Search

To observe the adverse effects of specific immunotherapy (SIT) with standardized dust mite allergen preparation in the treatment of allergic rhinitis.Three hundred and eighty-six patients with allergic rhinitis who received subcutaneous SIT with a standardized dust mite allergen preparation were enrolled in this study. The patients were treated for at least 15 weeks,adverse effects after each injection from dosing phase to maintenance phase were recorded and incidence of adverse effects were analyzed.Of all the patients,adverse reactions occurred in 42 patients (10. 9%),10 local reactions (2. 6%) and 36 systemic side effects (9. 3%) which included 34 mild ,1 moderate and 1 severe side effects (no fatal) were reported respectively. None had anaphylactic shock. Among three treatment options, incidence of routine program was the highest (21.1%),followed by adult cluster program (11. 9%), adverse effects of children cluster program was the least (1. 5%). The adverse effects often happened in the middle and late phase of does addition period and early phase of maintenance period.SIT with standardized dust mite allergen preparation in the treatment of allergic rhinitis is a safe and effective treatment by complying with the guidelines and taking specific interventions.

A new tetradentate ruthenium complex has been developed for hydrogenation of esters. The catalyst’s structure features a pyridinemethanamino group and three tight chelating five-membered rings. The structure character is believed to be responsible for its high stability and high carbonylation-resistant properties. Thus, this catalyst shows outstanding performance in the catalytic hydrogenation of a variety of esters, especially for fatty acid esters, which may be used in practical applications. New insight on designing hydrogenation catalyst for reducing esters to alcohols has been provided through theoretical calculations.

The strict safety requirements and the confidential character of the development process of medical equipment call for suitable theory-based usability evaluation methods to be used by in-house cognitive engineering experts at medical companies. In this study, the Cognitive Walkthrough (CW) method was employed to evaluate two types of graphical user interface (GUI) prototypes of dialysis machines: a haemodialysis machine for hospital use by professional nurses, and a peritoneal dialysis machine for home use by patients as the main users. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether different user background settings could affect the CW results when evaluating the GUI of computer-based medical machines. The evaluation results showed that different user background settings can affect the CW results in the evaluation. When more factors were included in the user background setting, a wider range of usability problems was found. User background setting is an important issue to take into account in further work with the development of the CW method for medical equipment. The methodological guidance and conclusions from the present exploratory case study are transferable to similar situations for studies in other fields. Relevance to industry This paper contributes to the improvement of a usability evaluation method, the Cognitive Walkthrough (CW) method, for enabling designers of medical equipment and usability engineers to identify and specify more usability problems when evaluating interface prototypes for new medical equipment in the early design stage.

Recent advances in the understanding of microRNA have rendered microRNAs (miRNAs) a compelling novel class of biomarker in cancer biology. However, the specific function of miRNA‑18a (miR‑18a) in colorectal cancer (CRC) remains unclear. In the present study, the role of miR‑18a in the carcinogenesis of CRC was investigated. miR‑18a expression was assessed in CRC specimens and cell lines using reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT‑qPCR). The targets of miR‑18a were predicted using bioinformatics tools. Luciferase reporter assays were used to confirm the functional association between miR‑18a and its target genes. The effect of miR‑18a on cell proliferation, invasion and migration was confirmed in vitro by a methylthiazol tetrazolium assay, cell invasion assay, and wound healing assay. Gene and protein expression was examined using RT‑qPCR and western blotting, respectively. It was demonstrated that the expression of miR‑18a in CRC tissues and cell lines was markedly lower than in normal control tissues and cells, respectively. In addition, miR‑18a inhibited cell proliferation, invasion and migration in CRC cells. Moreover, TATA box‑binding protein‑like protein 1 (TBPL1) was identified as a potential target gene of miR‑18a in the bioinformatics analysis and luciferase reporter assays, and miR‑18a directly inhibited TBPL1 expression by targeting its 3'‑untranslated region. Furthermore, TBPL1 was downregulated and inversely correlated with miR‑18a expression in tissues. These findings demonstrate that miR‑18a exhibits a protective role in CRC via inhibiting proliferation, invasion and migration of CRC cells by directly targeting the TBPL1 gene.

