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Objectives The purpose of the experiment was to estimate whether intrathecal antimalarial drugs could provoke spinal block, and their comparison with lidocaine. Methods Rats were intrathecally administrated with antimalarial agents (primaquine, chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine and amodiaquine) and lidocaine, and neurobehavioural examinations (nociception, proprioception and motor function) were assessed; n = 8 per group. One-way and two-way analysis of variance were designed to analyse data. Key findings At a concentration of 20 mM, primaquine (0.46 mg/rat) exhibited the longest duration and the most potent effect of nociceptive, proprioceptive and motor blockade (P < 0.01) among five drugs, whereas the other antimalarial drugs displayed a lesser or similar potency of spinal blockade compared with lidocaine (0.29 mg/rat). In dose-dependent studies, primaquine was more potent (P < 0.01) than lidocaine for spinal block. At ED25, ED50 and ED75 equipotent doses, primaquine produced a greater duration of spinal motor, proprioceptive and nociceptive blockade when compared with lidocaine (P < 0.01). Conclusions Primaquine, chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine and amodiaquine produced spinal blockade. Primaquine was more potent and displayed a prolonged life of local anaesthetic effect compared with lidocaine, whereas the other antimalarial drugs displayed a lesser or similar potency compared with lidocaine.

Background This study aimed to assess the use of medical record items in clinical research in one large academic medical center in Taiwan. Methods A descriptive survey design was adopted to collect the data. Articles published in 2018 by Taipei Veterans General Hospital (TVGH) staff as the first author were obtained. The types of specialties and types of research were analyzed. To understand the conditions for the use of medical records, the retrospective research using hospital's medical records were analyzed. Each article was read in entirety to realize the use and number of patients and the medical record items. Results Among the 362 articles first-authored by TVGH staff in 2018, 219 (60.4%) were classified as clinical studies, 60 (16.6%) as basic studies, 53 (14.6%) as database studies, and 30 (8.2%) as other categories. About 50% of the retrospective research using TVGH medical records had a case number less than 100 (67 cases, 49.6%) with an average number of 41 cases and 13 studies (9.6%) had a case number greater than 1000. Analysis of the number of medical record items used in 135 retrospective research studies based on TVGH medical records showed that 118 (87.4%) used basic patient information. In addition to basic information, notes written by professionals were used most frequently (73 cases, 54.0%), whereas medication information was used in 50 cases (37.0%); laboratory test data was used in 49 cases (36.2%) ; and body measurements was used in 27 cases (20%). Conclusion More than one-third of publications utilized medical records, but the patient numbers and record items in use were relatively limited. In the era of digitalization and big data analytics, the potential of medical records in research deserves attention. Investment in establishing a more accessible database of medical records to access nonstructural, descriptive medical records could be considered.

The purpose of the experiment was to study the effect of pulsed ultrasound (PUS) on post-thoracotomy pain and local tissue temperature and to correlate the findings with the alteration in spinal anti-inflammatory and pro-inflammatory cytokines. Mechanical sensitivity, subcutaneous temperature and spinal interleukin-10 (IL-10), IL-6 or tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) expression were examined in a rat model of experimental post-thoracotomy pain. Group 1 received a sham surgery where thoracotomy was performed except for rib retraction. Group 2 underwent thoracotomy with rib retraction (TRR). Group 3 received the TRR procedure followed by PUS. Group 4 underwent the TRR procedure followed by only the massage with the ultrasound turned off. Compared with group 1 (sham), groups 2-4 showed a decrease in mechanical withdrawal thresholds on postoperative days (PODs) 10 and 11. On PODs 16, 23 and 30, group 3 (TRR+PUS-1) displayed an increase in mechanical withdrawal thresholds compared with groups 2 and 4. Subcutaneous and body temperatures in group 3 were not prominently different from group 1, group 2 (TRR only) or group 4 (TRR+PUS-0). Compared with group 2, group 3 had an increase in spinal IL-10 level on POD 30 and a decrease in spinal IL-6 or TNF-α expression on PODs 16 and 30. We concluded that mechanical hypersensitivity after TRR is postponed by PUS, and its effect continues for 3 wk. A PUS dose not increase local tissue temperature. The beneficial effect of PUS appears related to upregulation of spinal anti-inflammatory cytokine and downregulation of spinal pro-inflammatory cytokines.

In this investigation, we propose and demonstrate an integrated vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) and blue light emitting diode (LED) based visible light communication (VLC) system by using the decode-and-forward (DF) relay scheme indoors. The 682 nm visible VCSEL can reach 3 Gbit/s on-off keying (OOK) modulation rate for 4 m free space transmission by applying 1.25 GHz bandwidth PIN photodiode (PD). Then, the VLCVCSEL signal connects to multiple blue LEDs for broadcasting VLCLED traffic in parallel. Therefore, the maximum VLCLED rates of 775, 700, and 600 Mbit/s are obtained at the free space transmission lengths of 2, 3, and 4 m, respectively within the forward error correction (FEC) target under 4 m VLC transmission at the low detected power of 15 μW. In addition, the number of LEDs used in the DF relay VLC system depends on the practical requirement of VLCLED rate and traffic length indoors.

Background Pneumococcus is one of the most common human airway pathogens that causes life-threatening infections. Ambient fine particulate matter (PM) with aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 μm (PM2.5) is known to significantly contribute to respiratory diseases. PM2.5-induced airway inflammation may decrease innate immune defenses against bacterial infection. However, there is currently limited information available regarding the effect of PM2.5 exposure on molecular interactions between pneumococcus and macrophages. Results PM2.5 exposure hampered macrophage functions, including phagocytosis and proinflammatory cytokine production, in response to pneumococcal infection. In a PM2.5-exposed pneumococcus-infected mouse model, PM2.5 subverted the pulmonary immune response and caused leukocyte infiltration. Further, PM2.5 exposure suppressed the levels of CXCL10 and its receptor, CXCR3, by inhibiting the PI3K/Akt and MAPK pathways. Conclusions The effect of PM2.5 exposure on macrophage activity enhances pneumococcal infectivity and aggravates pulmonary pathogenesis.

