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This report presented the endemic status of schistosomiasis and analyzed the data collected from the national schistosomiasis prevention and control system and national schistosomiasis surveillance sites in the People's Republic of China at a national level in 2021. Among the 12 provinces (municipality and autonomous region) endemic for schistosomiasis in China, Shanghai Municipality, Zhejiang Province, Fujian Province, Guangdong Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region continued to consolidate the achievements of schistosomiasis elimination, and Sichuan and Jiangsu provinces maintained the criteria of transmission interruption, while Yunnan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi and Hunan provinces maintained the criteria of transmission control by the end of 2021. A total of 451 counties (cites, districts) were found to be endemic for schistosomiasis in China in 2021, with 27 571 endemic villages covering 73 250 600 people at risk of infections. Among the 451 endemic counties (cities, districts), 75.17% (339/451), 22.17% (100/451) and 2.66% (12/451) achieved the criteria of elimination, transmission interruption and transmission control of schistosomiasis, respectively. By the end of 2021, 29 037 cases with advanced schistosomiasis were documented in China. In 2021, 4 405 056 individuals received serological tests and 72 937 were sero-positive. A total of 220 629 individuals received stool examinations and 3 were positive. In 2021, snail survey was performed in 19 291 endemic villages in China and

To understand the prevalence of soil-transmitted nematode infections in Yancheng City from 2016 to 2020, so as to provide insights into the development of the scheme for further soil-transmitted nematodiasis surveillance.Soil-borne nematode infections were detected using the modified Kato-Katz method (two slides for one sample) among the permanent residents living in Yancheng City from 2016 to 2020, andA total of 51 259 person-time residents were detected for soil-borne nematode infections in Yancheng City from 2016 to 2020, and 48 egg-positives were identified, with a 0.09% prevalence. The soil-borne nematodes infecting residents includedThe prevalence of soil-borne nematode infections appears a gradual decline in residents living in Yancheng City from 2016 to 2020, and is at an extremely low level. Further surveillance of soil-transmitted nematodiasis requires to be intensified targeting key regions and populations to consolidate the control achievements.

The first-line nucleos(t)ide analogs (NAs) based antiviral drugs can effectively inhibit HBV replication and slow down the progression of chronic hepatitis B. However, about 20% of patients receiving standard NAs antiviral therapy will still develop low-level viremia (LLV). Therefore, understanding the occurrence mechanism of LLV will help to optimize antiviral treatment regimens and improve the prognosis of patients with chronic hepatitis B. This article systematically summarizes the possible mechanisms of LLV occurrence, and the important factor of NAs failure. Taking into account the unique limitations of NAs competitive inhibition of virus replication, weakening host's immune response is not enough to directly eliminate infected hepatocytes. This makes it difficult to achieve a complete virological response in some patients with the active compensatory proliferation of residual infected hepatocytes and the accompanying effective removal or dilution of covalent, closed, circular DNA (cccDNA) pools. Therefore, it is speculated that activating host immunity can eliminate infected liver cells and may be more conducive to address LLV.一线抗病毒药物核苷（酸）类似物（NAs）能够有效抑制HBV复制，减缓慢性乙型肝炎进程，但仍约有20%的接受规范NAs抗病毒治疗的患者会发生低病毒血症（LLV）。厘清LLV发生的机制将有助于优化慢性乙型肝炎患者抗病毒治疗方案，改善患者的预后。系统总结LLV发生的可能机制，认为除了NAs竞争性抑制病毒复制所特有的局限性外，宿主较弱的免疫应答使其直接清除感染肝细胞的能力不足，难以诱发残余感染肝细胞的活跃代偿性增殖及伴随的共价闭合环状DNA池被有效清除或稀释，可能也是NAs在部分患者中无法实现完全病毒学应答的重要因素。据此推测，通过激活宿主免疫以清除感染肝细胞，在解决LLV上可能更有优势。.

This report presented the endemic status of schistosomiasis in the People's Republic of China at a national level in 2020, and analyzed the data collected from the national schistosomiasis prevention and control system and national schistosomiasis surveillance sites. Among the 12 provinces (municipality and autonomous region) endemic for schistosomiasis in China, Shanghai Municipality, Zhejiang Province, Fujian Province, Guangdong Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region continued to consolidate the achievements of schistosomiasis elimination, and Sichuan and Jiangsu provinces maintained the criteria of transmission interruption, while Yunnan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi and Hunan provinces maintained the criteria of transmission control by the end of 2020. A total of 450 counties (cites, districts) were found to be endemic for schistosomiasis in China, with 28 376 endemic villages covering 71 370 400 people at risk of infections. Among the 450 endemic counties (cities, districts), 74.89% (337/450), 21.87% (98/450) and 3.33% (15/450) achieved the criteria of elimination, transmission interruption and transmission control of schistosomiasis, respectively. By the end of 2020, 29 517 cases with advanced schistosomiasis were documented in China. In 2020, 11 117 655 individuals received inquiry examinations and 1 798 580 were positive; 5 263 082 individuals received serological tests and 83 179 were sero-positive. A total of 273 712 individuals received stool examinations and 3 were positive, including one case of acute schistosomiasis. In 2020, snail survey was performed in 19 733 endemic villages in China and

