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Interleukin-13(IL-13) might play an important role in driving aggregate bronchitic symptoms pathogenesis. However, none of the studies assessed the interaction between air pollutants exposure and IL-13 gene on the risk of aggregate bronchitic symptoms in non-asthma children. To assess the independent and joint effects of the exposure to air pollution and IL-13 haplotypes on the risk of aggregate bronchitic symptoms, we conducted a cross-sectional study and focused on non-asthma children. The study population consisted of 2944 children. The effect of each air pollutant on the risk of aggregate bronchitic symptoms was estimated as odds ratios per interquartile range (IQR) change. In the multiple logistic regressions, adjusted for confounding factors, the risk of chronic phlegm was associated with PM2.5 exposure (aOR, 1.59; 95% CI, 1.07–2.37 per 12.51 μg/m3 change), O3 exposure (aOR, 1.54 95% CI, 1.05–2.27 per 8.28 ppb change) and SO2 exposure (aOR, 1.19; 95% CI, 1.02–1.39 per 0.98 ppb change). Our study further provides the evidence that gene-environment interactions between IL-13 haplotype and O3 exposure on chronic phlegm (95% CI for interaction, 1.01–1.38). Identifying children who are more sensitive to air pollution helps us to provide them an efficient prevention to avoid aggregate bronchitic symptoms. Keywords: Air pollutants, Interleukin-13, Bronchitic symptoms

Aims: This study aimed to develop a family-centered care survey for Chinese adult intensive care units and to establish the survey's psychometric properties. Background: Family-centered care (FCC) is widely recognized as an ideal model of care. Few studies have explored FCC perceptions among family members of adult critical care patients in Asian countries, and no Chinese FCC measurement has been developed. Methods: An English version of the 3-factor family-centered care survey for adult intensive care units (FCCS-AICU) was translated into Chinese using a modified back translation procedure. Based on the literature review, two additional concepts, information and empowerment, were added to the Chinese FCCS-AICU. The psychometric properties of the Chinese FCCS-AICU were determined with 249 family members from a medical center in Taiwan and were tested for construct and convergent validity, and internal consistency. Results: Both the monolingual and bilingual equivalence tests of the English and Chinese versions of the 3-factor FCCS-AICU were supported. Exploratory factor analysis supported the 5-factor structure of the Chinese FCCS- AICU with a total explained variance of 58.34%. The Chinese FCCS-AICU was correlated with the Chinese Critical Care Family Needs Inventory. Internal consistency, determined by Cronbach's a, for the overall scale was .94. Conclusions: The Chinese FCCS-AICU is a valid and reliable tool for measuring perceptions of FCC by family members of adult intensive care patients within Chinese-speaking communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ocimum gratissimum (O. gratissimum), a medicinal herb with antifungal and antiviral activities, has been found to prevent liver injury and liver fibrosis and induce apoptosis in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells. In this study, we evaluated the effect of aqueous extracts of O. gratissimum (OGE) on improving the efficacy of chemotherapeutic drugs in HCC cells. Proteomic identification and functional assays were used to uncover the critical molecules responsible for OGE-induced sensitization mechanisms. The antitumor activity of OGE in combination with a chemotherapeutic drug was evaluated in a mouse orthotopic tumor model, and serum biochemical tests were further utilized to validate liver function. OGE sensitized HCC cells to the chemotherapeutic drug cisplatin. Proteomic analysis and Western blotting validation revealed the sensitization effect of OGE, likely achieved through the inhibition of breast cancer type 1 susceptibility protein (BRCA1). Mechanically, OGE treatment resulted in BRCA1 protein instability and increased proteasomal degradation, thereby synergistically increasing cisplatin-induced DNA damage. Moreover, OGE effectively inhibited cell migration and invasion, modulated epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), and impaired stemness properties in HCC cells. The combinatorial use of OGE enhanced the efficacy of cisplatin and potentially restored liver function in a mouse orthotopic tumor model. Our findings may provide an alternate approach to improving chemotherapy efficacy in HCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations are used to explore the metastable fluid–fluid coexistence curve of the modified Lennard-Jones model of globular proteins of ten Wolde and Frenkel [Science, 277, 1975 (1997)]. Using both mixed-field finite-size scaling and histogram-reweighting methods, the joint distribution of density and energy fluctuations is analyzed at coexistence to accurately determine the critical-point parameters. The subcritical coexistence region is explored using the recently developed hyper parallel tempering Monte Carlo simulation method along with histogram reweighting to obtain the density distributions. The phase diagram for the metastable fluid–fluid coexistence curve is calculated in close proximity to the critical point, a region previously unattained by simulations.© 2004 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