Background/purpose: Treatment of chronic hepatitis C (CHC) has entered a new era since the introduction of direct-acting antiviral agents (DAAs). Numerous clinical trials have shown that treatment response as well as tolerability of DAAs are superior to those of conventional therapy with pegylated interferon and ribavirin. However, the results of clinical trials may not be directly applied to real-world practice. Therefore our study tried to investigate the effectiveness of various DAA regimens in Taiwanese patients with chronic hepatitis C. Methods: We performed a retrospective study on 400 CHC patients. The primary endpoint was undetectable HCV RNA (an HCV RNA level of

The purpose of this study is to improve the machining precision and processing efficiency in the milling process of thin workpieces. A static analysis is conducted in commercial software ANSYS with the predicted cutting force exerted on the feature points. In this study, the cutting forces are measured by a sensory tool holder and the data coordinate transformation between the tool and workpiece has been established. Modified tool paths for compensation volumetric errors were built according to the deformation data as a CL (cutter location) file. Moreover, three program interfaces are developed based on MATLAB for calculating the cutting constants, predicting cutting forces, and generating the compensated tool path, respectively. A thin workpiece machining example was made for demonstration and verification, including a tool path simulation in NX CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) software and practical machining on a CNC milling machine. The result shows that the presented method successfully improved machining precision and processing efficiency.

This study sought to assess the cutaneous (peripheral) analgesic effects of antihistamine chlorpheniramine, compared with the long-lasting local anesthetic bupivacaine. After chlorpheniramine and bupivacaine were subcutaneously injected under the dorsal skin of the rats, the cutaneous analgesia effect was quantitatively evaluated by scoring the number to which the animal failed to react (cutaneous trunci muscle reflex). The quality and duration of chlorpheniramine and bupivacaine on infiltrative cutaneous analgesia were compared. We revealed that subcutaneous chlorpheniramine, as well as the local anesthetic bupivacaine elicited cutaneous analgesia in a dosage-dependent manner. Based on their ED50s (50% effective doses), the relative potency was found to be chlorpheniramine [1.13 (1.05–1.22) μmol]

We present PneuSeries, a series of modularized inflatables where their inflation and deflation are propagated in-between stage by stage to form various shapes. The key component of PneuSeries is the bidirectional check valve that passively regulates the air flowing in/out from/to adjacent inflatables, allowing each of the inflatables to be inflated/deflated one by one through serial propagation. The form of the inflatable series thus is programmed by the sequential operations of a pump that push/pull the air in/out. In this paper, we explored the design of PneuSeries and implemented working prototypes as a proof of concept. In particular, we built PneuSeries with (1) modularized cubical, cuboidal, tetrahedral, prismatic, and custom inflatables to examine their shape forming, (2) fast assembly connectors to allow quick reconfiguration of the series, and (3) folding mechanism to reduce irregularity of the shrunken inflatables. We also evaluated the inflating and deflating time and the flow rate of the valve for simulating the inflating and deflating process and display the steps and time required to transform in our software. Finally, we demonstrate example objects that show the capability of PneuSeries and its potential applications.

Thermally insulating materials (TIMs) with ultra-low thermal conductivity, fire-retardancy, and mechanical stability are demanded to improve energy efficiency in many fields, such as petrochemical plants, energy-saving buildings, and aerospace. However, traditional polymer-based TIMs could not meet these demands. Herein, we propose a direct foaming strategy for obtaining carbon nanotube (CNT) aerogels by the gradual expansion of CNT films with H2O2 as a foaming agent at room temperature. The obtained CNT aerogels have hierarchical cellular structures and possess an ultra-low density (4.6 mg cm−3) and thermal conductivity (16.5 mW m−1 K−1) as well as excellent mechanical robustness and fire-resistance. Our results show that such CNT aerogels have promising applications in the field of thermal insulation and present a facile pathway for the design of thermally insulating, fire-retardant materials based on CNTs.

Customers' participation is a critical factor for integrating the distributed energy resources via demand response and demand-side management programs, especially when customers become prosumers. Incentives need to be delivered by the energy management service to attract prosumers to operate their distributed energy resources and electricity loads grid-friendly actively. The cloud-based energy management service enables virtual trading for customers within the same community to minimize cost and smooth the fluctuation. With the potential fast-growing number of service providers and customers, the needs exist for efficiently collaborating across multiple service providers and customers. This paper proposes the distributed cross-community collaboration (XCC) for the cloud-based energy management service to enable collaboration across multiple communities and service providers. The XCC can efficiently handle large-scale variables and data with various allocated computing resources and is formulated as an alternating direction method of multipliers optimization problem. This paper also introduces a cross-community adjustment to avoid the overwhelmed exchanged data and computations among multiple communities under uncertainty. Performances are evaluated in experiments with the discussions.

[EN] Smart contract, which could help developer deploy decentralized and secure blockchain application, is one of the most promising technologies for modern Internet of things (IoT) ecosystem today. However, Ethereum smart contract lacks of ability to communicate with outside IoT environment. To enable smart contracts to fetch off-chain data, this paper proposes a data carrier architecture that is cost-effective and elastic for blockchain-enabled IoT environment. Three components, namely Mission Manager, Task Publisher and Worker, are presented in the data carrier architecture to interact with contract developer, smart contract, Ethereum node and off-chain data sources. Selective solutions are also proposed for filtering smart contract event and decoding event log to fit different requirements. The evaluation results and discussions show the proposed system will decrease about 20USD deployment cost in average for every smart contract, and it is more efficient and elastic compared with Oraclize Oracle data carrier service., This work was supported by the fund of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 61702102), Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province, China (Grant No. 2018J05100), Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (Grant No. xjq201809), and in part by the MOST of Taiwan (Grant No. 107-2623-E-009-006-D).

Objectives This study investigated how different concentrations of doxorubicin (DOX) can affect the function of cardiac cells. This study also examined whether activation of prokineticin receptor (PKR)-1 by a nonpeptide agonist, IS20, prevents DOX-induced cardiovascular toxicity in mouse models. Background High prevalence of heart failure during and following cancer treatments remains a subject of intense research and therapeutic interest. Methods This study used cultured cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells (ECs), and epicardium-derived progenitor cells (EDPCs) for in vitro assays, tumor-bearing models, and acute and chronic toxicity mouse models for in vivo assays. Results Brief exposure to cardiomyocytes with high-dose DOX increased the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by inhibiting a detoxification mechanism via stabilization of cytoplasmic nuclear factor, erythroid 2. Prolonged exposure to medium-dose DOX induced apoptosis in cardiomyocytes, ECs, and EDPCs. However, low-dose DOX promoted functional defects without inducing apoptosis in EDPCs and ECs. IS20 alleviated detrimental effects of DOX in cardiac cells by activating the serin threonin protein kinase B (Akt) or mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways. Genetic or pharmacological inactivation of PKR1 subdues these effects of IS20. In a chronic mouse model of DOX cardiotoxicity, IS20 normalized an elevated serum marker of cardiotoxicity and vascular and EDPC deficits, attenuated apoptosis and fibrosis, and improved the survival rate and cardiac function. IS20 did not interfere with the cytotoxicity or antitumor effects of DOX in breast cancer lines or in a mouse model of breast cancer, but it did attenuate the decreases in left ventricular diastolic volume induced by acute DOX treatment. Conclusions This study identified the molecular and cellular signature of dose-dependent, DOX-mediated cardiotoxicity and provided evidence that PKR-1 is a promising target to combat cardiotoxicity of cancer treatments., Central Illustration

