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Dairy mastitis is one of the most common diseases in dairy farming, and the formation of pathogenic bacteria biofilms may be an important reason why traditional antibiotic therapy fails to resolve some cases of dairy mastitis. We isolated and identified three strains of A. lwoffii were with strong biofilm forming ability from dairy cow mastitis samples from Chongqing dairy farms in China. In order to investigate the effect of novel anti-biofilm peptide CRAMP-34 on A.lwoffii biofilms, the anti-biofilm effect was evaluated by crystal violet staining, biofilms viable bacteria counting and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). In addition, transcriptome sequencing analysis, qRT-PCR and phenotypic verification were used to explore the mechanism of its action. The results showed that CRAMP-34 had a dose-dependent eradicating effect on A. lwoffii biofilms. Transcriptome sequencing analysis showed that 36 differentially expressed genes (11 up-regulated and 25 down-regulated) were detected after the intervention with the sub-inhibitory concentration of CRAMP-34. These differentially expressed genes may be related to enzyme synthesis, fimbriae, iron uptake system, capsular polysaccharide and other virulence factors through the functional analysis of differential genes. The results of subsequent bacterial motility and adhesion tests showed that the motility of A.lwoffii were enhanced after the intervention of CRAMP-34, but there was no significant change in adhesion. It was speculated that CRAMP-34 may promote the dispersion of biofilm bacteria by enhancing the motility of biofilm bacteria, thereby achieving the effect of eradicating biofilms. Therefore, these results, along with our other previous findings, suggest that CRAMP-34 holds promise as a new biofilm eradicator and deserves further research and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Cocaine is a highly addictive drug that is abused due to its excitatory effect on the central nervous system. It is critical to reveal the mechanisms of cocaine addiction and identify key genes that play an important role in addiction. Methods: In this study, we proposed a centrality algorithm integration strategy to identify key genes in a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network constructed by deferential genes from cocaine addiction-related datasets. In order to investigate potential therapeutic drugs for cocaine addiction, a network of targeted relationships between nervous system drugs and key genes was established. Results: Four key genes (JUN, FOS, EGR1, and IL6) were identified and well validated using CTD database correlation analysis, text mining, independent dataset analysis, and enrichment analysis methods, and they might serve as biomarkers of cocaine addiction. A total of seventeen drugs have been identified from the network of targeted relationships between nervous system drugs and key genes, of which five (disulfiram, cannabidiol, dextroamphetamine, diazepam, and melatonin) have been shown in the literature to play a role in the treatment of cocaine addiction. Discussion: This study identified key genes and potential therapeutic drugs for cocaine addiction, which provided new ideas for the research of the mechanism of cocaine addiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A low rank coal was first used to investigate the synergistic effect of inherent and loaded potassium and calcium ions on the pyrolysis behaviors. The nonisothermal thermal analysis with higher heating rate to medium pyrolysis temperature was carried out by thermogravimetric analyzer for the selected raw and treated coal samples. Preliminary experiments conducted show that the particle size smaller than 160 mm can eliminate heat and mass transfer effect, and the most of volatile matter was released by heating the raw coal (R-coal) to 750 °C. Moreover, the effect of heating rate, inherent and loaded potassium and calcium on moisture evaporation and devolatilization is systematically investigated, and the devolatilization index is introduced to estimate the activity of pyrolysis process. A comparison among the acid pickling coal (H-coal), acid pickling coal loaded with calcium (H-coal-C), and potassium (H-coal-P) shows that potassium and calcium have improved the inner water holding capacity. Finally, the influence of inherent and loaded potassium and calcium on the kinetic characteristics of volatile matter release stage was studied with Coats-Redfern integral method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mungbean is a warm-season annual food legume and plays important role in supplying food and nutritional security in many tropical countries. However, the genetic basis of its agronomic traits remains poorly understood. Therefore, we resequenced 558 Chinese mungbean landraces and produced a comprehensive map of mungbean genomic variation. We phenotyped all landraces in six different environments. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) produced 110 signals significantly associated with nine agronomic traits, for which several candidate genes were identified. Overall, this study provides new insight into the genetic architecture of mungbean agronomic traits. Moreover, the genome-wide variations identified here should be valuable resources for future breeding studies of this important food legume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stomach, liver, and colon cancers are the most common digestive system cancers leading to mortality. Cancer leader genes were identified in the current study as the genes that contribute to tumor initiation and could shed light on the molecular mechanisms in tumorigenesis. An integrated procedure was proposed to identify cancer leader genes based on subcellular location information and cancer-related characteristics considering the effects of nodes on their neighbors in human protein-protein interaction networks. A total of 69, 43, and 64 leader genes were identified for stomach, liver, and colon cancers, respectively. Furthermore, literature reviews and experimental data including protein expression levels and independent datasets from other databases all verified their association with corresponding cancer types. These final leader genes were expected to be used as diagnostic biomarkers and targets for new treatment strategies. The procedure for identifying cancer leader genes could be expanded to open up a window into the mechanisms, early diagnosis, and treatment of other cancer types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study identified the major lactic acid bacteria (LAB) strains from different fermented total mixed rations (FTMRs) via metataxonomic analysis and