特发性重度肺动脉高压的外科手术干预手段较为有限。传统的手术方案为房间隔造口术，体肺动脉连接术——Potts分流手术，近年来开始应用于儿童重度肺动脉高压的治疗，但国内尚未见报道。该文报道一例3岁的特发性肺动脉高压患儿急诊接受Potts手术治疗的案例。.

Genome-wide association studies rely on the statistical inference of untyped variants, called imputation, to increase the coverage of genotyping arrays. However, the results are often suboptimal in populations underrepresented in existing reference panels and array designs, since the selected single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) may fail to capture population-specific haplotype structures, hence the full extent of common genetic variation. Here, we propose to sequence the full genome of a small subset of an underrepresented study cohort to inform the selection of population-specific add-on SNPs, such that the remaining array-genotyped cohort could be more accurately imputed. Using a Tanzania-based cohort as a proof-of-concept, we demonstrate the validity of our approach by showing improvements in imputation accuracy after the addition of our designed addon SNPs to the base H3Africa array.

This report presented the endemic status of schistosomiasis in the People's Republic of China at a national level in 2019, and analyzed the data collected from the national schistosomiasis prevention and control system and 455 national schistosomiasis surveillance sites. Among the 12 provinces (municipality and autonomous region) endemic for schistosomiasis in China, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi continued to consolidate the achievements of schistosomiasis elimination, Sichuan Province achieved transmission interruption, Jiangsu newly achieved the standard of transmission interruption and 5 provinces of Yunnan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi and Hunan maintained transmission control by the end of 2019. There were 450 endemic counties (cities, districts) endemic for schistosomiasis, including 28 500 endemic villages covering 70 667 800 people at risk of infections. Among the 450 endemic counties (citis, districts), 66.89% (301/450), 28.44% (128/450) and 4.67% (21/450) kept the criteria of elimination, transmission interruption and transmission control of schistosomiasis, respectively. By the end of 2019, a total of 30 170 advanced schistosomiasis cases were documented in China. In 2019, a total of 12 090 712 individuals received inquiry examinations and 1 740 764 were positive; 5 158 369 individuals received serological tests and 89 753 were seropositive. A total of 327 475 individuals received stool examinations and 5 were positive, including one case of acute schistosomiasis. In 2019, snail survey was performed in 19 726 endemic villages in China and

Human polyomaviruses are widespread in human populations and are able to cause severe disease in immunocompromised individuals. There remains an incomplete understanding of the potential impact of human genetic variation on inter-individual responses to polyomaviruses.To identify human genetic determinants of the humoral immune response against polyomaviruses, we performed genome-wide association studies and meta-analyses of qualitative and quantitative immunoglobulin G (IgG) responses against the major capsid protein VP1 of Human polyomavirus 6 (HPyV6), BK virus (BKPyV), JC virus (JCPyV), Merkel Cell Polyomavirus (MCPyV) and WU polyomavirus (WUPyV), in a total of 15,660 individuals of European ancestry from CoLaus, UK Biobank and GRAS, three independent studies.We observed significant associations for all tested viruses: JCPyV, HPyV6 and MCPyV associated with HLA class II variation; BKPyV and JCPyV with variants in the FUT2 gene, responsible for secretor status; MCPyV with variants in the STING1 gene, involved in interferon induction; and WUPyV with a functional variant in the MUC1 gene, previously associated with risk for gastric cancer.These results provide insights into the genetic control of a family of very prevalent human viruses, highlighting genes and pathways that play a modulating role in human humoral immunity.