We postulate that using a simple pulse oximetry monitor (POM) to detect the severity of OSA will help clinical staff confirm the need for early treatment. Hence, we compared the POM-derived oxygen desaturation index (ODI) (events/h) with the polysomnography (PSG)-derived apnea–hypopnea index (AHI) (events/h). Our study is intended to validate the SpO2 measurements and related ODI4% and ODI3% (events/h) calculations from POM associated with AHI and ODI from PSG based on 2007 and 2012 criteria. All 73 participants (mean age: 51.04 ± 13.14 years old) underwent an overnight PSG test and wore wristwatch POMs (PULSOX 300i) to automatically collect POM oxygen saturation (SpO2) data. Pearson correlation and the Bland and Altman method were used to verify the correlation between POM and PSG. We found that the POM SpO2 and the PSG2007 and PSG2012 scores were significantly highly correlated (total record time [TRT] and lowest SpO2, R2 = 0.815 and 0.817; ODI4%, R2 = 0.912 and 0.863 and ODI3%, R2 = 0.930 and 0.914). AHI was significantly correlated with ODI4% and ODI3%, but ODI3% was nonsignificantly higher (ODI4%, r = 0.955–0.929; ODI3%, r = 0.965–0.956). Both the ODI3% and the ODI4% were highly diagnostically sensitive and specific. The ODI3% score with the AHI 15 events/h cutoff was nonsignificantly higher (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.99, AHI 15 events/h; AUC = 0.95, AHI 5 events/h). We conclude that the ODI3% score is a feasible early screening alternative for patients with moderate-to-severe OSA.

The objective of the experiment was to assess the antinociceptive effect of dibucaine, bupivacaine, and epinephrine. To assess the mechanism of action of the interaction between dibucaine and epinephrine, phentolamine, a nonselective α-adrenergic antagonist, was added to the mixture.We assessed sensory blockade with these drugs by injecting 0.6 mL of drug-in-saline in the dorsal thoracolumbar area of rats; pinprick of the "wheal" formed by the injectate was the area targeted for stimulation to elicit a cutaneous trunci muscle reflex. The sensory block of dibucaine was compared with that of bupivacaine or epinephrine. Drug-drug interactions were analyzed by isobologram. Phentolamine was added to investigate the antinociceptive effect of dibucaine coinjected with epinephrine.We demonstrated that dibucaine, epinephrine, and bupivacaine produced dose-dependent skin antinociception. On the median effective dose (ED50) basis, the potency was higher for epinephrine (mean, 0.011 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 0.007-0.015] μmol) than for dibucaine (mean, 0.493 [95% CI, 0.435-0.560] μmol) (P.01), while there were no significant differences between dibucaine and bupivacaine (mean, 0.450 [95% CI, 0.400-0.505] μmol). On the equipotent basis (75% effective dose, median effective dose, and 25% effective dose), sensory block duration provoked by epinephrine was greater (P.01) than that provoked by dibucaine or bupivacaine. Coadministration of dibucaine with epinephrine produced a synergistic nociceptive block, whereas phentolamine blocked that synergistic block.The preclinical data indicated that there is no statistically significant difference between the potency and duration of dibucaine and bupivacaine in this model. Epinephrine synergistically enhances the effects of dibucaine, while phentolamine partially blocked those effects. α-Adrenergic receptors play an important role in controlling synergistic analgesic effect of dibucaine combined with epinephrine.

BackgroundTherapeutic ultrasound (TU) alleviates nerve injury-associated pain, while the molecular mechanisms are less clear. This is an investigator-initiated experimental study to evaluate the mechanisms and effects of ultrasound on prolonged post-thoracotomy pain in a rodent model.MethodsThe rats were randomly separated into four groups (n=8 per group): sham-operation (sham; group 1), thoracotomy and rib retraction (TRR; group 2), and TRR procedure followed by TU (TRR+TU-3; group 3) or TU with the ultrasound power turned off (TRR+TU-0; group 4). TU was delivered daily, beginning on postoperative day 11 (POD 11) for the next 2 weeks. Mechanical sensitivity, subcutaneous tissue temperature, and spinal substance P and interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β) were evaluated on PODs 11 and 23.ResultsGroup 3, which received ultrasound treatment (3 MHz; 1.0 W/cm2) for 5 min each day, demonstrated higher mechanical withdrawal thresholds when compared with the group without ultrasound intervention (group 2) or sham ultrasound (group 4). Ultrasound treatment also inhibited the upregulation of spinal substance P and IL-1β measured from spinal cord dorsal horns extract and increased subcutaneous temperature.ConclusionsThe results of this study suggest an increase in mechanical withdrawal thresholds and subcutaneous temperature, as well as a downregulation of spinal substance P and IL-1β, in the group which received ultrasound treatment. The regulation of spinal substance P and IL-1β may mediate potential effects of this non-invasive treatment.

To the Editor: We read with interest the research article entitled, “Bidirectional Relationship Between Primary Sjogren Syndrome and Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma: A Nationwide Population-based Study” by Wang, et al published in The Journal of Rheumatology .1 The authors conducted research revealing that primary Sjogren syndrome (SS) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) are bidirectionally associated with each other. This article was the … Address correspondence Dr. J. Cheng-Chung Wei, Department of Allergy, Immunology & Rheumatology, Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, No. 110, Sec. 1, Jianguo N. Rd., South District, Taichung City 40201, Taiwan. Email: jccwei{at}gmail.com.

Background:Bronchiolitis obliterans (BO), first mentioned in 1901, is a severe and rare chronic lung disease in children. BO has various etiologies and the most common in children is post-infectious BO (PIBO). High resolution CT (HRCT) is an often-used image tool for the diagnosis of BO, and pulmonary scintigraphy is an alternative tool that can functionally evaluate BO. Recently, dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) have also been applied to BO for its accuracy and safety. Here we described the characteristics of HRCT, pulmonary scintigraphy, DECT, and the clinical profiles of patients with PIBO.Methods:This is a retrospective and descriptive study. Data were collected from patients diagnosed with PIBO from 2014 to 2019 in the Pediatric Cardiopulmonary Outpatient Clinics of Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital. The diagnosis was based on clinical, chest X-ray, and HRCT findings. Clinical profile, radiological characteristics, and images of pulmonary scintigraphy were documented.Results:Eight children (4 boys and 4 girls) were diagnosed with PIBO at a mean age of 25.8 months (range 15 to 41 months). Two of our patients developed pulmonary hypertension. The most common HRCT finding is mosaic pattern, where match ventilation/perfusion (V/Q) defects is a general feature in pulmonary scintigraphy. DECT pulmonary blood vasculature images revealed various degrees of decreased perfusion and is compatible with the decreased perfusion on pulmonary scintigraphy.Conclusion:The therapeutic strategy of PIBO is still lacking of standardization. HRCT and V/Q scans are important image tools in diagnosis and follow-up of BO. DECT may be used in BO patients as it has no additional radiation exposure and add value on functional information of HRCT.

