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Objective To explore the associated factors for quality of life in patients with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). Methods A total of 218 PSP patients were included from January 2012 to December 2019. Demographic and clinical data were collected. The quality of life was evaluated by the 39⁃Item Parkinson's disease Questionnaire (PDQ⁃39). The Progressive Supranuclear Palsy Rating Scale (PSPRS) was used to assess the severity of PSP related motor and non⁃motor symptoms, while the Non⁃Motor Symptoms Scale (NMSS) was used to elevate the non⁃motor symptoms, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale⁃24 (HAMD⁃24), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA), Lille Apathy Rating Scale (LARS), Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) were used. The Pearson and partial correlation followed by the multiple linear regression were used to explore the correlates of the PDQ⁃39 score. Results Correlation analysis indicated that the PDQ⁃39 score was positively correlated with disease duration (r=0.301, P=0.000), Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI; r=0.147, P=0.031), levodopa equivalent daily dose (LEDD; r=0.225, P=0.001), and scores for the PSPRS (r=0.551, P=0.000), NMSS (r=0.484, P=0.000), HAMD⁃24 (r=0.515, P=0.000), HAMA (r=0.439, P=0.000) and LARS (r=0.476, P=0.000), but was negatively correlated with scores of FAB (r=⁃0.325, P=0.000) and MoCA (r=⁃0.355, P=0.000). Multiple linear stepwise regression model indicated that the PDQ⁃39 score was significantly associated with female (P=0.021), longer disease duration (P=0.026), higher LEDD (P=0.008), higher PSPRS score (P=0.000), higher NMSS score (P=0.002), higher HAMD⁃24 score (P=0.004), and higher LARS score (P=0.000). Conclusions Female, longer disease duration, higher LEDD, and more severe motor and non⁃motor symptoms contribute to the reduced quality of life in patients with PSP. Our study is beneficial to the clinical management of patients with PSP.

Urban intersection control mainly undertakes two tasks: traffic safety and traffic efficiency. Traditional intersection control models and methods have been insufficient in improving traffic efficiency, which is composed of the increase in traffic demand and the complexity of demand at present. In this paper, we propose a novel model and method called ATCM, which is based on the advanced technology of cooperative vehicle infrastructure. In this paper, a novel active traffic control model (ATCM) is proposed, which is based on the advanced technology of cooperative vehicle infrastructure. ATCM increases the intersection control model variables from the traditional two dimensions to five dimensions. It reshapes intersection control from the perspective of road designers and managers, so it can achieve more flexible and efficient traffic control. To this end, a multivariable active traffic control model is constructed, which includes road speed, lane control, sequence, phase, and green light time; a D-double layer optimization method is designed for this model. The first part of this optimization method combines speed control and dynamic phase sequence control. The second part is realized by the combination of lane control and dynamic phase sequence control. By conducting comprehensive experiments, the results demonstrate that the proposed approach is more flexible and efficient than traditional methods., Author(s): Li-li Zhang (corresponding author) [1,2]; Li Wang [2]; Qi Zhao [2]; Fang Wang [1]; Yadongyang Zhu [1]; Ling-yu Zhang [2] 1. Introduction The essence of traffic flow change is [...]

In this paper, we present a traffic cyber physical system for urban road traffic signal control, which is referred to as UTSC-CPS. With this proposed system, managers and researchers can realize the construction and simulation of various types of traffic scenarios, the rapid development, and optimization of new control strategies and can apply effective control strategies to actual traffic management. The advantages of this new system include the following. Firstly, the fusion architecture of private cloud computing and edge computing is proposed for the first time, which effectively improves the performance of software and hardware of the urban road traffic signal control system and realizes information security perception and protection in cloud and equipment, respectively, within the fusion framework; secondly, using the concept of parallel system, the depth of real-time traffic control subsystem and real-time simulation subsystem is realized. Thirdly, the idea of virtual scene basic engine and strategy agent engine is put forward in the system design, which separates data from control strategy by designing a general control strategy API and helps researchers focus on control algorithm itself without paying attention to detection data and basic data. Finally, considering China, the system designs a general control strategy API to separate data from control strategy. Most of the popular communication protocols between signal controllers and detectors are private protocols. The standard protocol conversion middleware is skillfully designed, which decouples the field equipment from the system software and achieves the universality and reliability of the control strategy. To further demonstrate the advantages of the new system, we have carried out a one-year practical test in Weifang City, Shandong Province, China. The system has been proved in terms of stability, security, scalability, practicability and rapid practice, and verification of the new control strategy. At the same time, it proves the superiority of the simulation subsystem in the performance and simulation scale by comparing the different-scale road networks of Shunyi District in Beijing and Weifang City in Shandong Province. Further tests were conducted using real intersections, and the results were equally valid., Author(s): Li-li Zhang (corresponding author) [1,2]; Qi Zhao [2]; Li Wang [2]; Ling-yu Zhang [2] 1. Introduction Advances in technologies such as optimization algorithm [1-3], vehicle-based collaboration, hybrid driving, autonomous [...]