Mendelian randomization is the use of genetic variants to assess the effect of intervening on a risk factor using observational data. We consider the scenario in which there is a pharmacomimetic (that is, treatment-mimicking) genetic variant that can be used as a proxy for a particular pharmacological treatment that changes the level of the risk factor. If the association of the pharmacomimetic genetic variant with the risk factor is stronger in one subgroup of the population, then we may expect the effect of the treatment to be stronger in that subgroup. We test for gene–gene interactions in the associations of variants with a modifiable risk factor, where one genetic variant is treated as pharmacomimetic and the other as an effect modifier, to find genetic sub-groups of the population with different predicted response to treatment. If individual genetic variants that are strong effect modifiers cannot be found, moderating variants can be combined using a random forest of interaction trees method into a polygenic response score, analogous to a polygenic risk score for risk prediction. We illustrate the application of the method to investigate effect heterogeneity in the effect of statins on low-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

Atherosclerosis (AS) is the most dangerous factor for human death, which is responsible for coronary heart disease. Growing evidence has showed that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in the development of AS. In this study, we mainly aimed at investigating the roles of FOXC2-AS1 in AS patients.RT-PCR was performed to detect the expressions of FOXC2-AS1 and miR-1253 in serum samples of AS patients (n=35) and healthy volunteer (n=35). The correlation between FOXC2-AS1 and miR-1253 was further analyzed. Human vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) were respectively treated with ox-LDL, IL-6, CRP, TNF-α and IL-8 to explore the affecting factors. P-FOXC2-AS1 was constructed and transfected into VSMCs. Cell proliferation abilities were measured by CCK-8 assay. Cell apoptotic rates were measured by flow cytometry (FACS) analysis. Western blot (WB) was performed to detect protein levels of FOXF1, Bcl-2, Bax and Cleaved Caspase3. Finally, luciferase gene reporter assay was performed to prove the relationships between FOXC2-AS1 and miR-1253, miR-1253 and FOXF1.We found that FOXC2-AS1 was significantly upregulated in AS patients, which could be induced by ox-LDL and IL-6 in VSMCs. MiR-1253 was decreased in AS patients, which was negatively correlated with FOXC2-AS1. Furthermore, FOXC2-AS1 overexpression promoted proliferation and inhibited apoptosis in VSMCs. Luciferase gene reporter assay showed that FOXC2-AS1 could bind to miR-1253 in VSMCs and 293 cells. Moreover, miR-1253 overexpression inhibited proliferation and promoted apoptosis of VSMCs. Luciferase reporter assay proved that miR-1253 could target at FOXF1 in VSMCs and 293 cells, which was reported to be associated with cell proliferation and apoptosis in some cancers. Additionally, miR-1253 mimic or GSK343, a FOXF1 inhibitor, was respectively transfected into VSMCs with p-FOXC2-AS1. Results showed that the promoted cell proliferation and inhibited cell apoptosis were reversed as well, confirming that FOXC2-AS1 promoted cell proliferation and inhibited apoptosis via miR-1253/FOXF1 signaling axis in AS patients.According to the results, we found that FOXC2-AS1 was upregulated in AS patients; furthermore, FOXC2-AS1 overexpression promoted cell proliferation and inhibited cell apoptosis via targeting miR-1253/FOXF1 signaling axis. Our results elucidated a potential mechanism underlying the role of FOXC2-AS1, which might be used as a promising marker and a potential target for AS patients.

阿司匹林的心血管疾病（CVD）一级预防作用存在争议，既往临床试验及汇总分析提示其获益大于风险。然而随着人群CVD预防整体水平的不断提高，阿司匹林的获益-风险比趋于缩小，最近发表的阿司匹林一级预防研究结果再次引发各界热烈讨论。本文通过复习相关文献、解读这三项研究，以及对比我国和美国的CVD流行趋势及预防现状，认为阿司匹林仍可用于我国人群CVD一级预防，并就如何适当应用阿司匹林提出了若干建议。.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is primarily characterized by articular cartilage degradation. Hypoxia-inducible factor-1a (HIF-1a), a subunit of the basic helix-loop-helix-containing PER-ARNT-SIM (PAS) domain transcription factors, plays a vital role in the survival of articular chondrocytes to the hostile hypoxic microenvironment and complicates the progression of OA. In this study, we examined whether HIF-1a levels in the serum and synovial fluid (SF) of patients with knee OA were increased and whether the increase was correlated with the radiographic severity of the disease. A total of 278 knee OA patients and 203 healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Knee OA radiographic grading was performed according to Kellgren-Lawrence (KL) grading system by evaluating X-ray changes observed on anteroposterior knee radiography. HIF-1a levels in the serum and SF were determined using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Serum HIF-1a levels in patients with knee OA were higher than those in healthy controls. Knee OA patients with KL grade 4 showed significantly elevated HIF-1a levels in the serum and SF compared with those with KL grades 2 and 3. Knee OA patients with KL grade 3 showed significantly higher SF levels of HIF-1a than those with KL grade 2. HIF-1a levels in the serum and SF of knee OA patients were significantly correlated with disease severity according to KL grading criteria. HIF-1a levels in the serum and SF were closely related to the radiographic severity of OA and may serve as an alternative biomarker for the progression and prognosis of knee OA.