Base on the China asthma and risk factors epidemiologic investigation (CARE study), we analyzed the current status of asthma control in China.With the multi-stage random cluster sampling method, epidemiological survey was performed among Chinese residents who aged over 14 years in 8 provinces (cities) from 2010 to 2011. Detailed clinic data of 2 034 asthma patients were collected via face-to-face home visit . Asthma was diagnosed based upon the history, clinical signs and lung function tests. The SPSS 12.0 was conducted for statistics analysis.This survey found that the prevalence rate of asthma in China was 1.24% (2 034/164 215), including 973 male and 1 061 female patients, with a mean age of (56 ± 18) years old. Consistent with the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) guidelines, 40.51% (824/2 034) and 42.58% (866/2 034) of our patients achieved control and partial control, respectively. According to the asthma control test (ACT) estimates, 15.63% (318/2 034) and 49.46% (1 006/2 034) of patients achieved full control (ACT 25) and well control(ACT 20-24), respectively. In the past year, 22.62% (460/2 034) of patients reported hospitalized and 26.99% (549/2 034) of patients reported emergency room visit at least one time due to asthma exacerbation. 61.80% (1 257/2 034) of patients were on daily us of medication. Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) plus a long-acting β2 agonist (LABA) or solely ICS were used in 6.39% and 14.75% of patients, respectively. Theophylline treatment accounted for 29.11% (592/2 034). Oral glucocorticoid and oral leukotriene modifier (LTRA) treatment accounted for 9.49% (193/2 034) and 3.10% (63/2 034), respectively. According to the survey, 34.51% (702/2 034) of asthma patients reported a history of smoking . The percentage of asthma control in non smoking patients was higher than in smoking patients [43.24% (576/1 332) and 35.33% (248/702), respectively]. Meanwhile, the rates of both hospitalization and emergency due to asthma exacerbation in smoking asthma patients were significantly higher than nonsmoking asthma patients (27.35% and 31.77%, 20.12% and 24.47%, respectively).The situation of asthma control has been improved in China. However, compared with GINA guidelines, there is still a considerable gap. Smoking is one of the crucial factors that affect asthma control.

To determine the distribution of allergens in patients with allergic rhinitis in Nanchang area and provide the clinical reference for management strategies with regional character.Patients with symptoms of allergic rhinitis were given skin prick test (SPT) from March 2012 to May 2013. Among the patients, the distribution of all allergens was analyzed. The positive rate was compared with gender, age, occupation, season, course of disease and so on.SPSS 17.0 software was used to analyze the data.Among 5 654 patients, the total positive rate of SPT was 56.07%, with dermatophagoides pteronyssinus (46.94%), dermatophagoides farina (35.99%), blomia tropicalis (31.34%) as the major allergens. With age increasing, the positive rate of allergen decreased. There was statistically significant difference (χ² = 261.372, P0.01) . There was significant difference of the positive rate in different occupations (χ² = 170.859, P0.01), the highest rate was found in student (66.12%) and the lowest was found in farmer (41.56%). There was significant difference of variation with months (χ² = 227.333, P0.01), the most in October, 68.88%. There was significant difference of the positive rate of dust mites in different seasons (χ² = 204.343, P0.01), the highest in autumn, the lowest in winter. There was no correlation between the positive rate and course of disease (P0.05).Dust mites were identified as the most common allergens among patients with allergic rhinitis in Nanchang area.Occupation is one of the influencing factors for the positive rate.

Hispolon is isolated from Phellinus igniarius and exhibits antitumor activity. Here, we explored the effects of hispolon on the lung cancer A549 and H661 cells. Cells were incubated with various concentrations of hispolon (0, 5, 10, 20, 40, 80 or 160 μM) for 12, 24, 48 or 72 h. Cell viability was examined by MTT assay. Cell cycle and apoptosis assay were assessed by flow cytometry. Hispolon decreased cell viability in a dose- and time-dependent manner. The cell cycle distribution showed that hispolon enhanced the accumulations of the cells in G0/G1 phase. Mechanically, hispolon decreased the expression of G1-S transition-related proteins: Cyclin D1, cyclin E, CDK2, CDK4 and CDK6, but increased the expression of CDK inhibitor p21CIP1 and p27KIP1. Moreover, hispolon induced cell apoptosis through activation of the mitochondrial pathway, evidenced by the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential, the release of cytochrome c into cytosol, and the cleavage of caspase-9, caspase-3 and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) in hispolon-treated cells. Additionally, hispolon enhanced the expression of p53, specific silencing of which almost completely reversed hispolon-mediated antitumor activity. Moreover, hispolon treatment was more effective on H661 cells than on A549 cells in inhibiting cell viability and inducing cell apoptosis. Our results indicate that hispolon inhibits the cell viability, induces G0/G1 cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in lung cancer cells and p53 plays a critical role in hispolon-mediated antitumor activity.

