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To investigate the impact of an electronic medical record management system (EMRMS) on disease activity and the frequency of outpatient visits among patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). We identified 652 patients with AS who were followed up for at least 1 year before and after the first Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score (ASDAS) assessment and compared the number of outpatient visits and average visit time within 1 year before and after the initial ASDAS assessment. Finally, we analyzed 201 patients with AS who had complete data and received ≥ 3 continuous ASDAS assessments at an interval of 3 months, and we compared the results of the second and third ASDAS assessments with those of the first. The number of annual outpatient visits increased after ASDAS assessment (4.0 (4.0, 7.0) vs. 4.0 (4.0, 8.0), p p = 0.073), especially among patients whose with an inactive disease activity was p = 0.033; ASDAS erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) 6.4 (8.7, 11.1) vs. 6.1 (8.1, 10.0) min, p = 0.027). Among patients who received at least three ASDAS assessments, the third ASDAS-CRP tended to be lower than the first (1.5 (0.9, 2.1) vs. 1.4 (0.8, 1.9), p = 0.058). The use of an EMRMS increased the frequency of ambulatory visits among AS patients with high and very high disease activity and reduced the visit time among those with an inactive disease. Continual ASDAS assessments may help control the disease activity of patients with AS.

Research into geographical invasions of red imported fire ants (RIFAs) by anthropogenic disturbances has received much attention. However, little is known about how land-use change and the characteristics of roads with different land-use types are associated with the risk of RIFA successful invasion or remaining at the highest level of invasion (RIFA SIRH). Furthermore, it was often assumed in prior studies that the risk of RIFA SIRH had a linear association with the independent variables. However, a linear relationship may not reflect the actual circumstances. In this study, we applied linear and nonlinear approaches to assess how land-use types, distance from the nearest road, different land-use types, and spatial factors affect the risk of RIFA SIRH. The results showed that agricultural land, land for transportation usage, and areas that had undergone land-use change from 2014 to 2017 had greater odds of RIFA invasion than natural land cover. We also identified land for transportation usage and the area of land-use change from 2014 to 2017, had more than 60% of RIFA SIRH within 350 m and 150 m from the nearest road. This study provided important insights into RIFA invasions in an isolated island and the areas of control strategies implemented.

Panax ginseng is one of the oldest and most generally prescribed herbs in Eastern traditional medicine to treat diseases. Several studies had documented that ginseng leaves have anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer properties similar to those of ginseng root. The aim of this research was to forecast of the molecular mechanism of ginseng leaves on lung cancer by molecular docking and network pharmacology so as to decipher ginseng leaves' entire mechanism. The compounds associated with ginseng leaves were searched by TCMSP. TCMSP and Swiss Target Prediction databases were used to sort out the potential targets of the main chemical components. Targets were collected from OMIM, PharmGKB, TTD, DrugBank and GeneCards which related to immunity and lung cancer. Ginseng leaves exert its lung cancer suppressive function by regulating the several signaling proteins, such as JUN, STAT3, AKT1, TNF, MAPK1, TP53. GO and KEGG analyses indicated that the immunoreaction against lung cancer by ginseng leaves might be related to response to lipopolysaccharide, response to oxidative stress, PI3K-Akt, MAPK and TNF pathway. Molecular docking analysis demonstrated that hydrogen bonding was interaction's core forms. The results of CCK8 test and qRT-PCR showed that ginseng leaves inhibit cell proliferation and regulates AKT1 and P53 expression in A549. The present study clarifies the mechanism of Ginseng leaves against lung cancer and provides evidence to support its clinical use.

We demonstrate numerically the discrete image recovery via stochastic resonance in optically induced photonic lattices. The underlying signals are regularly reinforced at the expense of scattering noise with the interplay of the periodic potentials and the self-focusing nonlinearity. We founded that the energy redistribution tends to be periodic and the signal reinforcement is promoted with the help of periodic potentials. The lattice intensity levels, applied voltages, and correlation lengths are important parameters to influence the recovery effects. The dynamic nonlinear evolution including intensity and power spectrum is modeled according to the two-dimensional quasi-particle motion model. Our results suggest a potential technology to detect the noisy images.

