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Echinococcosis is a zoonotic parasitic disease that is highly endemic to the Qinghai province of China. Limited data are available on the prevalence of the causal pathogen, Echinococcus spp., in definitive hosts in this region. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of Echinococcus spp. in wild foxes and stray dogs in Qinghai province. Five hundred and twenty-eight feces from wild foxes and 277 from stray dogs were collected from 11 counties in the Golog, Yushu, and Haixi prefectures and screened for Echinococcus spp. using copro-DNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In total, 5.5% of wild foxes and 15.2% of stray dogs tested positive for Echinococcus spp. The prevalence rates of Echinococcus spp. in wild foxes in Golog, Yushu, and Haixi were 7.3%, 5.2%, and 1.9%, respectively. In stray dogs, these rates were 13.3%, 17.3%, and 0%, respectively. Sequencing analysis determined that Echinococcus multilocularis was the most prevalent species, occurring in 4.0% and 12.6% of wild foxes and stray dogs, respectively. Echinococcus shiquicus was observed in 1.5% of wild foxes and 0.7% of stray dogs. Echinococcus granulosus was observed only in wild dogs, with a prevalence rate of 1.8%. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the prevalence of E. shiquicus in dogs in Qinghai province. The current results improve our understanding of the transmission and dissemination of human echinococcosis and suggest that exposure to the eggs of E. multilocularis harbored by wild foxes and stray dogs may pose a great risk of alveolar echinococcosis to humans in Qinghai province.

Background Alveolar echinococcosis (AE) is a zoonotic parasitic disease caused by Echinococcus multilocularis larval tapeworm infections in humans that severely impairs the health of affected patients in the northern hemisphere. Methods The expression levels of 20 cytokines associated with AE infection were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and the correlations between these cytokines were analysed in the R programming language. Results Serum cytokine levels differed among individuals in both the AE patient and healthy control groups. The results of the correlations among the cytokines showed obvious differences between the two groups. In the AE patients group, Th1 and Th2 cytokines formed a more complicated network than that in the healthy control group. Conclusions The altered correlations between Th1 and Th2 cytokines may be closely associated with AE infection, which may provide a new explanation for the essential differences between AE patients and healthy individuals.

To understand the current state of utilizing phytoplankton to globally evaluate water quality and provide references for future studies, bibliometric methods were used to review the articles on phytoplankton and water quality monitoring published in the Web of Science database between 1996 and 2016. A total of 5850 articles were retrieved, and 93.66% of the retrieved literature comprised research papers. The annual quantity of the published literature increased with time, for instance, 516 papers were published in 2015 which was 3.51 times the number of papers published in 1996 (147 papers). During our study period, the top five literature-publishing countries were the United States, China, Germany, Canada, and France, which published 1477, 490, 471, 465, and 351 articles, with literature growth rates of 25.25, 8.38, 8.05, 7.95, and 6.00%, respectively. All 15,990 authors, including 510 core authors, came from 3851 institutions belonging to 126 countries. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, which published 202 research papers accounting for 3.45% of the total literature published during the study period, was the first institute to publish the largest number of research papers. The total citation frequency of the articles was 130,865. The number of articles with citation frequency more than 100 and between 50 and 99 were 208 and 434, respectively. The average citation frequency of these papers was 22.37, and the H-index was 127. The annual citation of articles was found to be significantly increased, with citation only 33 times in 1996, but 18,127 times in 2015. The top five authors whose papers showed the highest citation frequency were from Germany, the United States, the United States, Australia and Canada, with the citation frequencies of 1203, 875, 698, 653, and 615, respectively. However, 693 articles had not been cited even once. All 5850 papers were published in 983 journals, mainly in the English journals, such as Hydrobiologia, Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science, and Freshwater Biology, including 83 research subjects and mainly focused on the research fields such as marine freshwater biology, environmental science ecology. A total of 10,182 keywords were extracted from these papers, and 113 keywords appeared more than 20 times. Subsequently, 39 high-frequency effective keywords and 9 core high-frequency keywords were further extracted. The nine core high-frequency keywords, which appeared more than 100 times, were phytoplankton, algae, nutrients, eutrophication, toxicity, microalgae, estuary, phosphorus, and nitrogen, and their appearance frequencies were 442, 289, 196, 192, 137, 135, 134, 114, and 101, respectively. Analysis of the co-occurrence relationship of the high-frequency keywords showed that the keywords algae and nutrients, water eutrophication and nitrogen, phosphorus, and salt co-occurred 120 times; algae and taxonomy, biological diversity, and various groups co-occurred 82 times, algae and primary production, biomass, photosynthesis, chlorophyll, food web and bioenrichment co-occurred 57 times; algae and estuary and lake co-occurred 48 times, algae and water quality, organic matter, bacteria, toxins, and copper co-occurred 40 times; and algae and temperature and climate change co-occurred 28 times. These co-occurrence relationships showed that the relative studies concentrated on the water eutrophication, biodiversity of algae, ecology of phytoplankton, and influence of environmental factors on the phytoplankton community. Water areas of estuaries and lakes were mainly concerned. These results indicated that the amount and citation frequency of the research papers on utilizing phytoplankton to evaluate water quality were rapidly growing, and the developed countries in Europe and America contributed most to the research in this field. The number of papers published by the Chinese researchers ranked second, but there is still a huge gap between China and the developed countries because of the lack of researchers and papers with high impact power in this field of research.