Background and purpose: Recent genetic progress has shown many causative/risk genes linked to Parkinson's disease (PD), mainly in patients of European ancestry. The study aimed to investigate the PD‐related genes and determine the mutational spectrum of early‐onset PD in ethnic Chinese. Methods: In this study, whole‐exome sequencing and/or gene dosage analysis were performed in 704 early‐onset PD (EOPD) patients (onset age ≤45 years) and 1866 controls. Twenty‐six PD‐related genes and 20 other genes linked to neurodegenerative and lysosome diseases were analysed. Results: Eighty‐two (11.6%, 82/704) EOPD patients carrying rare pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants in PD‐related genes were identified. The mutation frequency in autosomal recessive inheritance EOPD (42.9%, 27/63) was much higher than that in autosomal dominant inheritance EOPD (0.9%, 12/110) or sporadic EOPD (8.1%, 43/531). Bi‐allelic mutations in PRKN were the most frequent, accounting for 5.1% of EOPD cases. Three common pathogenic variants, p.A53V in SNCA, p.G284R in PRKN and p.P53Afs*38 in CHCHD2, occur exclusively in Asians. The putative damaging variants from GBA, PRKN, DJ1, PLA2G6 and GCH1 contributed to the collective risk for EOPD. Notably, the protein‐truncating variants in CHCHD2 were enriched in EOPD, especially for p.P53Afs*38, which was also found in three patients from an independent cohort of patients with late‐onset PD (n = 1300). Functional experiments confirmed that truncated CHCHD2 variants cause loss of function and are linked to mitochondrial dysfunction. Conclusions: Our study reveals that the genetic spectrum of EOPD in Chinese, which may help develop genetic scanning strategies, provided more evidence supporting CHCHD2 in PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Viral diarrhea is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in children. This study was conducted to disclose the etiological cause and epidemiological features of viral diarrhea among children in China. From 2009 to 2021, active surveillance was performed on pediatric patients with acute diarrhea and tested for five enteric viruses. Positive detection was determined in 65.56% (3325/5072) patients and an age‐specific infection pattern was observed. A significantly higher positive rate was observed in 12–23‐month‐old children for rotavirus (47.46%) and adenovirus (7.06%), while a significantly higher positive rate was observed for norovirus (37.62%) in 6–11‐month‐old patients, and for astrovirus (11.60%) and sapovirus (10.79%) in 24–47‐month‐old patients. A higher positive rate of rotavirus in girls and norovirus in boys was observed only among 6–11 months of patients. We also observed more norovirus among patients from rural areas in the 0–5‐ and 36–47‐month groups and more rotavirus among those from rural areas in the 12–23‐month group. Diarrhea severity was greater for rotavirus in the 6–23‐month group and norovirus in the 6–11‐month group. Coinfections were observed in 29.26% (973/3325) of positive patients, and were most frequently observed between rotavirus and others (89.31%). Our findings could help the prediction, prevention, and potential therapeutic approaches to viral diarrhea in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering that I GBA i , I TMEM175 i , and I SNCA i are risk genes for both LBD and PD, it is noteworthy to investigate whether I BIN1 i and I APOE i are also associated with the risk of PD. Keywords: APOE; BIN1; Parkinson's disease; rare variant EN APOE BIN1 Parkinson's disease rare variant 698 701 4 04/15/22 20220501 NES 220501 Abbreviations GWAS genome-wide association study LBD Lewy body dementia PD Parkinson's disease Dear Editor, Recently, Chia et al. identified five risk genes for Lewy body dementia (LBD) in a genome-wide association study (GWAS) [1]. Similarly, a previous study identified that the I BIN1 i variant rs13403026 was associated with later AAO in I GBA i -associated PD [4], suggesting the potential role of I BIN1 i in regulating AAO in PD. [Extracted from the article]

C17H15MnN3O6, monoclinic, P21/c (no. 14), a = 11.136(3) Å, b = 10.809(3) Å, c = 14.111(4) Å, β = 92.059(4)°, V = 1697.4 Å3, Z = 4, Rgt(F) = 0.0402, wRref(F2) = 0.0564, T = 296 K.