The present paper attempts to assess the effects of microwave irradiation on the leachability of refractory gold ores. Characteristics of the crystal structure and microstructure of the ores were determined by x-ray structural analysis (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) before and after microwave irradiation. Compared to conventional processes, microwave leaching processes are highly energy-efficient, take less time, and do not harm the environment. The experimental results show that the amount of gold extracted increases with microwave leaching temperature. The results demonstrate that microwave irradiation techniques can be applied effectively and efficiently to the leaching of refractory gold ores.

Exact evaluation of high-order modes of a multi-crack Euler–Bernoulli beam using the conventional spectral element method (SEM) suffers from the deficiency of numerical ill-conditioning, mainly due...

Normal maize starch was extruded with and without the addition of fatty acid potassium salts in a twin screw cooker extruder equipped with a slit die rheometer, at 100, 120, 140 or 160 °C barrel temperatures and at screw speeds 20, 91, 161 or 227 rpm. The in line melt viscosity measurements showed that the flow behaviour of the starch system was influenced by the addition of either myristic or palmitic acids used. The examination of functional properties of the extrudates such as bulk density, water solubility index, expansion ratio, degree of gelatinization and water adsorptivity indicated that the addition of fatty acids affected the functionality of starch systems. That is, the extrudate texture became more cohesive and compact whereas the water solubility exhibited by the system was decreased. Structural studies indicated that the crystallinity of starch–fatty acid extrudates was higher than that of the starch systems without fatty acid whereas all extrudates exhibited high glass transition temperatures and their structure was very rigid and brittle.

The structure formation of yogurt gels made from bovine pasteurized milk of various fat contents (0%, 1.5% or 3.5%) and prepared using natural yogurt as a starter was monitored by measuring the rigidity modulus (G') development by means of a dynamic U-tube rheometer of novel design. The results indicated that both the heating pretreatment of the milk and its fat content significantly affect the rate of gelation as well as the final rigidity attained by the gel. That is, the higher the heating temperature employed and the higher the fat content was, the faster the onset gelation appeared to be and the more rigid was the gel network formed. The shape of the gelation curves of yogurt samples made from milk, either with or without fat, heated at 80, 85, 90 or 95 °C for 1 min and fermented at 45 °C, showed three distinctive parts indicating that the yogurt gelation process took place in three consecutive stages. The results are discussed in the light of a proposed mechanism which could explain the above mentioned findings.

The way in which the cerebellum influences the output of the motor cortex is not known. The aim of this study was to establish whether information about force, velocity or duration of movement is encoded in cerebellar thalamic discharge and could therefore be involved in the modulation of motor cortical activity. Extracellular single cell recordings were made from the cerebellar thalamus (66 neurones) and VPLc (49 neurones) of four conscious macaques performing simple wrist movements with various load and gain conditions imposed. A significant correlation (Spearman's; P

The utility boilers in China usually burn inferior coal with high ash content, so the fouling problems are more serious than that in developed countries. However, there is little information on the effects of utility boiler fouling on operating costs in China. This paper proposes a method for evaluating the costs due to utility boiler fouling in China. The fouling costs include excess heat transfer surface area, extra fuel, and maintenance costs. The excess heat transfer surface area of the 100 MW and 200 MW boilers units in Changshan Power Plant is calculated, and the results show that the excess heat transfer surface area is about 29%. This increases the investment 86,400 Yuan per megawatt unit. Based on the parameters measured in situ, a case study of a 350 MW unit in Huaneng Dalian Power Plant demonstrates that the costs due to utility boiler fouling are 10.008 billion Yuan RMB without considering the costs due to product loss, which is about 0.11% GDP of China in 2000. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res, 34(2): 53–63, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/htj.20051