evaluated the ability of their standard strain as ensiling inoculants for corn stover silage. Methods: The bacterial composition of eight FTMRs were analyzed by 16S rDNA sequencing. Corn stover was ensiled without LAB inoculation (control) or with 1×106 cfu/g LAB standard strain (Lactobacillus vaginalis, Lactobacillus reuteri, Lactobacillus helveticus, or Lactobacillus paralimentarius) selected from the FTMRs or 10 g/t commercial silage inoculant (CSI) around 25°C for 56 days. For each inoculation, a portion of the silage was sampled to analyze ensiling characteristics at time intervals of 0, 1, 3, 7, 14, 28, and 56 days, gas production (GP), microbial crude protein and volatile fatty acids as the measurements of rumen fermentation characteristics were evaluated in vitro with the silages of 56 days after 72 h incubation. Results: Lactobacillus covered >85% relative abundance of all FTMRs, in which L. pontis, L. vaginalis, L. reuteri, L. helveticus, and L. paralimentarius showed >4% in specific FTMRs. CSI, L. helveticus, and L. paralimentarius accelerated the decline of silage pH. Silage inoculated with L. paralimentarius and CSI produced more lactic acid the early 14 days. Silage inoculated with L. paralimentarius produced less acetic acid and butyric acid. For the in vitro rumen fermentation, silage inoculated with CSI produced more potential GP, isobutyric acid, and isovaleric acid; silage inoculated with L. helveticus produced more potential GP and isovaleric acid, silage inoculated with L. paralimentarius or L. reuteri produced more potential GP only. Conclusion: The standard strain L. paralimentarius (DSM 13238) is a promising ensiling inoculant for corn stover silage. The findings provide clues on strategies to select LAB to improve the quality of silage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of a colorectal adenoma (CA) into carcinoma (CRC) is a long and stealthy process. There remains a lack of reliable biomarkers to distinguish CA from CRC. To effectively explore underlying molecular mechanisms and identify novel lipid biomarkers promising for early diagnosis of CRC, an ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography tandem high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS) method was employed to comprehensively measure lipid species in human serum samples of patients with CA and CRC. Results showed significant differences in serum lipid profiles between CA and CRC groups, and 85 differential lipid species (P < 0.05 and fold change > 1.50 or < 0.67) were discovered. These significantly altered lipid species were mainly involved in fatty acid (FA), phosphatidylcholine (PC), and triacylglycerol (TAG) metabolism with the constituent ratio > 63.50%. After performance evaluation by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, seven lipid species were ultimately proposed as potential biomarkers with the area under the curve (AUC) > 0.800. Of particular value, a lipid panel containing docosanamide, SM d36:0, PC 36:1e, and triheptanoin was selected as a composite candidate biomarker with excellent performance (AUC = 0.971), and the highest selected frequency to distinguish patients with CA from patients with CRC based on the support vector machine (SVM) classification model. To our knowledge, this study was the first to undertake a lipidomics profile using serum intended to identify screening lipid biomarkers to discriminate between CA and CRC. The lipid panel could potentially serve as a composite biomarker aiding the early diagnosis of CRC. Metabolic dysregulation of FAs, PCs, and TAGs seems likely involved in malignant transformation of CA, which hopefully will provide new clues to understand its underlying mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing bacterial resistance to traditional antibiotics, there is an urgent need for the development of alternative drugs or adjuvants of antibiotics to enhance antibacterial efficiency. The combination of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and traditional antibiotics is a potential alternative to enhance antibacterial efficiency. In this study, we investigated the synergistic bactericidal effect of AMPs, including chicken (CATH-1,-2,-3, and -B1), mice (CRAMP), and porcine (PMAP-36 and PR-39) in combination with conventional antibiotics containing ampicillin, tetracycline, gentamicin, and erythromycin against Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella enteritidis, and Escherichia coli. The results showed that the minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of CATH- 1,-3 and PMAP-36 was lower than 10µM, indicating that these three AMPs had good bacterial activity against S. aureus, S. enteritidis, and E. coli. Then, the synergistic antibacterial activity of AMPs and antibiotics combination was determined by the fractional bactericidal concentration index (FBCI). The results showed that the FBCI of AMPs (CATH-1,-3 and PMAP-36) and erythromycin was lower than 0.5 against bacterial pathogens, demonstrating that they had a synergistic bactericidal effect. Furthermore, the time-killing kinetics of AMPs (CATH-1,-3 and PMAP-36) in combination with erythromycin showed that they had a continuous killing effect on bacteria within 3 h. Notably, the combination showed lower hemolytic activity and cytotoxicity to mammal cells compared to erythromycin and peptide alone treatment. In addition, the antibacterial mechanism of CATH-1 and erythromycin combination against E. coli was studied. The results of the scanning electron microscope showed that CATH- 1 enhanced the antibacterial activity of erythromycin by increasing the permeability of bacterial cell membrane. Moreover, the results of bacterial migration movement showed that the combination of CATH-1 and erythromycin significantly inhibits the migration of E. coli. Finally, drug resistance analysis was performed and the results showed that CATH-1 delayed the emergence of E. coli resistance to erythromycin. In conclusion, the combination of CATH-1 and erythromycin has synergistic antibacterial activity and reduces the emergence of bacterial drug resistance. Our study provides valuable information to develop AMPs as potential substitutes or adjuvants for traditional antibiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The branching system of higher plants plays a very important role in plant morphogenesis, and the number of branches can directly affect crop yield and the ornamental value of plants. It is a complicated development process involving complex molecular mechanisms. The 'Cailinghong' variety of Salvia splendens is characterized by its great branching ability with the ability to grow into a spherical form naturally, without pinching. To gain insight into the molecular events