Background: The association between inflammation and neurodegeneration has long been observed in parkinson's disease (PD) and multiple system atrophy (MSA). Previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and meta-analyses have identified several risk loci in inflammation-associated genes associated with PD. Objective: To investigate whether polymorphisms in some inflammation-associated genes could modulate the risk of developing PD and MSA in a Southwest Chinese population. Methods: A total of 2,706 Chinese subjects comprising 1340 PD, 483 MSA and 883 healthy controls were recruited in the study. Three polymorphisms (rs2074404 GG/GT/TT, rs17425622 CC/CT/TT, rs34043159 CC/CT/TT) in genes linked to inflammation in all the subjects were genotyped by using the Sequenom iPLEX Assay. Results: The allele G of WNT3 rs2074404 can increase risk on PD (OR: 1.048, 95% CI: 1.182–1.333, p = 0.006), exclusively in the LOPD subgroup (OR: 1.166, 95% CI:1.025–1.327, p = 0.019), but not in EOPD or MSA. And the recessive model analysis also demonstrated an increased PD risk in GG genotype of this locus (OR = 1.331, p = 0.007). However, no significant differences were observed in the genotype distributions and alleles of HLA-DRB5 rs17425622 and IL1R2 rs34043159 between the PD patients and controls, between the MSA patients and controls, or between subgroups of PD or MSA and controls. Conclusion: Our results suggested the allele G of WNT3 rs2074404 have an adverse effect on PD and particularly, on the LOPD subgroup among a Chinese population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Genetic studies have indicated that variants in several lysosomal genes are risk factors for idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the role of lysosomal genes in PD in Asian populations is largely unknown. Objective: This study aimed to analyze rare variants in lysosomal related genes in Chinese population with early-onset and familial PD. Methods: In total, 1,136 participants, including 536 and 600 patients with sporadic early-onset PD (SEOPD) and familial PD, respectively, underwent whole-exome sequencing to assess the genetic etiology. Rare variants in PD were investigated in 67 candidate lysosomal related genes (LRGs), including 15 lysosomal function-related genes and 52 lysosomal storage disorder genes. Results: Compared with the autosomal dominant PD (ADPD) or SEOPD cohorts, a much higher proportion of patients with multiple rare damaging variants of LRGs were found in the autosomal recessive PD (ARPD) cohort. At a gene level, rare damaging variants in GBA and MAN2B1 were enriched in PD, but in SCARB2, MCOLN1, LYST, VPS16, and VPS13C were much less in patients. At an allele level, GBA p. Leu483Pro was found to increase the risk of PD. Genotype-phenotype correlation showed no significance in the clinical features among patients carrying a discrepant number of rare variants in LRGs. Conclusion: Our study suggests rare variants in LRGs might be more important in the pathogenicity of ARPD cases compared with ADPD or SEOPD. We further confirm rare variants in GBA are involve in PD pathogenecity and other genes associated with PD identified in this study should be supported with more evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cardiac fibrosis is evident even in the situation without a significant cardiomyocyte loss in diabetic cardiomyopathy and a high glucose (HG) level independently activates the cardiac fibroblasts (CFs) and promotes cell proliferation. Mitochondrial respiration and glycolysis, which are key for cell proliferation and the mitochondria-associated membranes (MAMs), are critically involved in this process. However, the roles and the underlying mechanism of MAMs in the proliferation of HG-induced CFs are largely unknown. The proliferation and apoptosis of CFs responding to HG treatment were evaluated. The MAMs were quantified, and the mitochondrial respiration and cellular glycolytic levels were determined using the Seahorse XF analyzer. The changes of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and mitofusin-2 (MFN2) in responding to HG were also determined, the effects of which on cell proliferation, MAMs, and mitochondrial respiration were assessed. The effects of STAT3 on MFN2 transcription was determined by the dual-luciferase reporter assay (DLRA) and chromatin immunoprecipitation (CHIP). HG-induced CFs proliferation increased the glycolytic levels and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production, while mitochondrial respiration was inhibited. The MAMs and MFN2 expressions were significantly reduced on the HG treatment, and the restoration of MFN2 expression counteracted the effects of HG on cell proliferation, mitochondrial respiration of the MAMs, glycolytic levels, and ATP production. The mitochondrial STAT3 contents were not changed by HG, but the levels of phosphorylated STAT3 and nuclear STAT3 were increased. The inhibition of STAT3 reversed the reduction of MFN2 levels