Objectives Autoimmunity may play a role in endometriosis. The association between endometriosis and RA remains unknown. This study was conducted to identify any evidence for this relationship. Methods This 13-year, nationwide, population-based, retrospective cohort study analysed the risk of RA in a cohort of individuals with endometriosis. We investigated the incidence of RA among patients with endometriosis using data from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2000, which is maintained by the Taiwan National Health Research Institutes. We used propensity scores to match comorbidities in the two cohorts. Kaplan–Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazard model were employed to analyse the association between endometriosis and RA among patients with different potential risks. Results Patients with endometriosis [adjusted hazard ratio (HR) 1.75, 95% CI 1.27, 2.41], aged ≥45 years (adjusted HR 1.50, 95% CI 1.06–2.13) and with autoimmune disease (adjusted HR 6.99, 95% CI 2.84–17.21) had a significantly higher risk of RA. The analyses also showed that when stratified by age, comorbidities and medication use, the risk of RA in patients with endometriosis was also higher than in those without endometriosis. Conclusions This 14-year, nationwide, population-based retrospective cohort study revealed that patients with endometriosis have a higher risk of RA. In the clinical management of patients with RA, rheumatologists should be especially mindful of the possibility of underlying endometriosis.

This paper proposes a dynamic attention-based visual odometry framework (DAVO), a learning-based VO method, for estimating the ego-motion of a monocular camera. DAVO dynamically adjusts the attention weights on different semantic categories for different motion scenarios based on optical flow maps. These weighted semantic categories can then be used to generate attention maps that highlight the relative importance of different semantic regions in input frames for pose estimation. In order to examine the proposed DAVO, we perform a number of experiments on the KITTI Visual Odometry and SLAM benchmark suite to quantitatively and qualitatively inspect the impacts of the dynamically adjusted weights on the accuracy of the evaluated trajectories. Moreover, we design a set of ablation analyses to justify each of our design choices, and validate the effectiveness as well as the advantages of DAVO. Our experiments on the KITTI dataset shows that the proposed DAVO framework does provide satisfactory performance in ego-motion estimation, and is able deliver competitive performance when compared to the contemporary VO methods.

Background: The peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) has been widely used. However, there is still a lack of large sample size-based relevant risk factor investigation in children with blood diseases in china. Methods: We performed a retrospective, the single-center cohort study of child blood disease patients with PICC insertion. Totally, 2974 patients were enrolled for our study. Results: B-ultrasound plus Seldinger technology significantly improved the success rate of PICC insertion. The most common non-infectious complications were rash, followed by catheter blockage, mechanical phlebitis, and catheter broke. the male, 1-3 years old, Power PICC solo catheter and spring are risk factors for the rash. The power PICC solo catheter was the most important risk factor for catheter blockage. Insertion site under the elbow was the most important risk factor for phlebitis and catheter damage. Conclusion: Our finding first shed new light on the risk factors associated with PICC complications for Chinese blood disease children.

Background Dynamic prediction of patients’ mortality risk in ICU with time series data is limited due to the high dimensionality, uncertainty with sampling intervals, and other issues. New deep learning method, temporal convolution network (TCN), makes it possible to deal with complex clinical time series data in ICU. We aimed to develop and validate it to predict mortality risk using time series data from MIMIC III dataset. Methods Finally, 21139 records of ICU stays were analyzed and in total 17 physiological variables from the MIMIC III dataset were used to predict mortality risk. Then we compared the model performances of attention-based TCN with traditional artificial intelligence (AI) method. Results The Area Under Receiver Operating Characteristic (AUCROC) and Area Under Precision-Recall curve (AUC-PR) of attention-based TCN for predicting the mortality risk 48 h after ICU admission were 0.837(0.824–0.850) and 0.454. The sensitivity and specificity of attention-based TCN were 67.1% and 82.6%, compared to the traditional AI method yield low sensitivity (

Objectives The purpose of this study was to estimate the ability of antimalarial medications to induce local infiltration analgesia. Methods Using a rat model of skin infiltration anaesthesia, the effects of antimalarial medications (primaquine, chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine and amodiaquine) were compared with the application of lidocaine. Key findings At a dose of 3 μmol, primaquine and chloroquine displayed better potency (all P < 0.05) and greater duration (all P < 0.01) of cutaneous analgesia than lidocaine, whereas the other antimalarial medications showed a similar potency and duration of cutaneous analgesia when compared with lidocaine. When a dose of 3 μmol antimalarial medication was used, primaquine was the most potent and had the longest duration of action among four antimalarial medications. The relative potency ranking (ED50, 50% effective dose) has been found to be primaquine [2.10 (1.87 – 2.37) μmol] > lidocaine [6.27 (5.32 –7.39) μmol] (P < 0.01). Infiltration analgesia of skin with primaquine had a greater duration of action than did lidocaine on the equipotent (ED25, ED50, ED75) basis (P < 0.01). Conclusions Primaquine and chloroquine have greater potency and longer lasting skin analgesia when compared with lidocaine, while the other antimalarials display a similar potency in comparison with lidocaine.

Objective To investigate the efficacy and safety of three H. erinaceus mycelia (EAHE) capsules (350 mg/capsule; containing 5 mg/g erinacine A active ingredient) per day for the treatment of patients with mild Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Methods This study comprised a 3-week no-drug screening period, followed by a 49-week double-blind treatment period with 2-parallel groups in which eligible patients were randomized to either three 5 mg/g EAHE mycelia capsules per day or identical appearing placebo capsules. Cognitive assessments, ophthalmic examinations, biomarker collection, and neuroimaging were followed throughout the study period. Results After 49 weeks of EAHE intervention, a significant decrease in Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument score was noted in the placebo group, a significant improvement in Mini-Mental State Examination score was observed in the EAHE group and a significant Instrumental Activities of Daily Living score difference were found between the two groups. In addition, EAHE group achieved a significantly better contrast sensitivity when compared to the placebo group. Moreover, only the placebo group observed significantly lowered biomarkers such as calcium, albumin, apolipoprotein E4, hemoglobin, and brain-derived neurotrophic factor and significantly elevated alpha1-antichymotrypsin and amyloid-beta peptide 1–40 over the study period. Using diffusion tensor imaging, the mean apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values from the arcuate fasciculus region in the dominant hemisphere significantly increased in the placebo group while no significant difference was found in the EAHE group in comparison to their baselines. Moreover, ADC values from the parahippocampal cingulum region in the dominant hemisphere significantly decreased in the EAHE group whereas no significant difference was found in the placebo group when compared to their baselines. Lastly, except for four subjects who dropped out of the study due to abdominal discomfort, nausea, and skin rash, no other adverse events were reported. Conclusion Three 350 mg/g EAHE capsules intervention for 49 weeks demonstrated higher CASI, MMSE, and IADL scores and achieved a better contrast sensitivity in patients with mild AD when compared to the placebo group, suggesting that EAHE is safe, well-tolerated, and may be important in achieving neurocognitive benefits. Clinical Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NCT04065061.