during the branching development of S. splendens, suppressive subtractive hybridization (SSH) technology was used to screen differentially expressed genes between the erect plant type (strain 35) and the spherical plant type ('Cailinghong'). In total, 96 and 116 unigenes were annotated. Four and eight unigenes up-regulated in 'Cailinghong' and strain 35, respectively, were associated with plant hormone anabolism and signal transduction, suggesting that they participate in the branching process. One of these genes, phytoene synthase (PSY), is a precursor of the new plant hormone group strigolactones. Using the PSY fragment (192 bp) as a template, the cDNA sequence of PSY in S. splendens was cloned and named SsPSY. A relative expression analysis and transgenic test results indicated that SsPSY plays an important role in lateral branch development in 'Cailinghong'. These results provide new insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying branching in S. splendens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The CO2 gasification of South Open-pit Mines coal from Zhundong field of China using Ca(OH)2 or K2CO3 as catalyst with different loading methods and contents were conducted in thermogravimetric analysis. Comparison of the gasification reactivity and rate of coal loaded various concentration of Ca(OH)2 concluded that the increase of Ca(OH)2 loading pronouncedly improved the reactivity and rate for grinding method, nevertheless, for impregnation and high pressure method the increase of Ca(OH)2 loading observed a similar catalytic effect on char gasification. However, the catalytic effect of K2CO3 revealed that the catalytic activity increased with the increase of K2CO3 loading for three loading method. For the same catalyst loading, the highest catalytic gasification reactivity achieved for Ca(OH)2 and K2CO3 were the loading methods of high pressure and grinding, respectively. In addition, the gasification of raw char, KJZO3 loaded char and Ca(OH)2 loaded char were quantitatively evaluated by kinetic analysis using shrinking core, random pore and modified random pore models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hog deer (Axis porcinus) is a small mammal and listed in the International Union for Conservation of Nature. However, phylogenetic position of hog deer within Axis genus has remained controversial. In the present study, we first assembled complete mitochondrial genome of Chinese hog deer reared in Chengdu Zoo, Sichuan, by the second-generation sequencing technology. This newly assembled mitochondrial genome of hog deer is 16 376 bp in length and consists of 13 protein-encoding genes, 23 transfer RNA genes and 2 ribosomal RNA genes. Phylogenetic analyses based on complete mitochondrial genome and cytochrome b gene sequences revealed that hog deer is closely clustered together and placed with sister taxon of spotted deer (A. Axis), which therefore supported monophyletic statue of Axis genus. Furthermore, considerable genetic differentiation, up to 139 mutations of complete mitochondrial genome was revealed between geographical populations of hog deer in France and Southeast Asia. However, only six variable sites (nucleotide diversity of 0. 000 07) and four haplotypes (haplotype diversity of 0.533) were totally detected among ten newly sequenced Chinese hog deer. The results provide a better understanding on the phylogeny of hog deer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most important optical filtering devices, Bragg gratings have been extensively used in various systems. A long Bragg grating is desired for many applications including frequency selection in semiconductor lasers and dispersion control for ultra-short pulses. As a prominent example, integrated spiral Bragg grating waveguides (SBGWs) have drawn much attention in the years. However, until now, the length of an integrated grating is still limited to a few milli-meters due to total waveguide loss. In this work, we propose and demonstrate a novel long chirped SBGW with waveguide loss as low as 0.05 dB/cm on a silicon nitride (Si3N4) platform. A 13.8 cm SBGW is fabricated, which is the longest on-chip waveguide grating reported so far. The SBGW's reflection bandwidth is 9.2 nm from 1556.3 nm to 1565.5 nm, and it provides a total of 1440 ps group delay, that is, -156.5 ps/nm of dispersion. The group delay response shows great linearity and temperature stability. This integrated device holds great potential for various applications including in-line dispersion compensation, optical true delay phase array, and microwave photonics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Objectives] This study was conducted to give play to the yield-increasing potential of new broad bean varieties. [Methods] The correlation analysis and princifxd component analysis of eight main agronomic traits of 15 autumn-sown broad bean varieties in 2017 - 2018 were tarried out. [ Results] There were extremely complicated correlations between the agronomic traits. Among the various agronomic traits, the number of pods per plant showed a significant negative correlation from the number of seeds per pod (P<0.05) , and significant negative correlations with pod length and 100-grain weight (P <0.01 ). The number of seeds per pod was significantly positively correlated with pod length (P<0.01). The 100-grain weight of broad beans was significantly positively correlated with the pod length ( P <0.01 ) , and was significantly negatively correlated with the number of pods per plant ( P <0.01). Three princifxd components were established by principal component analysis, and the contribution rate of the first principal component was the highest, which was 40.18%. The contribution rates of the second principal component and the third principal component to the total variance were 24.08% and 13.55% , respectively. The score equations of the principal components were derived. [Conclusions] This study provides a theoretical reference for the application and promotion of new varieties of autumn broad beans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the split delivery vehicle routing problem with minimum delivery amounts (SDVRP-MDA), the customer demand can be split among different distribution routes, as long as the quantity delivered to the customer each time remains above the minimum threshold. Despite saving transport cost, the split of customer demand may complicate the order processing and disturb the customer. These problems can be solved satisfactorily by the constraint of the minimum delivery amounts. Therefore, this paper puts forward an adaptive tabu search (ATS) algorithm to solve the SDVRP-MDA. Two new neighbourhood structures are adopted, the adaptive adjustment strategy involving