. Benjamini and Yekutieli suggested that it is important to account for multiplicity correction for confidence intervals when only some of the selected intervals are reported. They introduced the concept of the false coverage rate (FCR) for confidence intervals which is parallel to the concept of the false discovery rate in the multiple-hypothesis testing problem and they developed confidence intervals for selected parameters which control the FCR. Their approach requires the FCR to be controlled in the frequentist's sense, i.e. controlled for all the possible unknown parameters. In modern applications, the number of parameters could be large, as large as tens of thousands or even more, as in microarray experiments. We propose a less conservative criterion, the Bayes FCR, and study confidence intervals controlling it for a class of distributions. The Bayes FCR refers to the average FCR with respect to a distribution of parameters. Under such a criterion, we propose some confidence intervals, which, by some analytic and numerical calculations, are demonstrated to have the Bayes FCR controlled at level q for a class of prior distributions, including mixtures of normal distributions and zero, where the mixing probability is unknown. The confidence intervals are shrinkage-type procedures which are more efficient for the θ is that have a sparsity structure, which is a common feature of microarray data. More importantly, the centre of the proposed shrinkage intervals reduces much of the bias due to selection. Consequently, the proposed empirical Bayes intervals are always shorter in average length than the intervals of Benjamini and Yekutieli and can be only 50% or 60% as long in some cases. We apply these procedures to the data of Choe and colleagues and obtain similar results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbendazim. a widely used fungicide, exhibits reproductive and developmental toxicity. The objective of this study was to investigate the expression of androgen receptor induced by carbendazim and the antagonistic effect of flutamide. Rats were treated with carbendazim, flutamide or a combination of both to measure androgen receptor mRNA, immune activity and protein expression. Carbendazim treatment increased androgen receptor mRNA in a dose-dependent manner, while flutamide, an androgen receptor antagonist, blocked the androgen receptor mRNA. Co-treatment with carbendazim and various flutamide doses decreased the androgen receptor mRNA in a dose-dependent manner. Conversely, co-treatment with flutamide and various carbendazim doses increased the androgen receptor mRNA in a dose-dependent manner. Immunohistochemistry and Western blot analyses showed that carbendazim increased androgen receptor activity (especially in rat testes) in a dose-dependent manner, while flutamide decreased it. Furthermore, carbendazim or flutamide treatment for 7 days increased testosterone and follicular stimulating hormone concentrations in the serum of male rats in a dose-dependent manner, which might involve the disruption of the androgen receptor. Although we need to examine the exact mechanism of androgen receptor involved in the reproductive toxicity and endocrine-disrupting activity induced by carbendazim and its parent, benomyl, we should first discuss how to take advantage of flutamide antagonism on carbendazim-induced reproductive and endocrine- disrupting activity possibly in human. In summary, carbendazim induced androgen receptor expression in mRNA and protein levels, while flutamide antagonized this effect. This is the first report on the antagonistic effect of flutamide on the carbendazim-androgenic effect on mRNA and protein levels. The results would help to clarify the mechanism of carbendazim- and chemical-induced developmental toxicity and endocrine-disrupting activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Landau-de Gennes model for the free energy of a nematic liquid crystal near the phase transition to the smectic A-phase is used to determine the frequency dependence of the fluctuation corrections to the Frank elastic constants. It is shown that the interaction of the fluctuations of the smectic order parameter and the director results in corrections to all the Frank elastic constants. In the low-frequency limit (ω→0), the corrections to the Frank elastic constants K[sub 22] and K[sub 33] are the largest, and decrease to zero in the infinite-frequency limit. The correction to K[sub 11] is negative, and vanishes in both limits. The absolute value of the correction to K[sub 1] is the largest at frequencies in the megahertz range. It is shown that in oriented nematics the interaction of the smectic fluctuations and the director limits deviations of the director from the direction of preferred orientation, as a result of which relaxation of both inhomogeneous and homogeneous distortions of the director field can be observed. It is also shown that this gives rise to a frequency interval in the megahertz range in which shear waves begin to propagate in the nematic. The propagation speed of these waves is roughly a hundred times smaller than that of sound and strongly depends on the direction of propagation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]