Stacking in machine learning allows multiple classification or regression algorithms to work together with a goal to enhance performance. To understand the risky properties of malware contamination in a system, it is important to accurately classify malware type first. Malware classification is the procedure of labeling the families of malware. In this paper, we automate stacking with 7 machine learning algorithms and 3 boosting algorithms. The experimental results show a 99.2% accuracy is achieved from a multilayer perceptron network with AdaBoost classifier, which outperforms other models on the malware API call dataset.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the ability of chloroquine and chloroquine in combination with vasoconstrictor epinephrine to act as a local anesthetic in skin analgesia. After subcutaneous injection of drugs in rats, the inhibition of the cutaneous trunci muscle reflex (CTMR) is designed for evaluation of the cutaneous analgesic effect. The analgesic effect of chloroquine was compared with that of bupivacaine or coadministration of chloroquine and epinephrine. Chloroquine produced exactly the same local anesthesia as bupivacaine did in a dose-dependent manner. On the ED50 (50 % effective dose) basis, the analgesic potency was chloroquine (4.81 [4.45–5.20] μmol)

One of the main challenges in the smart grid is how to efficiently manage the high volume data from smart meters and sensors and preserve the privacy from the consumption data to avoid potential attacks (e.g., identity theft) for the involved prosumers, retail electricity providers and other clusters of distributed energy resources. This paper proposes a two-layer framework with the cloud computing infrastructure. The virtual ring and identity-based cryptography are utilized in each layer to preserve privacy efficiently. The methods of the virtual ring and identity-based cryptography are introduced. The purposes and needs are discussed at the end of this paper.

With the problems of doping in sport becoming more serious, the World Anti-Doping Code was drafted by the World Anti-Doping Agency in 2003 and became effective one year later. Since its passage, the Code has been renewed four times, with the fourth and latest version promulgated in January 2015. The Code was intended to tackle the problems of doping in sports through cooperation with governments to ensure fair competition as well as the health of athletes. To understand China’s strategies for managing compliance with the Code and also the implications behind those strategies, this study borrows ideas from theories of compliance. China’s high levels of performance in sport, judged by medal success, have undoubtedly placed the country near the top of the global sports field. Therefore, how China acts in relation to international organizations, and especially how it responds to the World Anti-Doping Agency, is highly significant for the future of elite sport and for the world anti-doping regime. Through painstaking efforts, the researchers visited Beijing to conduct field research four times and interviewed a total of 22 key sports personnel, including officials at the General Administration of Sports of China, the China Anti-Doping Agency, and individual sport associations, as well as sport scholars and leading officials of China’s professional sports leagues. In response to the World Anti-Doping Agency, China developed strategies related to seven institutional factors: ‘monitoring’, ‘verification’, ‘horizontal linkages’, ‘nesting’, ‘capacity building’, ‘national concern’ and ‘institutional profile’. As for the implications, the Chinese government is willing and able to comply with the World Anti-Doping Agency Code. In other words, the Chinese government is willing to pay a high price in terms of money, manpower and material resources so that it can recover from the disgrace suffered as a result of doping scandals in the 1990s. The government wants to ensure that China’s prospects as a participant, bidder and host of mega sporting events are not compromised, especially as the host of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

We evaluated the interaction of dopamine-proxymetacaine and dopamine- oxybuprocaine antinociception using isobolograms.This experiment uses subcutaneous drug (proxymetacaine, oxybuprocaine, and dopamine) injections under the skin of the rat's back, thus simulating infiltration blocks. The dose-related antinociceptive curves of proxymetacaine and oxybuprocaine alone and in combination with dopamine were constructed, and then the antinociceptive interactions between the local anesthetic and dopamine were analyzed using isobolograms.Subcutaneous proxymetacaine, oxybuprocaine, and dopamine produced a sensory block to local skin pinpricks in a dose-dependent fashion. The rank order of potency was proxymetacaine (0.57 [0.52-0.63] μmol/kg)oxybuprocaine (1.05 [0.96-1.15] μmol/kg)dopamine (165 [154-177] μmol/kg; P.01 for each comparison) based on the 50% effective dose values. On the equianesthetic basis (25% effective dose, 50% effective dose, and 75% effective dose), the nociceptive block duration of proxymetacaine or oxybuprocaine was shorter than that of dopamine (P.01). Oxybuprocaine or proxymetacaine coinjected with dopamine elicited a synergistic antinociceptive effect and extended the duration of action.Oxybuprocaine and proxymetacaine had a higher potency and provoked a shorter duration of sensory block compared with dopamine. The use of dopamine increased the quality and duration of skin antinociception caused by oxybuprocaine and proxymetacaine.

Objectives The objective of this experiment was to investigate spinal anaesthetic effects of pramoxine and its comparison with bupivacaine, a long-lasting local anaesthetic. Methods After intrathecal injection, three neurobehavioural assessments, which consisted of nociceptive, proprioceptive and motor block, were constructed in rats. The effects of bupivacaine and pramoxine (four doses of each drug) in a dose-related manner were conducted to obtain the ED50 (50% effective dose). Pramoxine potency and duration at provoking spinal nociceptive, proprioceptive and motor block were compared with those of bupivacaine. Key findings We manifested that pramoxine provoked dose-relatedly spinal blockades of nociception, proprioception and motor function. Based on the ED50, the rank potency at producing spinal nociceptive, proprioceptive and motor block was bupivacaine (0.90 (0.82–1.02), 1.00 (0.92–1.08) and 1.16 (1.02–1.34) μmol/kg) greater (P < 0.01 for the differences) than pramoxine (15.47 (14.04–17.05), 16.46 (15.06–17.99), and 17.77 (16.48–19.15) μmol/kg). The spinal block duration created by bupivacaine was not predominantly different (P > 0.05 for the differences) from that created by pramoxine at the equipotent doses (ED75, ED50 and ED25). Conclusions Our preclinical experiment indicated that pramoxine elicited a dose-related spinal block, was less potent than bupivacaine and had a similar duration of spinal block compared with bupivacaine.