both intensification and diversification search is introduced. The proposed method was tested on 32 standard examples, using 4 different splitting coefficients. On average, the test results only deviated from the current best solution by -0.50~0.22. A total of 94 best solutions were derived and 1 new best solution was obtained. This means our method enjoys good adaptability and robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the classic split delivery vehicle routing problem, the demands of customers can be split unconditionally into pieces of any size. However, in the real-world distribution system, the customer demands consist of a set of orders on different quantities of goods. During the distribution, demands can be spitted, but orders cannot. This paper considers the vehicle routing problem with split delivery by order. It formulates the problem as an integer linear programming model, creatively applies the binary to the decimal decoder method to represent the solution, proposes a heuristic order-insertion procedure, and develops a tabu search algorithm. Using the developed algorithm, this paper tests 25 benchmark instances. According to the test results, the algorithm proposed has a small gap with the best-known solutions, but has an advantage in computing time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genus Pseudostegana (Okada, 1978) currently contains thirty-nine described species. A number of Pseudostegana were collected from the fieldwork in southwestern China from 2010 to 2017. Eleven new species were discovered and are described from southwestern China: Pseudostegana alpina Zhang & Chen, sp. nov.; Pseudostegana amnicola Zhang & Chen, sp. nov.; Pseudostegana amoena Zhang & Chen, sp. nov.; Pseudostegana mailangang Zhang & Chen, sp. nov.; Pseudostegana meiduo Zhang & Chen, sp. nov.; Pseudostegana meiji Zhang & Chen, sp. nov.; Pseudostegana mystica Zhang & Chen, sp. nov.; Pseudostegana stictiptrata Zhang & Chen, sp. nov.; Pseudostegana stigmatptera Zhang & Chen, sp. nov.; Pseudostegana ximalaya Zhang & Chen, sp. nov. and Pseudostegana zhuoma Zhang & Chen, sp. nov. A key to all Chinese Pseudostegana species based on morphological characters is provided. Two mitochondrial loci (COI and ND2) and one nuclear locus (28S rRNA) were sequenced for the Pseudostegana specimens, and Bayesian and RAxML concatenated analyses were run. Molecular species delimitation is performed using the distance-based automatic barcode gap discovery (ABGD) method. Molecular data support the morphological characteristics observed among these Chinese species and confirm the new species as being distinctly different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An optical time-stretch flow imaging system enables high-throughput examination of cells/particles with unprecedented high speed and resolution. A significant amount of raw image data is produced. A highspeed cell recognition algorithm is, therefore, highly demanded to analyze large amounts of data efficiently. A high-speed cell recognition algorithm consisting of two-stage cascaded detection and Gaussian mixture model (GMM) classification is proposed. The first stage of detection extracts cell regions. The second stage integrates distance transform and the watershed algorithm to separate clustered cells. Finally, the cells detected are classified by GMM. We compared the performance of our algorithm with support vector machine. Results show that our algorithm increases the running speed by over 150% without sacrificing the recognition accuracy. This algorithm provides a promising solution for high-throughput and automated cell imaging and classification in the ultrafast flow cytometer imaging platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explosive growth of data centers, cloud computing and various smart devices is limited by the current state of microelectronics, both in terms of speed and heat generation. Benefiting from the large bandwidth, promising low power consumption and passive calculation capability, experts believe that the integrated photonicsbased signal processing and transmission technologies can break the bottleneck of microelectronics technology. In recent years, integrated photonics has become increasingly reliable and access to the advanced fabrication process has been offered by various foundries. In this paper, we review our recent works on the integrated optical signal processing system. We study three different kinds of on-chip signal processors and use these devices to build microsystems for the fields of microwave photonics, optical communications and spectrum sensing. The microwave photonics front receiver was demonstrated with a signal processing range of a full-band (L-band to W-band). A fully integrated microwave photonics transceiver without the on-chip laser was realized on silicon photonics covering the signal frequency of up 10 GHz. An all-optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) demultiplier was also demonstrated and used for an OFDM communication system with the rate of 64 Gbps. Finally, we show our work on the monolithic integrated spectrometer with a high resolution of about 20 pm at the central wavelength of 1550 nm. These proposed on-chip signal processing systems potential applications in the fields of radar, 5G wireless communication, wearable devices and optical access networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ratio of injection-production control area is an important aspect in evaluating the development effect and calculating oilfield development index. Conventional approaches to determine the ratio of injection-production control area neglect the heterogeneity of the reservoir and require long time simulating and a lot of complex iterations. This paper establishes a prediction formula to quickly determine the ratio of injection-production control area in triangle well pattern. A total of 410 sets of streamline models are built to acquire the database. Permeability, oil saturation, injection-production pressure drop and injector-producer spacing are selected as independent variables to establish the prediction formula by multivariate parametric regression. Based on error analysis and application, the accuracy of this prediction formula is approved. Results indicate that the prediction formula has a correlation coefficient R2 of 0.96, representing a satisfactory performance. Normality and homoscedasticity tests and standardized residual diagnostics demonstrate the statistical significance of the results. The application of this prediction formula shows an excellent match between the predicted and actual injection-production area, which further confirms the accuracy of this prediction formula. The established prediction formula can effectively and accurately decide the ratio of injection-production control area for waterflooding reservoir. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate noise reduction in swept-source optical coherence tomography (OCT) using compressed sensing (CS). Multiple scan averaging is a classical method used to enhance the quality of OCT images by reducing the noise of a system. However, the conventional averaging method requires a repetitive scan at the same location and thus reduces the imaging speed. In this paper, the sparsity property of an OCT A-scan is utilized, and one full A-scan OCT image can be reconstructed from a portion of the acquired data during one sweep period using CS. Thus, multiple OCT A-scans can be reconstructed from a single sweep. The average A-scans yield a better quality than the single A-scan obtained from the whole data acquired during a sweep period. We demonstrate that the average of five reconstructed A-scans from a single sweep using CS offers an image quality and depth resolution similar to those obtained by averaging three sequential A-scans from three sweeps using the conventional averaging method. This proposed method can shorten the time required to perform repetitive scans and thus improve the imaging speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pituitary adenomas, the most common tumors of all intracranial neoplasms, may cause either symptoms of mass effect or symptoms of hormone abnormal production. Besides physical damages, patients with pituitary adenomas always suffer from cognitive impairments, mainly in memory and executive functions. 18 beta-glycyrrhetinic acid (GA) has been found to exhibit anti-tumor effects in rat pituitary adenoma-derived cells. The aim of this paper was to investigate the effect of GA in postoperative clinical application. In this study, we recruited 647 patients with pituitary adenoma and 135 patients who dropped out were excluded from analysis. Thus, altogether 512 patients with pituitary adenoma completed the study, of whom 268 were treated with GA, and 244 were treated with placebo. Cognitive assessments, eyesight, tumor size, and hormone secretion levels were examined before and after surgery in both groups. All patients underwent surgeries by single-nostril transsphenoidal approach for their firsttime medical treatment. Hormone secretion levels were measured by blood samples and Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used for examining the status of tumor excision. Compared with placebo group, the scores in orientation, language (expression), memory (recall), practice, abstract thinking, and MiniMental State Examination (MMSE) were significantly improved (p < 0.05) in GA treated group after one month of surgery. After six months, there was still a significant increase in abstract thinking scores. Moreover, GA did not impact the overall survival percentage of patients enrolled during our five-year follow-up, but significantly reduced the recurrence rate than that of the placebo group. GA significantly improved the cognitive functions at the early stage after surgery and had a long-termed efficacy on abstract thinking. Notably, GA inhibited the five-year recurrence rate of the recruited pituitary adenomas patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate noise reduction in swept-source optical coherence tomography (OCT) using compressed sensing (CS). Multiple scan averaging is a classical method used to enhance the quality of OCT images by reducing the noise of a system. However, the conventional averaging method requires a repetitive scan at the same location and thus reduces the imaging speed. In this paper, the sparsity property of an OCT A-scan is utilized and one full A-scan OCT image can be reconstructed from a portion of the acquired data during one sweep period using CS. Thus, multiple OCT A-scans can be reconstructed from a single sweep. The average A-scans yield a better quality than the single A-scan obtained from the whole data acquired during a sweep period. We demonstrate that the average of five reconstructed A-scans from a single sweep using CS offers an image quality and depth resolution similar to those obtained by averaging three sequential A-scans from three sweeps using the conventional averaging method. This proposed method can shorten the time required to perform repetitive scans and thus improve the imaging speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Fixation of radial neck fractures can be achieved with a plate and screw construct or with two screws. This study evaluated the biomechanical properties of three different fixation methods following radial neck fractures. Methods: Twenty-four fourth-generation composite radii were sawed to simulate an unstable radial neck fracture. They were then instrumented with a plate and screw construct or two different orientations (crossed and parallel) of screw fixation. Implants were tested under bending and torsional loads via a tension torsion composite test system. Bending and torsional failure loads were added to the remaining implant-radius constructs if they did not fail during the previous tests. Results: During the bending loading test, the crossed-screw group showed the greatest stiffness, followed by the parallel-screw group, the plate group demonstrating the weakest stiffness. There was no significant difference between the crossed- and the parallel-screw groups. However, there was a significant difference between the two screw groups and the plate group. During the bending failure test, the largest stiffness was found for the crossed-screw group, while the plate group exhibited the smallest stiffness. There was a significant difference between the three groups. During the torsion loading test, the highest stiffness was observed for the crossed- screw group, while the plate group showed the lowest stiffness. In the torsion failure test, the failure torques were 11.97 ±2.659, 8.531 ±1.768, and 7.079 ± 1.666 N m respectively for the crossed-screw, parallel-screw, and plate groups. There was a significant difference between the crossed-screw group and the two other groups. Conclusions: Crossed screws and plate fixation are commonly used in clinical practice to treat simple radial neck fractures. While the present study shows that the parallel-screw method results in similar biomechanical strength as the two other techniques, it has the advantages of reaching limited wound exposure and having the implant buried. Therefore, it may be widely used in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While lithium--sulfur batteries are poised to be the next-generation high-density energy storage devices, the intrinsic polysulfide shuttle has limited their practical