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Objective: To evaluate the safety, efficacy and patient acceptability of burn therapy with Chinese Medicinals in treating pain induced by lumbar intervertebral disc herniation (LDH) in community. Methods: All 684 cases of LDH were provided with Chinese Medicinal burn therapy treatment in this research. The visual analogue scoring (VAS) was applied to evaluate the lumbago and the quality of life of patients before and after treatment. Moreover, logistic regression analysis was applied to analyze the influence factors of curative effect. Results: The total effective rate of analgesia was 77.2%. The total effective rate of patients with severe pain and disease course ≤6 months before the treatment was 91.8 and 90.9%, which was significantly higher than that of patients with mild and moderate pain group (70.7%) with the course of disease >6 months (76.1%). The more severe the lower back pain, the better the curative effect (OR = 4.877), and the shorter the disease course of lumbago, the better (OR = 0.256) the curative effect. The overall effective rate of improvement was 79.7, 80.2 and 80.3%, respectively on the effects of daily life, daily work and walking ability. The incidence of adverse reactions was 3.5%. The patients' satisfaction and approval degree of technical treatment were 84.0 and 86.3%. Conclusions: The treatment with Chinese Medicinal burn therapy to relieve pain induced by LDH was safe and effective. Moreover, patient's compliance was better; the degree of acceptance was high. In addition, the technique is easy to master by doctors in a basic hospital setting, and is suitable for promotion in primary health care institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper propose a parallel Apriori algorithm based on GPU (GPUApriori) for frequent itemsets mining, and designs a storage structure using bit table (BIT) matrix to replace the traditional storage mode. In addition, parallel computing scheme on GPU is discussed. The experimental results show that GPUApriori algorithm can effectively improve the efficiency of frequent itemsets mining.

Objectives: Diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) is characterized as a coronary heart disease which expands during diabetes due to alterations in the myocardial function and structure. The currentstudy intends to elucidate the protective effect of gingerol on DCM in a streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes mellitus (DM) rat model., Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, the animals were divided into three groups: normal control, DM control, and DM+gingerol (10 mg/kg). The body weights of all rats were estimated at regular intervals. The myocardial profile, oxidative stress, and activities of metabolic enzymes were also scrutinized. The proinflammatory cytokine levels together with cellular protein expression connected with apoptosis were estimated via Western blot analysis., Results: The rats that suffered from DCM exhibited abnormal levels of myocardial markers, aberrant metabolic enzymatic activity, elevated concentrations of inflammatory factors, and enhanced oxidative stress parameters along with increased cell death apoptosis. Whereas gingerol showed protective effects on the treated rats by an improved antioxidant defense system., Conclusions: The current findings suggested that gingerol is effective in the treatment of DCM by inhibition of inflammation and oxidative stress., Competing Interests: There is no conflict of interest in this study., (Copyright© by Royan Institute. All rights reserved.)

Numerous studies have assessed the concentration-response (C-R) relationships between long-term exposure to particulate matter (PM) and mortality from cardiopulmonary diseases, but few studies have evaluated the C-R relationships between PM exposure and morbidity of chronic respiratory diseases or their symptoms, and to date no systematic review has been published on the characteristics of the C-R curves between PM exposure and respiratory disease morbidity. Screening of all available studies in Medline identified ten studies with figures or scatter plots showing the C-R relationships between PM exposure and chronic bronchitis or chronic cough/phlegm. The C-R relationships showed ballistic 'S' shaped curves, linear in the low to moderate PM range and flattening out in the high PM range. Moreover, the shape and level of the C-R curves differed markedly between susceptible and nonsusceptible populations. New evidence from a prospective cohort study confirmed that the C-R relationship between PM reduction and beneficial effects on respiratory health may be due to the decreased incidence of respiratory symptoms and increased recovery in individuals with symptoms of bronchitis. Additional studies are needed to assess the C-R relationships between different PM contents and chronic health parameters, especially in geographic areas with high PM pollution and in more susceptible populations. Evidence from prospective cohort studies in developing countries with areas of high PM pollution may help evaluate the burden of chronic respiratory disease attributable to PM pollution and air quality standards.