In this study 22 patients (44 ears) with noise-induced permanent hearing loss were audiologically evaluated using transient-evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAE) and auditory brain-stem response (ABR). Twenty-one normal subjects (42 ears) without exposure to occupational noise were used as controls. Based upon the hearing loss at 4, 3, 2 and 1 kHz on the pure-tone audiogram, they were classified into four groups. In group 1 (eight ears), emissions were present in all ears but their TEOAE-noise level and their reproducibility (percentage) proved to be weak. The auditory brain-stem response (ABR) indicated that the I/V amplitude ratio, the latency values of wave V and the I–V intervals fell within the normal range in all ears. In Group 2 (14 ears), 40 per cent had no emissions, whereas the remaining ears showed weak emissions. The ABR revealed that in all ears the I/V amplitude ratio became small while wave V peak latency as well as I–V intervals were within the normal range. In Group 3 (10 ears), emissions were absent in 50 per cent, while in the other ears the emissions were very weak. The ABR revealed that the I/V amplitude ratio, which could be calculated in the 60 per cent in which wave I was present, was smaller than in Group 2. Wave V latency as well as I–V intervals were within the normal range. In Group 4 (12 ears), none of the ears showed emissions. The ABR indicated that the I/V amplitude ratio was much smaller when wave I was present (27 per cent) as well as I–V interval values being within the normal range. Wave V absolute latency value (δV index) indicated a positive index in 17 per cent of this group (two ears) when wave I was absent. In the present study a dynamic process from cochlear outer hair cells to cochlear neurons was seen, correlating with an increasing hearing loss.

The effects of stimulus rise-fall and plateau times on the middle-latency response (MLR) waveform (Na-Pa amplitude and Pa latency) were investigated in 14 normally hearing subjects and an objective MLR threshold was evaluated at low and middle frequencies in ten normally hearing subjects and ten patients with slope of sensorineural hearing loss, using a selected stimulus-envelope time. After analyzing the effects of envelope times on the MLR waveform and the spectra of tone-pips, it was found that a rise-fall time of 4 ms with a plateau of 2 ms (4–2–4) is an acceptable compromise between a synchronous discharge and frequency specificity for estimating the MLR threshold. The MLR threshold produced by 4–2–4 tone-pips approximated the psychoacoustic threshold at low and middle frequencies in the normal and hearing impaired subjects. This demonstrates the clinical usefulness of the MLR in estimating low- and middle-frequency thresholds.

This paper presents a case study of risk assessment for coal mining under sea area in the Beizao Coalmine, Shandong Province, China. The coalmine is facing the risk of sea water inrush hazards because most of its panels are under the Bohai Sea. To forecast water disaster, three important factors, including efficient aquifuge, water flowing fractured zone and the water pressure bearing capacity of aquifuge, are considered to assess the mining safety situation for Panel H2301 in the Beizao Coalmine. The efficient aquifuge is identified by lithological analysis and water chemical comparison between sea water and groundwater. The water flowing fractured zone under different mining conditions is obtained by statistically analyzing the field measurements and numerical simulation. The safety mining condition under the Bohai Sea is assessed and the upper mining limit of Panel H2303 has been proposed.

This paper presents a statistical prediction of the height of water flowing fractured zone due to coal mining under sea area. Some field measurement methods were used in the Beizao, Liangjia, Wali and Huangxian Coalmines in Shandong Province, China, to investigate the failure process and the maximum height of water flowing fractured zone under different mining and geological conditions. Then, a statistical method has been adopted in this paper for accurately predicting the height of the water flowing fractured zone from the field measurements. The results show that the height of water flowing fractured zone Hf is mainly determined by cutting thickness of seam m in a non-linear relationship, which can be expressed as \( H_{f} = 58.26 \cdot (1 - e^{ - 0.3m} ) \). This result has been successfully used for coal mining decision-making of new panels in the Longkou coalmining area.

This paper demonstrates the difference between the entropy generation number method proposed by Bejan and the method of entropy generation per unit amount of heat transferred in analyzing the thermodynamic performance of heat exchangers, points out the reason for leading to the above difference. A modified entropy generation number for evaluating the irreversibility of heat exchangers is proposed which is in consistent with the entropy generation per unit amount of heat transferred in entropy generation analysis. The entropy generated by friction is also investigated. Results show that when the entropy generated by friction in heat exchangers is taken into account, there is a minimum total entropy generation number while the NTU and the ratio of heat capacity rates vary. The existence of this minimum is the prerequisite of heat exchanger optimization.