induced by HG. The DLRA and CHIP directly demonstrated the negative regulation of MFN2 by STAT3 at the transcription levels via interacting with the sequences in the MFN2 promoter region locating at about −400 bp counting from the start site of transcription. The present study demonstrated that the HG independently induced CFs proliferation via promoting STAT3 translocation to the nucleus, which switched the mitochondrial respiration to glycolysis to produce ATP by inhibiting MAMs in an MFN2-depression manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration provides a reference for regional construction. We set up a suitable cluster model and a comprehensive evaluation model to evaluate the urban economic development and provide the basis for the government to formulate and adjust the economic measures. We use the heat map of correlation coefficient to eliminate the economic indicators that are less correlated with per capita GDP and use grey correlation analysis to detect the degree of correlation of economic indicators. The optimal method is determined by comparing the results of K-means clustering and fuzzy C-means clustering. In addition, we use principal component analysis to rank the status of urban economic development. The results show that the relationship between the added value of primary industry, the added value of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, and per capita GDP is close to 0. Regional development level is not balanced. Chizhou, Xuancheng, Bengbu, and other cities lag behind in the economic rankings. Finally, it is suggested to reform the laggard cities and try to improve their economic strength from various economic indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trimethylamine‐N‐oxide (TMAO) is considered to have negative effect on human health. Different precursors of TMAO, such as choline, betaine, and L‐carnitine, are commonly found in daily foods. The aim of the present study was to compare the ability of different precursors to be metabolized into TMAO, as well as the possible effect of chronic administration with TMAO precursors on TMAO production. The rate of TMAO generation after single gavage with different precursors was L‐carnitine > choline >betaine. Moreover, the serum TMAO level of mice increased more than twofold after administration with choline for 3 weeks compared with L‐carnitine and betaine groups, which was accompanied by the change of intestinal flora. After the gavage of choline chloride, the production for TMAO was 2.8 and 1.6 times higher in chronic choline‐treated group compared with L‐carnitine and betaine groups, respectively. In addition, administration with choline increased the lowest TMAO level after intraperitoneal injection of trimethylamine (TMA) hydrochloride among the three treated groups. These findings indicated that different TMAO precursors had different ability to form TMAO in vivo, and long‐term dietary intervention would affect the metabolism of precursors to generate TMA and the TMA oxidation to form TMAO, suggesting that TMAO levels in vivo could be regulated by dietary intervention. Practical Application: Diverse TMAO precursors exhibited different ability to be converted into TMAO in vivo. The ability of choline to produce TMAO was stronger than that of betaine and L‐carnitine. Long‐term dietary intervention would affect the metabolism of precursors to generate TMA and the TMA oxidation to form TMAO, suggesting that TMAO levels in vivo could be regulated by adjustment of dietary structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Matching a crop's nitrogen (N) preference with the specific form of N is critical to enhance N recovery efficiency (NRE). Many studies show that maize (Zea mays L.) has a preference for NH4+ uptake over NO3−, but the contribution of this preference to NRE is unclear. This study evaluated the utilization of ammonium (NH4+) and nitrate (NO3−) by maize and its relationship with NRE. Methods: Maize (cv. 'Zhengdan 958') seedlings were grown in a soil culture experiment with 15NH4+ or 15NO3− applied to sterilized or non-sterilized soils, and in a hydroponic experiment supplied with NH4+ or NO3−. We recorded maize root and shoot growth and N uptake, and the distribution of 15N-labeled N in the soil–plant system. Results: Ammonium application enhanced maize root and shoot growth and N uptake compared with those of NO3−-treated plants in both culture systems. This enhancement by NH4+ was further promoted in sterilized soil. More applied N remained in soil supplied with NO3− than with NH4+ after seedling harvest. The NRE of NH4+ in maize was significantly higher than that of NO3−, while a similar proportion of applied N was lost with NH4+ or NO3−supply. Conclusions: Ammonium supply enhances maize growth and NRE compared with NO3− under the present experimental condition, which may be attributable to the superior capability of maize to utilize NH4+. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]