Objective: To study the correlation of serum LAG-3 and DKK-1 levels with cancer cell proliferation, invasion, angiogenesis and other clinical pathological characteristics in patients with gastric cancer. Methods: 48 patients who were diagnosed with early gastric cancer in our hospital between June 2014 and October 2016 were selected as the gastric cancer group of the research, 50 healthy volunteers who received physical examination in our hospital during the same period were selected as the control group of the research, serum was collected to determine the levels of lymphocyte activation gene-3 (LAG-3), Dickkopf-1 (DKK-1) and angiogenesis molecules, and the gastric cancer tissue and the tissue adjacent to carcinoma were collected to determine the expression of proliferation and invasion-related molecules. Results: Serum LAG-1, DKK-1, angiogenin-1 (Ang-1), Ang-2, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) levels of gastric cancer group were significantly higher than those of control group (P＜0.05), and EPHA2, LOXL2, PCNA, Akt, CyclinD1, MYH-9, CXCR7, KDM1A and CatB mRNA expression in gastric cancer tissue were significantly higher than those in the tissue adjacent to carcinoma (P＜0.05); serum Ang-1, Ang-2, VEGF and bFGF levels as well as EPHA2, LOXL2, PCNA, Akt, CyclinD1, MYH-9, CXCR7, KDM1A and CatB mRNA expression in gastric cancer tissue of patients with gastric cancer were positively correlated with serum LAG-3 and DKK-1 levels. Conclusion: Serum LAG-3 and DKK-1 levels are valuable to diagnose early gastric cancer and can assess the cancer cell proliferation, invasion, angiogenesis and other clinical pathological characteristics in gastric cancer tissue.

Echinococcosis is a serious zoonotic parasitic disease that is highly endemic in Qinghai Province. The present study aimed to investigate the prevalence of echinococcosis among schoolchildren in Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture to improve early diagnosis and treatment of patients and to provide information for echinococcosis prevention and control. A total of 11,260 schoolchildren from five counties (Maqin, Gander, Dari, Jiuzhi, and Banma) in Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, were screened for echinococcosis. Screening involved ultrasound imaging combined with serologic examination as an auxiliary diagnostic test. The prevalence of echinococcosis in the schoolchildren was 2.1% (235/11,260), with a rate of 0.8% for cystic echinococcosis (CE; 89/11,260) and 1.3% for alveolar echinococcosis (AE; 146/11,260). Additionally, one child had a mixed infection. The prevalence ranged between 1.1% and 4.1% among the five investigated counties, and was highest in Dari County (4.1%). The prevalence of echinococcosis was higher in girls than in boys and gradually increased with age. In addition, children with CE mainly had type 1 (CE1) and type 3 (CE3) lesions, and children with AE mainly had small-diameter calcified lesions, suggesting that they were in the early asymptomatic stage of echinococcosis. In conclusion, children of Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture appear to exhibit the highest recorded prevalence of CE and AE globally. Ultrasound is useful for screening populations in regions where both CE and AE are endemic.