We employ nematic liquid crystals as the nonlinear medium to recover noisy images via stochastic resonance, in which nonlinear coupling allows signals to grow at the expense of noise. The process is theoretically analyzed and the cross-correlation is numerically calculated. It is found that the quality of output images is affected by the input noise intensity, the applied voltage and the correlation length of noise light. Noise-hidden images can be effectively recovered by optimizing these parameters. The results suggest that nematic liquid crystals can be used for reconstruction of noisy images via stochastic resonance based on modulation instability with molecule reorientation nonlinearity.

Molecular mechanisms that prompt or mitigate excessive alcohol consumption could be partly explained by metabolic shifts. This genome-wide association study aims to identify the susceptibility gene loci for excessive alcohol consumption by jointly measuring weekly alcohol consumption and γ-GT levels. We analysed the Taiwan Biobank data of 18,363 Taiwanese people, including 1945 with excessive alcohol use. We found that one or two copies of the G allele in rs671 (ALDH2) increased the risk of excessive alcohol consumption, while one or two copies of the C allele in rs3782886 (BRAP) reduced the risk of excessive alcohol consumption. To minimize the influence of extensive regional linkage disequilibrium, we used the ridge regression. The ridge coefficients of rs7398833, rs671 and rs3782886 were unchanged across different values of the shrinkage parameter. The three variants corresponded to posttranscriptional activity, including cut-like homeobox 2 (a protein coded by CUX2), Glu504Lys of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (a protein encoded by ALDH2) and Glu4Gly of BRCA1-associated protein (a protein encoded by BRAP). We found that Glu504Lys of ALDH2 and Glu4Gly of BRAP are involved in the negative regulation of excessive alcohol consumption. The mechanism underlying the γ-GT-catalytic metabolic reaction in excessive alcohol consumption is associated with ALDH2, BRAP and CUX2. Further study is needed to clarify the roles of ALDH2, BRAP and CUX2 in the liver–brain endocrine axis connecting metabolic shifts with excessive alcohol consumption.

Here we systematically assess the degradation of biodegradable magnesium pins (as-drawn pure Mg, as-cast Mg-Zn-Mn, and extruded Mg-Zn-Mn) in a bioreactor applying cyclical loading and simulated body fluid (SBF) perfusion. Cyclical mechanical loading and interstitial flow accelerated the overall corrosion rate, leading to loss of mechanical strength. When compared to the in vivo degradation (degradation rate, product formation, uniform or localized pitting, and stress distribution) of the same materials in mouse subcutaneous and dog tibia implant models, we demonstrate that the in vitro model facilitates the analysis of the complex degradation behavior of Mg-based alloys in vivo. This study progresses the development of a suitable in vitro model to examine the effects of mechanical stress and interstitial flow on biodegradable implant materials.

While cells are known to sense and respond to their niche including the matrix and the mechanical microenvironment, whether they preferentially sense and react to the stiffness of their microenvironment regardless of its intrinsic material properties is unknown. In this work, protein micropillar arrays with independently controllable stiffness via alterations in pillar height and elastic modulus via laser power used during photochemical cross-linking, were fabricated using a recently developed multiphoton-based 3D protein micro-patterning technology. Human dermal fibroblasts were cultured on these micropillar arrays and the specific interactions between cells and the protein micropatterns particularly on the formation and maturation of the cell-matrix adhesions, were investigated via immunofluorescence staining of the major molecular markers of the adhesions and the measurement of their cluster size, respectively. Our results showed that the cluster size of focal adhesions increased as the stiffness of the micropillar arrays increased, but it was insensitive to the elastic modulus of the protein micropillars that is one of the intrinsic material properties. This finding provides evidence to the notion that cells preferentially sense and react to the stiffness, but not the elastic modulus of their microenvironment.

We investigate the nanosecond pulse noise-hidden image reconstruction and visualization using stochastic resonance implemented by modulation instability. In particular, this dynamical stochastic resonance holds with coupling between the pulse incoherent noise and pulse coherent signal, and provides a substantial enhancement of the signal-to-noise ratio and cross-correlation. This means that the pulse noise-hidden image can be effectively reconstructed with high visibility and fidelity via stochastic resonance at appropriate system parameters. Such a simple and convenient method has potential applications in image processing under noisy environment.