Fluctuated penetration of electric vehicle (EV) loads and production capacities from distributed energy resource (DER) bring large impacts to power systems. To smooth fluctuations, financial incentives have to be maximized for customers controlling their consumption patterns. A fair demand response with electric vehicles (F-DREVs) is proposed for the cloud-based energy management service. Customers with EV, DER, storage and multiple loads form communities and obtain optimal choices (electricity usage and trading) from F-DREV. F-DREV aims to maximize incentives by minimizing global cost for each community within the given time period, and smooth fluctuations. In order to attract customers to actively participate, we propose the fairness as “customers with higher participation level can reduce their individual cost more than those with lower participation level within the same community,” which is attainable by customizing trading prices. A binary linear programming model is formulated, and performances are evaluated in experiments.

Older adults with multiple complex care needs tend to receive fragmented care that may jeopardize their quality of life (QoL) and health outcomes. This study evaluated the determinants of improved QoL among integrated outpatient service recipients with multimorbidity.We conducted a retrospective cohort study of integrated geriatric outpatient services (IGOS) at a tertiary medical center in Taiwan. Data from 2018 to 2019 were retrieved. All patients underwent comprehensive geriatric assessment, which included demographic information, serial functional assessments, and assessment for QoL. QoL was reassessed through a telephone survey 6 months after the patients' first visit to IGOS. Factors associated with the interval changes in QoL were identified using multivariate logistic regression.Data from 995 patients receiving IGOS (mean age: 82.21 ± 7.96 years, 54.5% males) were analyzed. An overall mean improvement in QoL was noted (EQ-5D index: +0.055±0.26, p0.001) while 747 recipients reported maintained or improved QoL. The results of the multivariate logistic regression showed that poorer nutritional status (OR = 1.56, 95% CI: 1.07-2.28), depressive symptoms (OR = 1.99, 95% CI: 1.38-2.86), and frailty (OR = 1.66, 95% CI: 1.10-2.52) were independent risk factors for poorer QoL after adjustment for baseline QoL.Integrated outpatient services improved the quality of life of older adults with multimorbidity. Those with poorer nutritional status, depressive symptoms and frailty were less likely to show improvement in their QoL.

The goal of the experimental design was to assess the cutaneous analgesic effect of mexiletine by co-injection with clonidine. The effect of nociceptive block was evaluated according to the inhibition of the cutaneous trunci muscle reflex (CTMR) in response to skin pinpricks in rats. The dose-related analgesic effect of mexiletine alone or mexiletine co-administrated with clonidine was constructed after subcutaneous injection. Subcutaneous injections of mexiletine elicited dose-related cutaneous analgesia. Compared with mexiletine (1.8 μmol), adding clonidine to mexiletine (1.8 μmol) solutions for skin nociceptive block potentiated and prolonged the action ( p 0.01). Mexiletine (6 μmol) combined with clonidine extended the duration of cutaneous analgesia when compared with mexiletine (6 μmol) alone ( p 0.01). Co-administration of clonidine increases the potency and extends the duration of cutaneous analgesia by mexiletine, and the minimal dose of clonidine to intensify the analgesic effect is 0.06 μmol.

Both adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) and fat grafting promote burn wound healing, but whether adipogen-derived cells using various inducers such as 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine (IBMX) and insulin affect wound healing is unknown. Herein, ADSC-differentiated adipogenic lineages were used in rat burn wounds to evaluate wound healing potential. ADSCs were cultivated using six different adipogenic differentiation conditions (IBMX ± insulin, IBMX for 5 days, high and low Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium) and in vitro morphological changes and cell proliferations during adipogenic differentiation were recorded. Intermediate burn wounds were inflicted in 15 Wistar male rats. Afterwards, the rats were divided into five groups for subcutaneous injections under the wounds: control; ADSCs; differentiated adipocytes (-IBMX+INSULIN and +IBMX[D1-5]+INSULIN) and fat prepared by Coleman technique. Macroscopic changes and histology were documented for 3 weeks. Repeated measures analysis of variance was performed to analyze cell growth and wound healing with a statistical level set of P < .05. Induction cocktails significantly reduced proliferation and induced lipid droplet accumulation. Conditioning without insulin induced the least lipid accumulation, while discontinuing IBMX generated larger adipocytes (P < .001). Adipogenic differentiated ADSCs had similar wound healing abilities with ADSC and fat injections, but differentiated adipocytes (+IBMX[D1-5]+INSULIN) and fat grafting accelerated the early healing process relative to ADSC (P < .001). Reduced fibrosis and mild inflammatory infiltration limited to superficial dermis were observed in +IBMX(D1-5)+INSULIN and fat injection groups, while those reactions were mild to moderate in ADSC group. Differentiated adipocytes achieve similar wound healing results compared with ADSC and fat injections, but differentiated adipocytes (+IBMX[D1-5]+INSULIN) and fat grafting accelerate early healing relative to ADSC.

The electric vehicles (EVs) have been dramatically increased and popularized in recent years. The ability to export the power to the grid via the vehicle -to -grid (V2G) technology makes the EVs become the promising solutions for reducing the peak demand in the power grid but could also severely increase the fluctuated penetration if no scheduling mechanisms are deployed. Therefore, it is an essential task to provide the optimal EV charging and discharging scheduling. However, to practically reinforce the scheduling relies not only on the ability to offer it in the efficient, reliable and scalable approaches, but also on the willingness of the participation from EVs owners. The cloud -based energy management service (EMS) satisfies the needs to practically deploy the scheduling mechanisms for the heterogeneous EVs and provide the incentives for customers' participation. The cloud computing is introduced with its characteristics and is utilized for the design of an extensive cloud -based framework, which provides the energy management as a service (EMaaS) to suggest the optimal electricity usage and trading options for every participated customer. The framework and the procedure of the cloud -based EMS are illustrated, and the EVs charging and discharging scheduling for the cloud -based EMS is formulated and implemented. The scheduling results for both EVs with and without the V2G ability are discussed with various examples.