A symmetrical wedge-to-wedge THz hybrid SPPs waveguide (WWTHSW) with low propagation loss is investigated. The WWTHSW consists of two identical dielectric wedge waveguides symmetrically placed on each side of a micro wedge-patterned thin metal film. The mode characteristics of the WWTHSW, such as the propagation length (Lp), the normalized effective mode area (A) and the figure of merit (FOM) are analyzed by using the finite element method (FEM). Firstly, the influences of the height of Si micro wedge waveguide (H) and the gap between two wedges (g) on Lp and A are studied. For the same g, A first decreases and then increases with the increase of H. A achieves a minimum at an H of ~40 μm. However, Lp monotonically increases as H increases. The change of Lp slows down when H is greater than 40 μm. At a fixed H, Lp slightly increases with the increase of g. But A achieves a minimum when g is ~50 nm. Secondly, the dependencies of the mode characteristics of the WWTHSW on Si wedge tip angle (α) and Ag wedge tip angle (θ) are analyzed. At a fixed α, θ has less effect on Lp and A. As α increases at a fixed θ, Lp increases monotonically but A decreases firstly and then increases. A reaches a minimum when α increases to ~100°. Then, the change of Lp and A with the thicknesses of Ag film (d) and Ag wedge (h) are demonstrated. At a fixed h, both Lp and A slightly decrease as d increases. For the same d, Lp and A decrease with the increase of h. A for h = 0 μm is distinctly larger than those for h = 2 μm and h = 5 μm. According to the above optimizations, the parameters of the WWTHSW are chosen as d = 100 nm, g = 50 nm, h = 2 μm, θ = 80°, α = 100°, H = 40 μm. Under the optimal parameters, Lp of ~51 mm is obtained when Am reaches ~λ2/10280. Compared with the previous hybrid THz plasmonic waveguide, Lp of the WWTHSW increases by 3 times, and A decreases by an order of magnitude. This result reveals that the WWTHSW enables low-loss propagation and ultra-deep-subwavelength mode confinement at THz frequencies. At last, the coupling property of the parallel WWTHSW is investigated. The coupling length of ~8958 μm is achieved without the crosstalk between two parallel waveguides. By comparison, the WWTHSW has more advantages in terms of transmission and coupling characteristics than the previous micro wedge waveguide structure and bow-tie waveguide structure. In summary, due to the excellent transmission and coupling characteristics, the WWTHSW has great potential in the fields of optical force in trapping, biomolecules transporting, and in high-density integrated circuits design.

