diversity increased. And the whole kinds of species would tend to be stable gradually in the WLFZ of Xiangxi River.

In China, the evaluation of hemocompatibility of biomaterials is limited to hemolysis, coagulation time,and the number and morphology of platelets adhered on biomaterials. The present research, however, is aimed to establish a method for evaluating the function of sheet biomaterials in platelet activation. Platelet activation caused by glass, polyvinyl chloride or polymethylvinylsiloxane sheets was evaluated by measuring alpha-granule membrane protein (GMP-140) in platelet poor plasma, using a reasonable blood-material contact model vibrating at different speed. The result showed that the difference in platelet activation was not significantly different among the three above-mentioned materials at 140r/m or 200r/m. However, when it comes to 230r/m, significant difference was observed among these three groups, with glasspolyvinyl chloridepolymethylvinylsiloxane. But the order was reversed at 270r/m, which may be due to the different interfacial tension of different materials. Therefore, the method is suitable to evaluate platelet activation caused by sheet biomaterials, but an appropriate vibrating speed should be chosen. The interfacial tension plays an important role in the model and should be considered for results assessment.

Bioactive bone-inducing material (BBIM) is a collagen-based scaffold composed of demineralized bone matrix and collagen-binding domain bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP-2). BBIM is regarded as a promising bone-inducing scaffold to repair bone defects. In this work, we evaluated the biocompatibility and osteogenecity of BBIM. Using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, the level of BMP-2 on BBIM was detected and considered adequate. Kunming mice were used as the animal model to investigate the acute systemic toxicity, long-term bone regeneration, ectopic bone formation, and chronic systemic toxicity. Results show that BBIM induced no serious inflammatory reaction or acute and chronic systemic toxicity. Our analyses also demonstrated significant homogeneous ectopic bone formation as well as significantly high numbers of erythrocytes in the BBIM groups in the chronic systemic toxicity study, a phenomenon which may provide indirect proof of the bone regeneration capacity of BBIM, which may be considered as a bioactivity indicator in future studies.

Polysulfone has been widely used as hemodialysis membrane material because of its excellent physiochemical performance. There is still a need to further improve its anti-coagulation property in clinical practice. In this work, we covalently immobilized heparin onto polysulfone membrane to improve its anti-coagulation performance. Low temperature plasma technique with environmentally friendly nitrogen as the gas source, as well as N-ethyl-N'-[3-dimethylaminopropy] carbodiimide hydrochloride/hydroxy-2,5-dioxopyrolidine-3-sulfonicacid sodium chemistry were utilized to immobilize heparin onto the surface of polysulfone membrane. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, attenuated total reflectance Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, as well as water contact angle results confirmed successful binding of heparin to the membrane surface. Only slight permeability differences were observed between the immobilized surface and the unmodified surface, while the polysulfone membrane had become more hydrophilic after immobilization. The blood coagulation time was greatly prolonged after modification and less platelets adhesion was observed on the heparin immobilized surface. Also, compared with heparin injection doses in clinical, the heparinized process in our work consumed less heparin. Our study suggests that the immobilized heparin has local anti-coagulation effect, while reducing the doses.

Hemocompatibility is an important component of biocompatibility; it reflects the degree of interaction between material and blood. Hemocompatibility is multifaceted, so that the material's impact on the blood and the underlying mechanism are very complicated. This article presents a review of researches probing the impact of material on blood via contact activation and plasma protein adsorption; via the platelet activated and the formation of thrombin; via the complement system activated and the activation of leukocytes as well as other mechanisms of hemolysis. The current methods for evaluation and the future trend of development are also introduced.

In-vitro test is usually conducted as a preliminary screening test in the evaluation of the haemocompatibility of biomaterials for its short-term consuming, convenience and less expense. The selection of appropriate model for blood-biomaterial interaction, the choice of sensitive and specific parameters, and the minimization of additional blood activation are most important in the in-vitro test. In addition, the time and the style of blood-biomaterial interaction, the choice of sensitive and specific parameters, and the minimization of additional blood activation are most important in the in-vitro test. In addition, the time and the style of blood-biomaterial interaction, the selection of primary reference materials and the shear rate should be considered. In recent years, though great progress has been made in the in-vitro evaluation of haemocompatibility of biomaterials, all these influencing factor should be standardized for more effective evaluation of the haemocompatibility of biomaterials.