To survey the risk factors of asthma among the people aged over 14 years in China.Home visits for completing epidemiological questionnaires in accordance with stratified cluster random sampling survey were conducted in 8 provinces (cities) of China residents aged over 14 years from February 2010 to August 2011. Asthma was diagnosed based upon case history, clinical signs and lung function test. The SPSS 12.0 software was used for statistic analyses for the epidemiological status of asthma.Sampling population was composed of 180 099 subjects. Among 164 215 valid questionnaires, there were 79 692 males and 84 523 females, 2 034 had asthma. The overall prevalence rate was 1.2% (2 034/164 215). Correlation analyses showed that the risk factors were smoking (OR = 1.697, 95%CI: 1.547-1.861), breast feeding (OR = 0.801, 95%CI: 0.670-0.959), genetics (OR95%CI1, asthma (OR = 10.440, 95%CI: 8.991-12.112)), complications (OR95%CI1), body mass index (compared with normal weight, overweight (OR = 1.360, 95%CI: 1.212-1.531), obesity (OR = 10.631, 95%CI: 9.570-11.801)) and petting (OR95%CI1).Among Chinese asthmatics aged over 14, their risk factors include host (geneticsobesity) and environmental (smoking, breastfeeding, complicationspets) factors.

CERES-Wheat, a dynamic process crop growth model, is specified and validated for eight sites in the major wheat-growing regions of China. Crop model results are then used to test the Mitscherlich-Baule and the quadratic functional forms for yield response to nitrogen fertilizer, irrigation water, temperature, and precipitation. The resulting functions are designed to be used in a linked biophysical-economic model of land-use and land-cover change in China. While both functions predict yield responses adequately, the Mitscherlich-Baule function is preferable to the quadratic function because its parameters are biologically and physically realistic. Variables explaining a significant proportion of simulated yield variance are nitrogen, irrigation water, and precipitation; temperature was a less significant component of yield variation within the range of observed year-to-year variability at the study sites. Crop model simulations with a generic soil with median characteristics of the eight sites compared to simulations with site-specific soils showed that agricultural soils in China have similar and, in general, low-to-moderate water-holding capacities and organic matter contents. The validated crop model is useful for simulating the range of conditions under which wheat is grown in China, and provides the means to estimate production functions when experimental field data are not available.

Objective: To compare the clinical effects of three minimally invasive surgeries on the treatment of impacted upper ureteral calculi. Methods: 135 patients with impacted upper ureteral calculi were selected and randomly divided into three groups (Group A-C) (n=45), which were treated with transurethral ureteroscopic lithotripsy, minimally invasive percutaneous nephrolithotomy, and retroperitoneal laparoscopic ureterolithotomy respectively. Relevant results of the three groups were compared. Results: The surgery time of Group C was significantly longer than those of Group A and Group B (P < 0.05). The postoperative hospitalization time of Group B was significantly longer than those of Group A and Group C (P < 0.05). 37.78% (17/45) of Group A patients required extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy, being significantly more than those in Group B (6.67%, 3/45) and Group C (0, 0/45) (P < 0.05). The postoperative calculus clearance rate of Group A (51.11%, 82.22%) was significantly lower than those of Group B (91.11%, 97.78%) and Group C (93.33%, 100%) (P < 0.05). The incidence rates of postoperative complications in Group A-C were 11.11% (5/45), 8.89% (4/45) and 6.67% (3/45) respectively without significant differences (P > 0.05). Conclusion: The three surgical methods for impacted upper ureteral calculi should be selected according to practical conditions to improve therapeutic effects and to ensure safe surgery.

User profile is a popular term widely employed during product design processes by industrial companies. Such a profile is normally intended to represent real users of a product. The ultimate purpose of a user profile is actually to help designers to recognize or learn about the real user by presenting them with a description of a real user’s attributes, for instance; the user’s gender, age, educational level, attitude, technical needs and skill level. The aim of this chapter is to provide information on the current knowledge and research about user profile issues, as well as to emphasize the importance of considering these issues in interface design. In this chapter, we mainly focus on how users’ difference in expertise affects their performance or activity in various interaction contexts. Considering the complex interaction situations in practice, novice and expert users’ interactions with medical user interfaces of different technical complexity will be analyzed as examples: one focuses on novice and expert users’ difference when interacting with simple medical interfaces, and the other focuses on differences when interacting with complex medical interfaces. Four issues will be analyzed and discussed: (1) how novice and expert users differ in terms of performance during the interaction; (2) how novice and expert users differ in the perspective of cognitive mental models during the interaction; (3) how novice and expert users should be defined in practice; and (4) what are the main differences between novice and expert users’ implications for interface design. Besides describing the effect of users’ expertise difference during the interface design process, we will also pinpoint some potential problems for the research on interface design, as well as some future challenges that academic researchers and industrial engineers should face in practice.