There are several sites for measuring body temperature. Correct reading of core temperature is imperative for patients undergoing major operations under anesthesia. In certain situations, the sites of measurement may be close to the surgical area, and thus the measurement is easily prejudiced by the influence environment. We hypothesized that the body temperature, if monitored in the esophagus, would be lower than obtained from the tympanic membrane during thoracotomy for lung pathology under general anesthesia.The study involved 32 patients, of American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status I or II, who were to undergo elective thoracotomy for lung disorders. General anesthesia was induced with fentanyl, propofol, and rocuronium and maintained with sevoflurane in oxygen. The tympanic membrane probe was placed prior to when general anesthesia was administered, and the esophageal probe was inserted after administration of general anesthesia. Both the individualized temperatures were recorded at 5-minute intervals, and were compared at each change of surgical situation.The tympanic membrane temperature was higher than esophageal temperature after initiation of one-lung ventilation (OLV) with statistical significance. The magnitude of decrease in temperature between two individualized temperatures, as compared from start of OLV, was greater in tympanic membrane temperature, especially at 30 minutes after OLV (p 0.02, difference = -0.09 ± 0.22) and at the time point of the lowest temperature (p = 0.002, difference = -0.14 ± 0.24). There was no clinical difference of situation found (difference 0.5°C) in the measuring sequences.The accuracy of esophageal temperature seemed not to be affected during thoracotomy for lung lesion, in comparison with that of tympanic temperature. From clinical viewpoints, the monitoring of esophageal temperature could be more reliable in such surgical situation.

Hyper-parameters, which determine the ability of learning and generalization for support vector regression (SVR), are usually fixed during training. Thus when SVR is applied to complex system modeling, this parameters-fixed strategy leaves the SVR in a dilemma of selecting rigorous or slack parameters due to complicated distributions of sample dataset. Therefore in this paper we proposed a flexible support vector regression (F-SVR) in which parameters are adaptive to sample dataset distributions during training. The method F-SVR divides the training sample dataset into several domains according to the distribution complexity, and generates a different parameter set for each domain. The efficacy of the proposed method is validated on an artificial dataset, where F-SVR yields better generalization ability than conventional SVR methods while maintaining good learning ability. Finally, we also apply F-SVR successfully to practical fault detection of a high frequency power supply.

Amniotic fluid embolism occurs rarely but is a leading cause of maternal mortality. Regardless of emergent supportive medical treatment, it is associated with a very high mortality rate. Here, we present the case of a 33-year-old pregnant woman with amniotic fluid embolism, who sustained cardiac arrest and was rescued with early application of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. The management of amniotic fluid embolism is to initially focus on rapid cardiopulmonary stabilization. Hemodynamic decompensation may be transient and recoverable within a few hours. Early application of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation should be considered in patients who are unresponsive to medical therapy before severe organ damage supervenes.

An epidemiological investigation on echinococcosis was made in Jiuzhi County of Qinghai Province, western China. Ultrasonography and an indirect hemagglutination test revealed a morbidity of 8.0% (124/1,549) and a seroprevalence of 25.8% (287/1,113), respectively, in the Tibetan population. The morbidity in herdsmen (16.6%) and Buddhist priests (15%) was significantly higher than that in other occupation groups (3.2%), and it was higher in females (9.8%) than in males (6.2%). The ultrasound images showed a coexistence of cystic echinococcosis (CE) and alveolar echinococcosis (AE), occupying 69 and 31% of the cases, respectively. An Echinococcus Western blot assay was performed as a serological backup test for differentiating CE and AE. The assay revealed that serum samples from most cases with a positive AE image showed a specific antibody against antigen bands at 16/18 kDa. Autopsy proved that 9 out of 12 stray dogs were infected with Echinococcus granulosus (n = 8) and E. multilocularis (n = 1). Inspection at the abattoirs demonstrated a hydatid rate of 78.5% in yaks and 82.6% in sheep. The data indicate that Jiuzhi County is an important endemic area for both CE and AE, in both human and animal populations.

A novel cDNA has been isolated from pig parotid glands by 3' and 5' rapid amplification of cDNA ends and designated parotid secretory protein (PSP). The open reading frame of this cDNA covers 714 bases, encoding 238 amino acids, which show 56% identity with human PSP at the level of the primary protein structure. The PSP genomic sequence comprises eight exons and seven introns, is approximately 22 kb in size, determined by sequencing, and maps to pig chromosome 17q21-q23. RT-PCR, dot blot, and Northern blot analyses demonstrated that PSP is strongly expressed in parotid glands, but is not present in heart, liver, lung, kidney, muscle, or stomach. A search for functionally significant protein motifs revealed consensus sequences for casein kinase II phosphorylation and N-myristoylation. We observed a unique amino acid sequence pattern consisting of the residues Leu-X(6)-Leu-X(6)-Leu-X(7)-Leu-X(6)-Leu-X(6)-Leu near the amino-terminal portion of the protein, which is similar to the leucine zipper.