The effects of rise-fall and plateau times for the Pa component of the middle-latency response (MLR) were investigated in normally hearing subjects, and an objective MLR threshold was measured in patients with low- and middle-tone hearing losses, using a selected stimulus-envelope time. Our results showed that the stimulus-envelope time (the rise-fall time and plateau time groups) affected the Pa component of the MLR (quality was determined by the (chi 2-test and amplitude by the F-test). The 4-2-4 tone-pips produced good Pa quality by visual inspection. However, our data revealed no statistically significant Na-Pa amplitude differences between the two subgroups studied when comparing the 2- and 4-ms rise-fall times and the 0- and 2-ms plateau times. In contrast, Na-Pa became significantly smaller from the 4-ms to the 6-ms rise-fall time and from the 2-ms to the 4-ms plateau time (paired t-test). This result allowed us to select the 2- or 4-ms rise-fall time and the 0- or 2-ms plateau time without influencing amplitude. Analysis of the stimulus spectral characteristics demonstrated that a rise-fall time of at least 2ms could prevent spectral splatter and indicated that a stimulus with a 5-ms rise-fall time had a greater frequency-specificity than a stimulus of 2-ms rise-fall time. When considering the synchronous discharge and frequency-specificity of MLR, our findings show that a rise-fall time of four periods with a plateau of two periods is an acceptable compromise for estimating the objective MLR threshold.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

In an intensive Care Unit, mechanical ventilation is required by patients with respiratory failure. The purpose of the mechanical ventilation is to ensure that the patient's blood oxygen (O 2 ) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) levels are maintained at correct values. Automation of this process offers the possibility of improved patient care and relief from routine repetitive tasks for the heavily committed intensive care clinical staff. This paper describes an expert system based strategy for automatically adjusting ventilator setting to regulate blood O 2 and CO 2 levels. The system has two levels of expertise. At the lower level, separate control loops have been developed to individually manage blood O 2 and CO 2 . At a higher level of control, an expert system has been established which coordinates the concurrent operation of the two loops in order to ensure that disturbances to patient blood gas levels are handled in the most effective way.

Patient Controlled analgesia (PCA) has become accepted as an important means of self regulated relief from post surgical pain. In commonly used PCA systems, patients use a hand held push button to indicate the presence of pain and initiate a predetermined bolus of drug infusion. A disadvantage of this system is that no means is provided to accommodate variations in the intensity of pain or the sensitivity of the patient to the analgesic in use. The PCA system described in this paper uses a specially designed handset which allows the patient to indicate pain intensity and so vary the level of the drug infusion. Data derived from the handset signals provides a basis for adapting the drug dosage to patient sensitivity as well as pain intensity. In addition a capnograp h and oximeter provide direct monitoring of the patient's state and allow for a larger range of adaption.

To determine the cephalometric characteristics of the patients with TMJ ankylosis in deferent ages and to find the relationship between the period with TMJ and the cephalometric characteristics.By cephalometric analysis of 46 male patients with TMJ ankylosis and several normal people in deferent ages, we detected the relationship among the ages of the patients, the period with TMJ ankylosis and the cephalometric characteristics by means of SPSS for Win 95/98.The cephalometric characteristics of the patients showed their maxilla and mandible retruded in posterior and superior direction, the hyoid bone displaced posteriorly and inferiorly. The middle and inferior pharygeal space decreased, the TSA/OPA increased significantly. There was an obvious positive correlation between the period with TMJ and hyoid bone position(r=0.46, p=0.009; Y=1.58+0.56X), and remarkable positive correlation between the period with TMJ and TSA/OPA(r=0.5, p=0.00 Y=72.76+0.64X).In patients with TMJ ankylosis, the mandible and maxilla retruded posteriorly and superiorly,the hyoid bone displaced posteriorly and inferiorly, the middle and inferior pharygeal space decreased, the TSA/OPA increased remarkably. The longer the period with TMJ ankylosis, the more serious the deformities of the patients in craniomaxillofacial region.

To develop a new method for the determination of Jujubaside A in Semen Ziziphi Spinosae.A RP-HPLC method was set up, using Hypersil-18 column, acetonitrile: water(30:70) as mobile phase with a flow rate of 0.8 ml.min-1.The calibration curve was linear in the range of 0.076-0.456 mg. The average recovery was 93.5%.The method is appropriate for the determination of Jujubaside A.

In this paper, a fuzzy-neural control system is applied to regulate mean arterial blood pressure in seriously ill patients using sodium nitroprusside. This hybrid system consists of an adaptive fuzzy controller and a network based predictor. Computer simulation results illustrate that the system has ability to learn control rules from off-line training process as well as to adjust the parameters during control process. Clinical trials are being carried out in Intensive Care Unit at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Investigating the effect of GLB7 on cAMP in murine peritoneal macrophages to provide a scientific evidence for the immunomodulatory mechanism.Cell culture and radio-immunological assay of cAMP were used.GLB7 increased the production of cAMP in a concentration and time dependent manner in murine peritoneal macrophages.The immunopotentiating effect of GLB7 may be due to the activation of macrophages that leads to the increase of cAMP.

