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Additional file 1: Table S1. Complete eligibility criteria. Table S2. The included patients in each centre.

Search strategy in PubMed. (DOC 18Â kb)

Stresses from the external environment can disrupt cellular processes and result in damaging effects, such as the misfolding of proteins, which have been linked to several diseases. Regulator of G protein signalling 2 (RGS2) is upregulated by several forms of stress and can inhibit protein synthesis, an established response to stress typically achieved via the phosphorylation of the initiation factor, eIF2, to conserve energy and resources. Under reduced translation, some factors are selectively expressed via alternative translation mechanisms and these factors consequently may promote apoptosis. The molecular mechanisms mediating such opposing responses to stress are not well understood. Here, we suggested that RGS2 may be an important regulatory component in the cellular stress response and we hypothesized that RGS2 contributes to the response of cells to stress through its translational control abilities. Previously, we have shown that RGS2 can interact with the translation initiation factor, eIF2B, and inhibit de novo protein synthesis. Here, we demonstrated that the expression of RGS2 decreased total protein levels and significantly increased levels of factors linked to stress-induced apoptosis such as ATF4 and CHOP. Interestingly, expression of the eIF2Bε-interacting domain of RGS2 (RGS2eb) alone resulted in a 20-fold increase in caspase 3 activation which was not seen with full-length RGS2. Furthermore, we showed that these effects are translationally regulated and independent of eIF2 phosphorylation. Thus, we present a novel mechanism in the regulation of stress response by RGS2. These results also suggest that RGS2 may be pro-apoptotic and may potentially be an important target in stress-related pathologies.

Background: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) came out to attract wide attention and had become one of the hotspots of most diseases’ research in decades. But at present, the mechanisms of how MSCs work on chronic asthma remain undefined. Our study aims at verifying whether MSCs play a role in preventing inflammation and airway remodeling via PI3K/AKT signaling pathway in the chronic asthma rats model. Methods: First, an ovalbumin (OVA)-induced asthma model was built. MSCs were administered to ovalbumin-induced asthma rats. The total cells in a bronchial alveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and inflammatory mediators in BALF and serum were measured. Histological examination of lung tissue was performed to estimate the pathological changes. Additionally, the expression of phosphorylated-Akt (p-Akt) in all groups was measured by western blot and immunohistochemistry (IHC). Results: Compared to normal control group, the degree of airway inflammation and airway remodeling was significantly increased in asthma group. On the contrary, they were obviously inhibited in MSCs transplantation group. Moreover, the expression of p-Akt was increased in lung tissues of asthmatic rats, and suppressed by MSCs transplantation. Conclusion: Our results demonstrated that MSCs transplantation could suppress lung inflammation and airway remodeling via PI3K/Akt signaling pathway in rat asthma model.

In cognizance of the problem that application software was maliciously tampered, this paper proposes a management scheme of trusted application software. In this scheme, there is a Software Management Group (SMG) which is a trusted third party. SMG executes software credibility assessment and certification. Users communicate with SMG before they install or run software, get the installation certification and status indicators, to ensure that the software has not been tampered maliciously before installation and in the process of use. The proposal for this scheme provides a new idea and management mechanism for the chain of trust transmitting from Operating System to trusted applications in trusted computing. Principles and mechanisms of the scheme are described amply in this paper.

A new type of tunable gradient-index (GRIN) microfluidic lens is proposed, which is based on the convection-diffusion process. By using the finite element method, the spatial distribution of the refractive-index (RI) determined by the concentration distribution in the microchannel is analyzed. Results show that the distribution of RI in the microchannel can be tuned by different flow rates of the core and cladding liquid streams. Furthermore, although taking into consideration the existence of the viscous resistance between the channel wall and the flowing stream, the RI distribution is still dependent on the combination of flow rates of the core and cladding streams. This microfluidic lens can be applied to dynamic adjustment of focusing, splitting or bending light beams. It therefore may have extensive applications in the optofluidic optical detecting system and microscale imaging system.

We propose a novel tunable photonic crystal (PC) waveguide Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) based on nematic liquid crystals (LCs) 5CB and investigate its interference properties numerically by using the finite-difference time-domain method. We can change the refractive index of LC by rotating the directors of the LC molecules. The line defect modes of the PC waveguide with different liquid crystal refractive indices are analyzed by using the plane wave expansion method. Owing to the slow group velocity region of the line defect mode, when the index of 5CB changes from 1.53 to 1.63, the variation of the effective index of the line defect mode arrives at 0.168. This property helps to significantly control the phase of light propagation in a PC waveguide MZI. The novel interferometer can be used as either an optically controlled on-off switch or an amplitude modulator in optical circuits.

A low-loss and broadband terahertz twin-core photonic band-gap fiber directional coupler is proposed, which consists of a cladding with a triangular lattice array of sub-wavelength air rods and two cores formed respectively by omitting seven nearby air rods. The group velocity dispersion, the coupling and the loss of the fibers are investigated by using a full-vector finite element method. The numerical simulations show that the loss coefficient of the coupler is less than 0.021 cm-1, and the coupling broadband of 0.14 THz can be realized. The directional coupler has potential applications in terahertz communication systems, such as filtering, wavelength-division multiplexing, polarization isolation, switching and so on.