Venetoclax, a selective B cell leukemia/lymphoma-2 (BCL2) inhibitor, has recently shown activity in relapsed or refractory (R/R) acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Effective biomarkers for identifying patients most likely to respond to venetoclax-based treatment are of clinical utility. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety profiles of venetoclax-based therapy in a total 40 R/R AML patients and identify the potentially predictive factors for response. Overall response rate was 50%, including 9 (22.5%) complete response (CR) or CR with incomplete hematologic recovery of either neutrophil or platelet counts (CRi). Median time to best response was 1.4 months and the median overall survival (OS) was 6.6 months. Presence of intermediate-risk cytogenetics predicted better OS compared to unfavorable-risk cytogenetics. Patients harboring NPM1, RUNX1, or SRSF2 mutations seemed to have higher CR/CRi rates and median OS was significantly longer in RUNX1-mutated patients. On the contrary, patients with FLT3-ITD, TP53, or DNMT3A mutations did not reach any objective response and had worse OS. No laboratory or clinical tumor lysis syndrome was observed and the most common adverse events were prolonged cytopenias which resulted in 67.5% of febrile neutropenia. Patients with concurrent use of azole antifungals had similar incidence of cytopenias compared with those without azole antifungals. In summary, we demonstrate that venetoclax is an effective and well-tolerated salvage option for R/R AML patients. Survival benefits were particularly remarkable in patients with intermediate-risk cytogenetics or RUNX1 mutations. In contrast, TP53, NRAS, and DNMT3A mutations as well as FLT3-ITD conferred negative impact on survival.

Surgical tool detection is important to surgical workflow recognition. It is considered as an essential task in surgical phase recognition. Recently, Densely Connected Convolutional Networks have gained a huge success in computer vision applications, especially in object detection and image Classification. In this paper, we proposed a method to solve the surgical tool presence detection problem as a multi-label classification problem based on Densely Connected Convolutional Networks. The performance of the proposed method has been evaluated in the surgical tool presence detection challenge dataset held by Modeling and Monitoring of Computer Assisted Interventions workshop. The result shows that our proposed model has achieved significant success in detecting surgical tool and got a mean average precision of 62.9% on the testing data. The technology studied in this paper has broad application prospects in computer-aided surgical systems and is a core component of the artificial intelligence medical operating room in the future.

The bacterial species, Helicobacter pylori, is associated with several gastrointestinal diseases, and poses serious health threats owing to its resistance to antibiotics. Lactobacillus spp., on the other hand, possess probiotic activities that have beneficial effects in humans. However, the mechanisms by which Lactobacillus spp. harbor favorable functions and act against H. pylori infection remain to be explored. The aim of this study was to investigate the ability of bacterial strains, Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Lactobacillus acidophilus, termed GMNL-74 and GMNL-185, respectively, to inhibit H. pylori growth and inflammation. Our results showed that GMNL-74 and GMNL-185 possess potent antimicrobial activity against multidrug resistant (MDR)-H. pylori. In addition, an in vitro cell-based model revealed that the inhibition of H. pylori adhesion and invasion of gastric epithelial cells and interleukin-8 production were significantly decreased by treatment with both the Lactobacillus strains. In vivo studies demonstrated that colonization of H. pylori and induced inflammation in the mouse stomach were also alleviated by these Lactobacillus strains. Furthermore, the abundance of beneficial gut bacteria, including Bifidobacterium spp. and Akkermansia muciniphilia, were significantly increased in H. pylori-infected mice treated with GMNL-74 and GMNL-185. These results demonstrate that Lactobacillus spp. ameliorate H. pylori-induced inflammation and supports beneficial gut specific bacteria that act against H. pylori infection.

The aim of the study was to compare the proposed spinal anesthetic effect of ifenprodil, an a1 adrenergic receptor antagonist, with that of the long-acting local anesthetic bupivacaine.After intrathecally injecting the rats with five different doses of each drug, the dose-response curves of ifenprodil and bupivacaine were constructed to obtain the 50% effective dose (ED50). The spinal blockades of motor function and nociception of ifenprodil were compared with that of bupivacaine.We showed that either ifenprodil or bupivacaine produced spinal blockades of motor function and nociception dose-dependently. On the ED50 basis, the potency of ifenprodil (0.42(0.38-0.46) μmol; 0.40(0.36-0.44) μmol) was equal (p0.05) to that of bupivacaine (0.38(0.36-0.40) μmol; 0.35(0.32-0.38) μmol) in motor function and nociception, respectively. At the equianesthetic doses (ED25, ED50, and ED75), duration produced by ifenprodil was greater than that produced by bupivacaine in motor function and nociception (p0.05 for the differences). Furthermore, both ifenprodil and bupivacaine showed longer duration of sensory blockade than that of motor blockade (p0.05 for the differences).The resulting data demonstrated that ifenprodil produces a dose-dependent local anesthetic effect in spinal anesthesia. Ifenprodil shows a more sensory-selective duration of action over motor block, whereas the duration of anesthesia is significantly longer with ifenprodil than with bupivacaine.

Clonidine prolongs duration of analgesia when used as an adjunct to local anesthetics for infiltrative cutaneous analgesia, and propranolol produces local anesthesia. The purpose of the experiment was to evaluate clonidine as an adjuvant for propranolol on the quality and duration of cutaneous analgesia. A rat model of cutaneous trunci muscle reflex (CTMR) in response to local skin pinprick was employed to evaluate the cutaneous analgesic effect of propranolol combined with clonidine. The long-lasting local anesthetic bupivacaine was used as control. Cutaneous analgesia elicited by propranolol and bupivacaine was dose-dependent, and both propranolol (9.0μmol) and bupivacaine (1.8μmol) produced 100% nociceptive blockade. On an 50% effective dose (ED50) basis, the relative potency was bupivacaine [0.48 (0.42-0.55) μmol] greater than propranolol [2.27 (1.98-2.54) μmol] (p

The aim of this experiment was to investigate the interaction between epinephrine and 2 local anesthetics (proxymetacaine or oxybuprocaine) using subcutaneous injections under the hairy skin, thereby simulating infiltration blocks.Using a rat model of cutaneous trunci muscle reflex in response to local skin pinpricks, the anesthetic properties of proxymetacaine and oxybuprocaine alone and in combination with epinephrine as an infiltrative anesthetic were tested. Isobolographic analysis was used for the analgesic interactions between adjuvant epinephrine and the local anesthetics. Lidocaine was used as a control group.Oxybuprocaine, proxymetacaine, and lidocaine elicited a dose-dependent block to pinpricks. On the 50% effective dose (ED50) basis, their relative potencies were proxymetacaine [0.126 (0.113-0.141) μmol] greater than oxybuprocaine [0.208 (0.192-0.226) μmol] greater than lidocaine [6.331 (5.662-7.079) μmol] (P0.01 for each comparison). On an equipotent basis (ED25, ED50, and ED75), sensory block duration elicited by oxybuprocaine or proxymetacaine was greater than that elicited by lidocaine (P0.01). Coadministration of proxymetacaine, oxybuprocaine, or lidocaine with epinephrine produced a synergistic analgesic effect and prolonged the cutaneous analgesic effect. After adding epinephrine, oxybuprocaine was much faster, reaching its maximal blockade, than proxymetacaine or lidocaine (P0.01).We concluded that proxymetacaine and oxybuprocaine were more potent and produced greater duration of nociceptive block than lidocaine. The use of epinephrine augmented the potency and prolonged the duration of proxymetacaine, oxybuprocaine, and lidocaine as an infiltrative anesthetic.