In order to provide helpful proposals for future redesign of insulin pump interfaces, a study was carried out to investigate the expertise difference between novice users and expert users when interacting with a simple user interface of insulin pumps. In this study, two user groups with 13 participants in each, evaluated an insulin pump interface on a computer demo in usability tests. The results showed there was no significant difference between the novice users and expert users regarding the task completion time and the number of failures in performance. As for the cause of failures, the novice users showed weakness in domain knowledge, while the expert users showed weakness in task knowledge. No significant difference was shown on users' satisfaction between the two user groups. The results also implied that the novice users elaborated their redesign suggestions in a deductive and summaric way, while the expert users proposed suggestions in an inductive and thorough way.

Objective. Information presentation on the monitor screen of ventilator machines affects nurses’ response and decision-making during ventilation treatment. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether a new GUI (graphical user interface) prototype, the so-called circular display prototype can make deviations easy to detect. Method. A numerical display prototype was made and used as a reference display in the evaluation. Six task scenarios that involved parameter changes were selected to simulate a real situation under volume control (VC) mode during ventilation treatment. Usability tests with the two display designs were carried out in a usability laboratory. Twenty medical nursing students participated as test subjects in the usability tests. Results. The objective results showed that the graphical circular display had an advantage over the numerical display in interpreting parameter changes, but not in reducing the error rates for detecting the number of parameter changes or for forming an overall picture of the patient’s situation. Furthermore, the circular display prototype did not improve the detection time. Conclusions. Although the majority of the test subjects preferred the graphical circular display, the results implied that several aspects of this prototype should be improved in a future development study.

Induction of long-lived antibody responses during infection or vaccination is often essential for subsequent protection, but the relative contributions of T follicular helper (Tfh) cells and T helper 1 (Th1) cells for induction of antigen specific antibody responses to viruses are unclear. Here, we establish an acute Zika virus (ZIKV) infection model in immunocompetent mice, and show that ZIKV infection elicits robust Th1-like Tfh cell and protective antibody responses. While these Th1-like Tfh cells share phenotypic and transcriptomic profiles with both Tfh and Th1 cells, they also have unique surface markers and gene expression characteristics, and are dependent on T-bet for their development. Th1-like Tfh cells, but not Th1 cells, are essential for class switching of ZIKV-specific IgG2c antibodies and maintenance of long-term neutralizing antibody responses. Our study suggests that specific modulation of the Th1-like Tfh cell response during infection or vaccination may augment the induction of antiviral antibody response to ZIKV and other viruses., Here, the authors show that Zika virus (ZIKV) infection induces Th1-like Tfh cells that depend on T-bet for their development and are essential for class switching of ZIKV-specific IgG2c antibodies and maintenance of long-term neutralizing antibody responses.

Background High-throughput (omic) data have become more widespread in both quantity and frequency of use, thanks to technological advances, lower costs and higher precision. Consequently, computational scientists are confronted by two parallel challenges: on one side, the design of efficient methods to interpret each of these data in their own right (gene expression signatures, protein markers, etc.) and, on the other side, realization of a novel, pressing request from the biological field to design methodologies that allow for these data to be interpreted as a whole, i.e. not only as the union of relevant molecules in each of these layers, but as a complex molecular signature containing proteins, mRNAs and miRNAs, all of which must be directly associated in the results of analyses that are able to capture inter-layers connections and complexity. Results We address the latter of these two challenges by testing an integrated approach on a known cancer benchmark: the NCI-60 cell panel. Here, high-throughput screens for mRNA, miRNA and proteins are jointly analyzed using factor analysis, combined with linear discriminant analysis, to identify the molecular characteristics of cancer. Comparisons with separate (non-joint) analyses show that the proposed integrated approach can uncover deeper and more precise biological information. In particular, the integrated approach gives a more complete picture of the set of miRNAs identified and the Wnt pathway, which represents an important surrogate marker of melanoma progression. We further test the approach on a more challenging patient-dataset, for which we are able to identify clinically relevant markers. Conclusions The integration of multiple layers of omics can bring more information than analysis of single layers alone. Using and expanding the proposed integrated framework to integrate omic data from other molecular levels will allow researchers to uncover further systemic information. The application of this approach to a clinically challenging dataset shows its promising potential.