Many etiologies may cause sciatica, and intra-abdominal masses usually affect the lumbosacral plexus by local invasion or distal metastases. Lumbosacral plexopathy caused by compression of intra-abdominal tumors instead of invasion is rarely seen. A 67-year-old woman had a 3-month history of progressive neurogenic claudication, lumbago and left L5 radiculopathy with foot drop. Nocturia and progressive abdominal distension with voiding dysfunction were also noted. Imaging studies showed a huge pelvic mass with severe compression of the left lumbosacral trunk. There was no direct invasion of the lumbosacral plexus by the pelvic mass noted in the preoperative imaging studies or intraoperative findings. Bilateral ovarian borderline mucinous cystic tumor with pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP) was diagnosed, and the sciatica was improved dramatically after subsequent abdominal debulking surgery. Although rare, neural compression caused by PMP and intra-abdominal masses needs to be considered in the differential diagnosis of sciatica.

Coronary artery fistulae (CAF) are an infrequent coronary abnormality. Herein, we describe the use of intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) in the treatment of CAF. A 61 year-old woman presented with chest pain and symptoms consistent with unstable angina. Subsequent coronary angiography revealed the presence of 2 CAF, one extending from the left anterior descending artery to the pulmonary artery (PA) and the other extending from the proximal right coronary artery to the PA. Surgical ligation of the CAF without coronary bypass was arranged. Intraoperative TEE was successfully employed to localize the CAF, monitor fistula blood flow and heart wall motion, and confirm successful ligation. The patient recovered without complications. This case highlights the utility of intraoperative TEE during ligation of CAF.

Background Epidural patient-controlled analgesia (EPCA) and intravenous patient-controlled analgesia (IVPCA) have been used widely in parturients after cesarean section. Although many studies have demonstrated the safety and effectiveness of both EPCA and IVPCA, their effects on bowel activity of patients who have undergone cesarean section delivery have not yet been investigated. The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of EPCA and IVPCA on bowel activity after cesarean section. Methods We collected data from 726 parturients who consented to receive either EPCA or IVPCA for postoperative analgesia following cesarean section delivery. All patients used postoperative PCA for at least 2 days. The analgesic solution for EPCA was 0.05% bupivacaine plus fentanyl (3 μg/mL), and that for IVPCA was 0.1% morphine. The patients were assessed by visual analog pain scale (VAS) scores at rest and in a dynamic state, time to first flatus passage after the surgery, and overall satisfaction after completion of the PCA course. Student's t test was used to determine intergroup differences. Results There were statistically significant differences between the EPCA and IVPCA groups in the time to first flatus passage, overall satisfaction and VAS scores at rest and in a dynamic state. Patients in the EPCA group had a shorter time to first flatus passage, higher overall satisfaction and lower VAS scores. In addition, regional anesthesia offered an apparently shorter time to first flatus passage in comparison with general anesthesia. Conclusion PCA is safe and effective in alleviating postoperative pain following cesarean section. EPCA offers a faster return of bowel activity, lower VAS scores, and better patient satisfaction than IVPCA.

In the title compound [systematic name: 5,11,17,23-tert-butyl-25,27:26,28-bis(2,8-dioxo-3,7-diaza­nonane-1,9-diyldioxy)-2,8,14,20-tetra­thia­calix[4]arene chloro­form disolvate], C54H68N4O8S4·2CHCl3, the thia­calixarene mol­ecule, locked in the 1,3-alternate conformation by two amide bridges, possesses twofold rotation symmetry with an cage-like cavity.