Objective. To observe the improved effect of syndromes of blood stasis by taking Chinese medicine during bed-rest simulated weightlessness. Method. Ten subjects were randomly divided into two groups: Chinese medicine group and control group. Both of them were exposed to HDBR -6 degrees for a week. The Chinese medicine group took Chinese medicine during the bed rest, and the control group took sugar water. Result. Syndromes of blood stasis of Chinese medicine group had a significant relief. And some physiological parameters, such as blood pressure, pulse graph, and amount of urine, maintained the level of pre-bed rest. While the control group was more severe than the Chinese medicine group in syndromes of blood stasis. Conclusion. Chinese medicine can be a measure in preventing the effect of weightlessness.

In a previous paper (Churchward PR, Butler EG, Finkelstein DI, Aumann TD, Sudbury A, Horne MK. J Neurosci Methods 1997;76:203-210), we showed that a simple back propagation neural network could reliably model visual inspection by human observers in detecting the point of change of neuronal discharge patterns. The data for that study was deliberately chosen so that the point of change was readily detected and there would be high concordance between human observers. We wished to extend this investigation by comparing a variety of automatic analysis methods on more complex data sets. Two automatic analysis methods have been discussed in this paper. The knowledge based spike train analysis (KBSTA) was designed to emulate the detection of bursts by human observers. The self-organizing feature map (SOFM) spike train analysis determined a burst by classifying the patterns of neuronal discharge. Neuronal discharge was recorded from the motor thalamus and nucleus ventralis posterior lateralis caudalis (VPLc) of a monkey performing consecutive trials of skilled wrist movements. Recordings were made from 36 neurons whose discharge patterns were related to wrist movement. Three hundred and sixty trials performed during the recording of these 36 neurons were chosen at random and used to compare the three methods, KBSTA, SOFM, and visual inspection. The main results of this study show that for the 360 trials the three detection methods have very similar results in detecting the onset and offset of neuronal bursts. The SOFM method is not the best first approach for detecting a burst, but it does provides independent evidence to support the KBSTA and visual inspection methods. In conclusion we propose the KBSTA method as a practical, automatic technique to identify bursts of neuronal discharge.

Tetrahydropalmatine in Rhizoma corydalis and its preparations were separated and determined with no pretreatment in the buffer solution of 50 mmol/L of sodium acetate in methanol containing 2 mol/L acetic acid.

A micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatographic method was set up for the quality control of rhubarb and its preparations. Anthraquinone derivatives were separated successfully within 10 min in the buffer solution of 50 mmol/L H3BO3-NaOH (pH 11) containing 25 mmol/L sodium deoxycholate. The established method, with a recovery of extraction of over 90%, has good linear relationship and reproducibility. The contents of anthraquinone derivatives in rhubarb and a tablet of Niu-huang-jie-du differed significantly, showing that the quality control of rhubarb and its preparations is necessary.

A micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatographic method was set up for the separation of five anthraquinone derivatives in rhubarb. Optimization of pH and sodium deoxycholate(SDC) concentrations was studied, which showed that 50 mM H3BO3-NaOH(pH 11) containing 25 mM SDC could separate the five ingredients completely within 10 min with good reproducibility of elution time.

Thirty-eight males (76 ears) exposed to occupational noise were investigated using transient-evoked otoacoustic emissions. Based upon the hearing loss at 4 kHz, they were classified into four described groups. Ten normally hearing subjects (20 ears) without exposure to occupational noise were used as controls. Significant changes in response amplitude, reproducibility, and signal to noise ratio (SNR) in broadband and frequency-bands (1, 2, 3, 4 kHz) were revealed between control subjects and the patients of group I exposed to noise with normal pure-tone audiometric thresholds. The changes of response amplitudes, reproducibility (%), and SNR were not significant between the group I and the patients of group II with mild hearing loss (or = 40 dB) at 4 kHz. When the patients suffered from hearing loss beyond 40 dB HL at 4 kHz, emission amplitude, reproducibility, and SNR showed significant changes, whereas the percentage of absent emissions also showed significant changes. From these data, we conclude that TEOAE testing is more sensitive than pure-tone audiometry in the detection of early noise-induced damage. The test could be proposed as a hearing screen for monitoring employees with early noise-induced hearing loss.