applications. Many recent investigations have focused on the development of methods to wrap the sulfur material with a diffusion barrier layer. However, there is a trade-off between a perfect preassembled wrapping layer and electrolyte infiltration into the wrapped sulfur cathode. Here, we demonstrate an in situ wrapping approach to construct a compact layer on carbon/ sulfur composite particles with an imperfect wrapping layer. This special configuration suppresses the shuttle effect while allowing polysulfide diffusion within the interior of the wrapped composite particles. As a result, the wrapped cathode for lithium--sulfur batteries greatly improves the Coulombic efficiency and cycle life. Importantly, the capacity decay of the cell at 1000 cycles is as small as 0.03% per cycle at 1672 mA g-1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shexiang Tongxin Dropping Pill (STP) is an established traditional Chinese medicine that is widely used for the treatment of ischemic heart disease (IHD), although its mechanisms remain unclear. The present study investigated the protective effects of STP following pituitrin (PTT)‑induced myocardial ischemia in rats. ST‑segment elevation, blood rheology, and the serum levels of creatine kinase‑MB (CK‑MB) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) were measured. Following heart excision, histological analysis using hematoxylin and eosin and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling were performed. The mRNA expression levels of B‑cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl‑2) and Bcl‑2‑associated X protein (Bax) were determined using reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction, and their protein expression was detected using immunohistochemistry. The results demonstrated that STP treatment protected against ST elevation, lowered whole blood viscosity, and reduced the serum levels of CK‑MB and LDH following acute myocardial ischemia. In addition, STP treatment restored the histopathological change following PTT‑induced myocardial ischemia, and resulted in downregulated expression of Bax and upregulated expression of Bcl‑2 in myocardial tissue. The present study demonstrates the cardioprotective ability of STP in a rat model of myocardial ischemic injury, which may be attributed to its anti‑apoptotic properties. The cardioprotective properties of STP require further investigation to determine whether it may be used for the clinical treatment of IHDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemotherapeutic agents, including 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), frequently cause intestinal mucositis as a side effect, leading to life quality reduction in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients and interruption of CRC treatment. Traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) have recently received attention due to their relatively few adverse effects. Pien Tze Huang (PZH), a well-known TCM formulation first documented to have been prescribed >450 years ago, has been demonstrated to be clinically effective in treating various types of cancer including CRC. Although previous studies by our group reported that PZH possesses a variety of anti-cancer activities via multiple mechanisms, it has remained elusive whether it is able to reduce intestinal mucositis induced by 5-FU. The present study evaluated the effect of PZH on 5-FU-induced intestinal mucositis in CT-26 tumor-bearing xenograft mice and investigated the possible molecular mechanism. The results indicated that administration of PZH effectively alleviated the severity of 5-FU-induced diarrhea and morphological intestinal damages, but had no significant effect on body weight loss. In addition, a terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling assay revealed that PZH treatment significantly inhibited cell apoptosis in the intestinal crypt. Furthermore, immunohistochemical staining showed that PZH treatment reduced the protein expression of pro-apoptotic B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2)-associated X protein but enhanced that of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 in the intestinal crypt. Taken together, the results of the present study suggested that PZH effectively attenuates 5-FU-induced intestinal mucositis, which is in part associated with its inhibitory effect on cell apoptosis in the intestinal crypt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim(s): To introduce the structural adjustment of the animal pharmaceutical industry in China and our improvement on animal pharmacy profession education. Study Design: Investigated the change of this industry, and reported our improvement on the education of this profession. Methods: The development on intensive animal production, nonpollution foods, and marketing mode of animal drugs of animal pharmaceutical industry, and the standardized management system, merger, product development capability of the animal pharmaceutical industry was investigated, and the theoretical teaching and practical teaching of the animal pharmacy profession in the Southwest University of China (SWU) were improved. Results: Development of animal husbandry leads to transformation of animal pharmaceutical industry, and education of animal pharmacy profession should focus on development trend of this industry. Our improvement on the animal pharmacy profession education was focus on the theoretical teaching and practical teaching to improve the innovation abilities of the animal pharmacy profession students. Conclusion: The transformation of animal pharmaceutical industry in China demanded universities to change the direction and methods of the animal pharmacy profession education to meet the needs of the employment market and society better, and the theoretical teaching and practical teaching of the animal pharmacy profession in SWU was a good attempt to face the transformation in animal pharmaceutical industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autonomous Boolean networks (ABNs), which are developed to model the Boolean networks (BNs) with regulatory delays, are well known for their advantages of characterizing the intrinsic evolution rules of biological systems such as the gene regulatory networks. As a special type of ABNs with binary inputs, the autonomous Boolean control networks (ABCNs) are introduced for designing and analyzing the therapeutic intervention strategies where the binary inputs represent whether a certain medicine is dominated or not. An important problem in the therapeutic intervention is to design a control sequence steering an ABCN from an undesirable location (implying a diseased state) to a desirable one (corresponding to a healthy state). Motivated by such