Tc-99m phytate hepatic scintigraphy remains the standard method for evaluating the functional features of Kupffer cells. In this study, we demonstrate the variable uptake feature of focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH) in Tc-99m phytate scintigraphy. We reviewed all patients who underwent Tc-99m phytate hepatic scintigraphy between 2008 and 2012 in Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Cases with FNH were diagnosed on the basis of pathology or at least one or more prior imaging with a periodic clinical follow-up. All patients received a standard protocol of dynamic flow study and planar and Tc-99m phytate single-photon emission computed tomography (E. CAM; Siemens). The correlation of variable nodular radioactivity with parameters such as tumor size and localization was analyzed. In total, 15 lesions of 14 patients in the clinic were diagnosed as FNH. The tumor size was approximately 2.9–7.4 cm (mean size 4.6 cm). Four lesions were larger than 5 cm. The major anatomic distribution was in the right hepatic lobe (10 lesions), particularly in the superior segments (7 lesions). Tc-99m phytate single-photon emission computed tomography imaging for determining the functional features of Kupffer cells included cool/cold (8 lesions), isoradioactive/warm (6 lesions), and hot (1 lesion) patterns of uptake. We did not observe any statistically significant correlation between variable nodular radioactivity and tumor size (p=0.68) or localization (p=0.04). Herein, we demonstrate the variable uptake feature of FNH in Tc-99m phytate scintigraphy. In small FNH tumors (< 5 cm), increased or equal uptake still provided specificity for the differential diagnosis of hepatic solid tumors.

Background The purpose of the experiment was to assess interactions of dopamine with propranolol as an infiltrative anesthetic. Methods After injecting the rats with four doses of drugs subcutaneously, the cutaneous analgesic effect of propranolol was compared with dopamine through the blockade of cutaneous trunci muscle reflex (CTMR) in response to local skin pinprick. Drug–drug interactions were examined via an isobolographic analysis. Results We demonstrated that the action of propranolol and dopamine was dose dependent to skin infiltrative analgesia. On the ED 50 (50% effective dose) basis, the rank of drug potency was propranolol (11.3 [10.6–12.2] μmol) > dopamine (195 [188–205] μmol) ( p 25 , ED 50 , ED 75 ), the block duration caused by dopamine was equal to that caused by propranolol. Coadministration of dopamine and propranolol exhibited a synergistic effect on infiltrative cutaneous analgesia. Conclusions The preclinical data showed that dopamine produced a lesser potency but a comparable duration of cutaneous analgesia compared to propranolol. Adding dopamine to propranolol potentiated and prolonged propranolol's cutaneous analgesic effect.

The aim of the study was to investigate the analgesic effects of adding serotonin to oxybuprocaine or proxymetacaine preparations. We employed a rat model of the cutaneous trunci muscle reflex (CTMR) to conduct the dose-response curves and duration of drugs (oxybuprocaine, proxymetacaine, or serotonin) as an infiltrative anesthetic. The use of isobolographic methods to analyze the drug-drug interactions. We showed that oxybuprocaine and proxymetacaine, as well as serotonin produced dose-dependent skin antinociception. On the basis of 50% effective dose (ED50), the rank order of drug potency was serotonin [7.22 (6.45–8.09) μmol/kg]

Background and aim Asian populations have relatively lower prevalence of gastroesophageal reflux disease and tend to exhibit symptoms of prolonged gastric retention. However, it remains unknown if slower gastric emptying influences its features in Asian countries. We prospectively assessed the potential implications of slower gastric emptying in an Asian-Pacific cohort of gastroesophageal reflux disease by a hospital-based survey. Methods One hundred fifty-two patients of gastroesophageal reflux disease complete the scintigraphic measurement of solid phase of gastric emptying. Clinical symptoms and psychological stress are recorded by self-report questionnaire. The status of Helicobacter pylori infection, blood level of pepsinogen I, and I/II ratio are assessed. Results Forty-seven percent and 28% of the patients have slower gastric emptying rate, depending on the incremental defined cut-off values of slower gastric emptying, respectively. Multiple logistic regression analysis indicates that older age and depression score are independently related to slower gastric emptying. Subgroup analysis discloses that patients with slower gastric emptying and higher depression score tend to present with non-erosive esophagitis whereas higher body mass index level and male gender in patients with normal gastric emptying predict the presence of erosive reflux disease. Conclusions Our study cohort of Asian patients indicates distinctive clinical implications of slower gastric emptying in patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease.

Understanding the brain is perhaps one of the greatest challenges facing twenty-first century science. While a traditional computer excels in precision and unbiased logic, its abilities to interact socially lags behind those of biological neural systems. Recent technologies, such as neuromorphic engineering, cloud infrastructure, and big data analytics, have emerged that can narrow the gap between traditional robots and human intelligence. Neuromorphic robotics mimicking brain functions can contribute in developing intelligent machines capable of learning and making autonomous decisions. Cloud-based robotics take advantage of remote resources for parallel computation and sharing large amounts of information while benefiting from analysis of massive sensor data from robots. In this paper, we survey recent advances in neuromorphic computing, cloud-based robotics, and big data analytics and list the most important challenges faced by robot architects. We also propose a novel dual system architecture for robots where they have a brain centered cloud with access to big data analytics.

Background Pramoxine has been shown to produce spinal anesthesia, while cutaneous analgesia (peripheral) of pramoxine is not established. The experimental goal was to examine cutaneous antinociception produced by a local anesthetic (LA) pramoxine and compare this result with that of another well-known LA lidocaine. Methods Cutaneous antinociception was evaluated by blockade of pinprick- induced cutaneous trunci muscle reflex (CTMR) on the skin of rat's back. After the dose–related curves were constructed, the quality and duration of drug's (lidocaine and pramoxine) cutaneous antinociception were compared. Results We showed that pramoxine, as well as lidocaine produced skin antinociception in a dose–related fashion. The relative potency (ED50 [50% effective dose] basis) was lidocaine (5.44 [4.67–6.35] μmol) greater than pramoxine (42.1 [38.8–45.7] μmol) (p Conclusions These preclinical data indicated that pramoxine elicits skin antinociception dose-relatedly. Pramoxine exhibits a potency less than that of lidocaine while they have a comparable duration of skin antinociceptive action.