Helicobacter heilmannii is one of the species of Helicobacter other than Helicobacter pylori noticed in human gastric mucosa. In our study, a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was designed for the detection of Helicobacter heilmannii in gastric biopsy specimens. Two broad-range bacterial 16S rDNA primers and one Helicobacter genus-specific 16S rDNA primer were matched for detecting Helicobacter genus bacteria. A Hp-specific primer pair was used simultaneously to exclude the presence of Hp. The PCR assay detected 11 out of 12 Hh strains which were confirmed by smears, but did not amplify DNA extracts from some other enteric bacteria such as E. coli, C. jejuni, bifidobacteria. Serial dilution experiments revealed the detection of as little as 0.1 pg DNA by PCR and 0.01 pg by nested PCR. Our data showed that PCR is a rapid, accurate and sensitive method for the detection of Hh and is thought valuable in the epidemiological investigation of Helicobacter and follow-up studies after treatment.

To study the anxiogenic effect of naltrexone (Nal) on the emotional state of rats.The duration of active interaction was measured in the social interaction test in rats.Without influence on the locomotor activity, Nal (0.1-50 mg.kg-1) dose- and time-dependently decreased the duration of active interaction, which was antagonized by morphine (5 mg.kg-1) or fenclonine (Fen, 150 mg.kg-1 x 3 d) and was enhanced by 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP, 50 mg.kg-1).Nal produced anxiety via its blockade of opioid receptors; central opioidergic neurons were involved in the regulation of anxiety through their tonic inhibitions in serotonergic neurons.

In this study 23 patients with noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) referred for medico-legal evaluation and a group of 18 cases with Meniere's disease were evaluated audiologically using the middle-latency response (MLR). Cross-correlation functions were used to assess precisely MLR thresholds in low and middle frequencies. Cross-correlation data obtained from suprathreshold levels to below threshold levels were compared with the normal limits of parameters found at threshold levels, allowing us to determine the true MLR threshold. Our results revealed that this MLR threshold and visual detection thresholds were different in 18% of both the NIHL and Meniere's disease groups. In this population the true MLR threshold was greater by 5 dB. These findings demonstrated that cross-correlation functions can enhance the sensitivity of the definition of the MLR threshold. True MLR thresholds were compared with subjective pure-tone audiometric (PTA) thresholds at the same frequencies (0.5, 1 and 2 kHz). The true MLR threshold and PTA threshold were in agreement within 10 dB in 91% of the NIHL group and all of the Meniere's disease group. The PTA threshold was greater by 15 dB or more in the remaining NIHL group. If a criterion of 15 dB discrepancy indicates non-organic hearing loss, it can be inferred that 9% of an NIHL population referred for medico-legal evaluation is exaggerating subjective audiometric thresholds.

The Herbst corpuscle, found only in birds, is one of the morphologically distinct types of lamellated sensory nerve endings. Its response properties were studied electrophysiologically in anesthetized pigeons by recording from: (A) afferents emerging from single Herbst corpuscles located in the interosseous region of the shank, (B) from vibration-sensitive cells found in the dorsal root ganglia near the lumbosacral enlargement of the spinal cord, and (C) from nerve fibers dissected out of the sciatic nerve. Vibration-sensitive cells in the dorsal root ganglia and in sciatic nerve fibers exhibited properties that were very similar to those found at the Herbst corpuscle itself. All three recording approaches indicated that Herbst corpuscles are vibration-sensitive mechano-receptors with broad bandpass tuning curves. With all approaches, the lowest threshold always fell in the frequency range between 400 and 800 Hz. The value of the threshold, however, varied with the method, being as low as 0.08 μm with method C and as high as 1 μm with method A. Regardless of method, these neurons exhibited no spontaneous activity, and their firing displayed a special sensory coding pattern at high stimulus amplitude: the nerve impulses were phase locked to the stimulus cycle, exhibiting a 1:1 relationship with it up to a frequency of 500 Hz. Comparison of these data with prior behavioral data suggests that the Herbst corpuscle peripheral mechanoreceptors are part of a vibratory sensory system which acts as a warning device, given attentive behavior.

The collagen and proteoglycan contents were determined in lumbar intervertebral disc nucleus from 50 cases normal Chinese with accidental death and in that of 50 cases of prolapsed lumbar intervertebral disc (PID). The significance of the work rested with. (1) The normal range of the collagen and proteoglycan contents in the nucleus pulposus of normal Chinese was defined, therefore, it provided a normal parameter and laid a foundation for the study of collagen and proteoglycan metabolic changes in the nucleus pulposus of lumbar intervertebral disc under pathological condition. (2) By comparison of contents between collagen and proteoglycan in the nucleus pulposus of PID, the physiopathology of PID was confirmed further, that is, the content of proteoglycan of the nucleus pulposus in PID decreased, however, that of collagen increased. (3) The collagen contents between fibrocartilage and nucleus pulposus in normal chinese were compared. Analyses were made biomechanically and biochemically.