Objective: To evaluate the mortality trend of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) among residents in Liaoning province during the period of 1984-2010., Methods: The cut-points were ascertained by Monte Carlo Permutation test in COPD mortality trend lines of Poisson regression with Joinpoint Regression Program. The annual percent changes (APC) before and after the cut-points and the average annual percent change (AAPC) of COPD mortality were examined during the period., Results: Significant declining trends on COPD mortality among the urban population during 1984-2010 and that of rural population during 1999-2009 were found. The standardized urban COPD mortality rate by Chinese population declined from 243.93 per 100 thousand in 1984 to 33.13 per 100 thousand in 2010. The urban 26 years AAPC was -5.8%. While the mortality in the rural population decreased from 251.33 per 100 thousand in 1999 to 102.25 per 100 thousand in 2009 in the same population. The rural 10 years' AAPC was -6.8%. The total trend of COPD mortality reduction was mainly resulted from the fast decline of bronchitis mortality. The AAPC of COPD mortality of the urban population was -9.0% and greater than that of the rural population (-6.8%) from 1999 to 2009. The urban population had a lower COPD mortality than that of the rural population. In urban area, males had a higher COPD mortality than females, however, in the rural area, males had a lower COPD mortality than the females., Conclusion: The COPD mortality among the residents of Liaoning province declined significantly from 1984 to 2010. Further studies are needed to confirm the viewpoint of WHO that the prevalence of COPD would have a continuous increasing trend in China.

Objective: To analyze the impact of mortality by age and causes of death on life expectancy at birth among residents of Liaoning province., Methods: The study included mortality data of urban and rural residents in two periods (1973 - 1975 and 2004 - 2005). Both Abridged Life Table and Arriaga method were used to calculate and to decompose life expectancy changes by age and causes of death., Results: From 1975 - 2005, the life expectancy increased by 4.68 years in urban residents and 4.91 for rural residents with a higher increment among females than males. Most part of the increase (76.27% and 82.81% for urban and rural male, 58.76% and 62.13% for urban and rural female) in life expectancy within the last 30 years could be explained by the decrease of mortality in the populations at age 0 - 4 and 55 - 74. Diseases related to respiratory system and infectious disease were contributing the most to the gap in life expectancy between the two periods. Mortality of heart disease was a negative contributor to the changes in life expectancy among both rural and urban residents while the mortalities of cerebro-vascular diseases and malignant tumors were the negative contributors for rural residents., Conclusion: The increase of life expectancy in the last 30 years was mainly resulted from the decrease of mortality on both respiratory and infectious diseases. Control of chronic diseases is the key point to increase the life expectancy among the residents of Liaoning province.

Objective: The objective of this study was to estimate the current status of prevalence, awareness, treatment and control rate of hypertension in adult residents living in rural area of Liaoning Province, North China., Methods: The screening was finished in 2008, probability proportional to size sampling method was used to select the representative sample. Blood pressure was measured in 153481 adults (aged > 35 yr), information on history of hypertension and use of antihypertensive medications was obtained by use of a standard questionnaire., Results: Overall, hypertension prevalence rate was 41.9%, the age-specific hypertension prevalence rate was 25.0%, 37.7%, 50.2%, and 64.9% in men and 22.1%, 41.1%, 56.6% and 70.2% in women age 35 to 44 years, 45 to 54 years, 55 to 64 years, and above 65 years, respectively. Among hypertensive patients, awareness rate was only 54.1%, 39.7% patients received antihypertensive medication and blood pressure control rate (< 140/90 mm Hg) was 6.9% in all participants and was 9.3% in treated hypertensive patients., Conclusion: Our results indicates that hypertension prevalence is highly while awareness, treatment and control rate of hypertension was low in rural areas of northeast China. These results underscore the urgent need to develop comprehensive strategies to improve prevention, detection, and treatment of hypertension in rural population of Liaoning province.