Inflammasomes are the protein assemblies that consist of inflammasome sensors, adaptor apoptosis-associated speck-like proteins containing a CARD (ASC) and inflammasome caspase. Inflammasomes sense multiple danger signals via various inflammasome sensors and consequently use caspase to trigger proteolytic processing and secretion of IL-1β cytokines. Recent studies have suggested that neurons use their own innate immune system to detect danger signals and regulate neuronal morphology. Here, we investigate whether inflammasomes, the critical components of innate immunity, participate in regulation of neuronal morphology and function. Among various sensors, Absent in melanoma 2 (Aim2) expression in neurons is most prominent. Adding synthetic double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) to cultured neurons induces IL-1β secretion in an AIM2-dependent manner and consequently downregulates dendritic growth but enhances axon extension. The results of Aim2 knockout and knockdown show that AIM2 acts cell-autonomously to regulate neuronal morphology. Behavioral analyses further reveal that Aim2−/− mice exhibit lower locomotor activity, increased anxious behaviors and reduced auditory fear memory. In conclusion, our study suggests that AIM2 inflammasomes regulate neuronal morphology and influence mouse behaviors.

We propose a novel scheme for restoring pulse and high noisy images using stochastic resonance, which is based on the modulation instability and provides a cross-correlation gain higher than 8. As opposed to previously reported designs, this unique approach employs a continuous noise and pulse signal for the generation of modulation instability. The visibility and quality of output images can be improved by appropriately adjusting the system parameters. This provides a simple and feasible method for detecting low-level or hidden pulse images in various imaging applications.

Engineering 3D microstructures with predetermined properties is critical for stem cell niche studies. We have developed a multiphoton femtosecond laser-based 3D printing platform, which generates complex protein microstructures in minutes. Here, we used the platform to test a series of fabrication and reagent parameters in precisely controlling the mechanical properties of protein micropillars. Atomic force microscopy was utilized to measure the reduced elastic modulus of the micropillars and transmission electron microscopy was used to visualize the porosity of the structures. The reduced elastic modulus of the micropillars associated positively and linearly with the scanning power. On the other hand, the porosity and pore size of the micropillars associated inversely and linearly with the scanning power and reagent concentrations. While keeping the elastic modulus constant, the stiffness of the micropillars was controlled by varying their height. Subsequently, the single cell traction forces of rabbit chondrocytes, human dermal fibroblasts, human mesenchymal stem cells and bovine nucleus pulposus cells (bNPCs) were successfully measured by culturing the cells on micropillar arrays of different stiffness. Our results showed that the traction forces of all groups showed positive relationship with stiffness and that the chondrocytes and bNPCs generated the highest and lowest traction forces, respectively.

We investigate a practical technology for reconstructing nanosecond pulse noisy images via stochastic resonance, which is based on the modulation instability. A theoretical model of this method for optical pulse signal is built to effectively recover the pulse image. The nanosecond noise-hidden images grow at the expense of noise during the stochastic resonance process in a photorefractive medium. The properties of output images are mainly determined by the input signal-to-noise intensity ratio, the applied voltage across the medium and the correlation length of noise background. A high cross-correlation gain is obtained by optimizing these parameters. This provides a potential method for detecting low-level or hidden pulse images in various imaging applications.

Evolutionary analysis of microbes at the community level represents a new research avenue linking ecological patterns to evolutionary processes, but remains insufficiently studied. Here we report a relative evolutionary rates (rERs) analysis of microbial communities from six diverse natural environments based on 40 metagenomic samples. We show that the rERs of microbial communities are mainly shaped by environmental conditions and the microbes inhabiting extreme habitats (acid mine drainage, saline lake and hot spring) evolve faster than those populating benign environments (surface ocean, fresh water and soil). These findings were supported by the observation of more relaxed purifying selection and potentially frequent horizontal gene transfers in communities from extreme habitats. The mechanism of high rERs was proposed as high mutation rates imposed by stressful conditions during the evolutionary processes. This study brings us one stage closer to an understanding of the evolutionary mechanisms underlying the adaptation of microbes to extreme environments.