background, this paper aims to investigate the reachability and controllability of ABCNs with pinning controllers. Several necessary and sufficient criteria are provided by resorting to the semi-tensor product techniques of matrices. Moreover, an effective pinning control algorithm is presented for steering an ABCN from any given states to the desired state in the shortest time period. Numerical examples are also presented to demonstrate the results obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qingxuan Jiangya Decoction (QXJYD), a traditional Chinese medicine formula prescribed by academician Ke-ji Chen, has been used in China to clinically treat hypertension for decades of years. However, the molecular mechanisms of its action remain largely unknown. In this study, we examined the therapeutic efficacy of QXJYD against elevated systolic blood pressure in the spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) model, and investigated the underlying molecular mechanisms. We found that oral administration of QXJYD significantly reduced the elevation of systolic blood pressure in SHR but had no effect on body weight change. Additionally, QXJYD treatment significantly decreased the media thickness and ratio of media thickness/lumen diameter in the carotid arteries of SHR. Moreover, QXJYD remarkably promoted apoptosis of vascular smooth muscle cells and reduced the expression of anti-apoptotic B-cell leukemia/lymphoma 2. Furthermore, QXJYD significantly decreased the plasma Angiotensin II level in SHR. Collectively, our findings suggest that reversing vascular remodeling via inducing VSMC apoptosis could be one of the mechanisms whereby QXJYD treats hypertension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retroperitoneal tumors are lesions with diverse pathological subtypes that originate from the retroperitoneal space; ~40% of these tumors are benign. Due to such lesions often surrounding and associating with vital abdominal blood vessels, a complete surgical resection is difficult. The current study presents a novel surgical approach, known as fractionation, through which a benign retroperitoneal tumor surrounding important abdominal blood vessels was completely resected. A 21-year-old man was admitted to The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University (Chongqing, China), presenting with a ~7.5x7.2-cm tumor that was located in the retroperitoneal pancreatic head region and the first hepatic hilum. The tumor completely surrounded the celiac axis and the splenic, common hepatic and superior mesenteric arteries, and was closely associated with the abdominal aorta and the portal, splenic, superior mesenteric and left renal veins. A pre-operative computed tomography scan and intraoperative frozen biopsy indicated that the lesion was a benign tumor. A fractionation approach was subsequently adopted, with fractionation of the lesion being performed according to the location of the tumor itself and the direction of the surrounding abdominal blood vessels. In this manner, a complete tumor resection was conducted. Post-operative pathological examination confirmed the diagnosis of a retroperitoneal ganglioneuroma. The patient was followed up for a year and a half, with no evidence of tumor recurrence. In the present case, a fractionation approach for the complete resection of the retroperitoneal benign tumor achieved a positive outcome and demonstrated the feasibility of the technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most critical cellular signal transduction pathways known to malfunction in colorectal cancer is the interleukin-6/signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (IL-6/STAT3) pathway. Scutellaria barbata D. Don (SB) is well-known traditional medicine in China that targets STAT3 signaling, and it has long been used to treat various types of cancer; however, the precise mechanism of its anti-tumor activity remains largely unclear. In order to further elucidate this underlying mechanism, an ethanol extract of SB (EESB) in cancer treatment. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of EESB on the IL-6-inducible STAT3 pathway. We tested the dose-response association between EESB, IL-6-induced proliferation and apoptosis using an MTT assay, colony formation and low cytometry analysis in vitro. In addition, caspase-9 and caspase-3 activation was determined using a colorimetric assay, the activity of IL-6-induced STAT3 pathway was evaluated using western blot analysis, and the expression levels of cyclin D1, cyclin-dependent kinase 4, Bcl2 and Bcl2-associated X were determined using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and western blot analysis. In the present study it was found that EESB could significantly inhibit the IL-6-mediated increase in STAT3 phosphorylation levels and transcriptional activity in HT-29 human colon carcinoma cells, resulting in the suppression of cell proliferation and the induction of apoptosis. In addition, treatment with EESB markedly inhibited the IL-6-induced upregulation of cyclin D1 and B-cell lymphoma-2, two key target genes of the STAT3 pathway. These results suggest that treatment with EESB could effectively inhibit the proliferation and promote the apoptosis of human colon carcinoma cells via modulation of the IL-6/STAT3 signaling pathway and its target genes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In cervical cancer patients with intermediate-risk factors, the optimal adjuvant therapy is still controversial. We undertook a randomized trial (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01418859) to compare the efficacy and toxicity of concurrent chemoradiotherapy with topotecan and cisplatin with radiotherapy alone in intermediate-risk cervical cancer patients. Methods: Eligible patients were randomly assigned to one of three treatment arms including arm A (radiotherapy only,RT), arm B(concurrent chemoradiotherapy only, CCRT), and arm C (concurrent chemoradiotherapy with following consolidation chemotherapy, CCRT+CT). All eligible patients completed external RT (IMRT or 3D-CRT), receiving 45-50Gy /25f uniformly to the pelvis. Concurrent chemotherapy regimen was topotecan 0.75 mg/m2 for days 1, 2 and 3, followed by cisplatin 25 mg/m² for days 1, 2 and 3. Three cycles of consolidation chemotherapy regimen was topotecan 1.5 mg/m² for days 1 and 2, and 0.75 mg/m² for day 3; followed by cisplatin 25 mg/m² for days 1, 2 and 3, repeated every 21 days. Adverse events of each group were investigated and compared. Results: Thirty-nine patients enrolled onto the remaining regimens: 14 to RT, 15 to CCRT and 10 to CCRT + CT. Six patients (15.4%) did not complete the protocol treatment. Hematologic toxicity was more frequent and more severe in the CCRT and CCRT+CT arms compared with the RT arm. The incidence of grade 3-4 neutropenia was significantly different statistically between the RT, CCRT and CCRT + RT groups (15.4%, 46.7% and 100%, respectively; P = 0.002). Specially, three patients in CCRT + CT arm of all six patients who did not complete the protocol treatment discontinued planned therapy because of persistent grade 4 neutropenia. However, there were no significant differences in grade 3-4 non-hematologic toxicities between the three groups(all P> 0.05). Recurrence-free survival and overall survival of each group were not analyzed on account of a median follow-up of only 16 months. Conclusions: Concurrent chemoradiotherapy with topotecan and cisplatin showed severe hematologic toxicity in intermediate-risk cervical cancer patients after radical hysterectomy. Thus, the study was closed ahead of schedule. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01418859. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have indicated that the inflammatory microenvironment plays a significant role in colorectal cancer (CRC). The interleukin-6/signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (IL-6/STAT3) signaling pathway mediates the proliferative and anti-apoptotic activities required for oncogenesis under inflammatory conditions; thus, suppressing tumor growth by targeting the IL-6/STAT3 pathway is a prom- ising therapeutic strategy for CRC. Our previous study reported that the ethanol extract obtained from Hedyotis diffusa Willd. (EEHDW) can induce apoptosis, and inhibit the proliferation of colon cancer cel ls and tumor angiogenesis by modulat ing various signaling pathways; however, less is known regarding the activity of EEHDW in a cancer-promoting inflammatory environment. Therefore, the present study investigated whether EEHDW inhibits the growth of the CRC HT-29 cell line via the IL-6/STAT3 signaling pathway. Pretreatment of HT-29 cells with IL-6 led to an increase in cell viability, colony formation and phosphorylated STAT3 (p-STAT3) expression. Treatment of these cel ls with EEHDW prior to IL-6 stimulation resulted in a significant reduction in the IL-6-induced phosphorylation of STAT3. In addition, EEHDW treatment significantly reduced the mRNA expression levels of cyclin D1, cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and B-cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2), and upregulated the expression levels of Bcl-2-associated X protein (P<0.05), which are important target genes of the IL-6/STAT3 pathway. These findings strongly indicated that EEHDW suppresses tumor cell growth and induces the apoptosis of human CRC cells via inactivation of the IL-6/STAT3 signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glial-restricted precursor (GRP) cells, the earliest glial progenitors for both astrocytes and oligodendrocytes, have been derived from embryos and embryonic stem cells (ESC) in rodents. However, knowledge regarding the equivalent cell type in primates is limited due to restrictions imposed by ethics and resources. Here we report successful derivation and characterization of primate GRP cells from rhesus monkey ESC. The purified monkey GRP cells were A2B5-positive and FGF2-dependent for survival and proliferation. The differentiation assays indicated that they were tri-potential in vitro and bi-potential in vivo. These newly purified GRP cells will help to facilitate understanding of the molecular mechanism of glial development in primates as well as provide a source of therapeutic donor cells for use in neuroregenerative medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recirculating frequency shifting (RFS) has attracted much attention for its advantages in flexible and high-quality optical frequency comb (OFC) generation. As the number of tones increases, the phase coherence of the tones plays a very important role in the stability of the generated OFC. It is found in this paper that by controlling the phase coherence of the tones, the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of the generated OFC will decrease sharply. This will effectively relieve the distortion caused by fiber nonlinearity, which will enable the loop to support more tones under the condition of constant output power. Based on the phase coherence control method, a 100-tone OFC with 10-GHz frequency spacing and a single RFS loop is successfully realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optical time stretch has been employed for ultrafast optical imaging based on space-to-wavelength-to-time mapping. However, temporal overlap between two adjacent time-stretched pulses is a disadvantageous factor that limits the spatial resolution, or the frame rate has to be reduced by reducing the pulse repetition rate to avoid the temporal overlap. To increase the spatial resolution without reducing the frame rate, we propose a novel technique based on polarization-division multiplexing, using a polarization modulator to generate two polarization interleaved pulse trains. Since two adjacent optical pulses are orthogonally polarized, the spacing between two adjacent pulses for one polarization direction is doubled, and the spatial resolution is doubled by using a dispersive element with two times the dispersion. The proposed approach is experimentally evaluated. An imaging system with an increased spatial resolution is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypoxia-induced angiogenesis plays an important role in the development and metastasis of solid tumors and is highly regulated by HIF-1α/VEGF-A pathway. Therefore, inhibiting tumor angiogenesis via suppression of HIF-1α/VEGF-A signaling represents a promising strategy for anticancer treatment. As a traditional Chinese medicine formula, Pien Tze Huang (PZH) has long been used as a folk remedy for cancer in China and Southeast Asia. Previously, we reported that PZH inhibits colorectal cancer (CRC) growth both in vivo and in vitro. To elucidate the antitumor mechanisms of PZH, in the present study we used human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and colorectal carcinoma HCT-8 cells to evaluate the effects of PZH on hypoxia-induced angiogenesis and investigated the underlying molecular mechanisms. We found that PZH could inhibit hypoxia-induced migration and tube formation of HUVEC cells in a dose-dependent manner, although the low concentrations of PZH had no effect on HUVEC viability. Moreover, PZH inhibited hypoxia-induced activation of HIF-1α signaling and the expression of VEGF-A and/or VEGFR2 in both HCT-8 and HUVEC cells. Collectively, our findings suggest that PZH can inhibit hypoxia-induced tumor angiogenesis via suppression of HIF-1α/VEGF-A pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]