Search

Taking 20 relative poor families in Hechuan District of Chongqing Municipality as survey samples, taking 275 households of rural famiiies selected by stratified sampling method as research objects, and taking family education investment behavior of this rural area a research content, this paper studied current situations of rural family education investment behavior in Hechuan District, difference in investment behavior and related influence factors. It is intended to provide references for family education investment of rural areas in Hechuan District and even Chongqing Municipality, and promote development of rural education undertaking in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) is an epithelial cell-derived cytokine, implicated in the development and progression of allergic diseases. Recent studies have demonstrated significantly increased expression and synthesis of TSLPin nasal mucosa of patients with allergic rhinitis (AR), compared with nonallergic control subjects. Also, there is significant correlation between the level of TSLP mRNA and symptom severity in AR patients. In this study, we investigated whether polymorphisms in the TSLP gene were associated with increased risk of AR in the Chinese population. Methods: In a candidate gene association study, we tested 11 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the TSLP gene in 368 AR and 325 control adult Han Chinese subjects from Beijing. The 11 SNPs were selected from the Chinese HapMap genotyping dataset to ensure complete genetic coverage. AR was established by questionnaire and clinical examination, and blood was drawn from all subjects for DNA extraction. The PLINK software package was used to perform statistical testing. Results: In the single-locus analysis of AR risk, no significant differences in allele and genotype frequencies were found between AR and control subjects. Further logistic regression analyses adjusted for age and gender also failed to reveal significant associations between AR and the selected SNPs. Similarly, analysis stratified by gender, and haplotype or diplotype did not reveal any association with AR risk. Conclusion: Although TSLP presents itself as a good candidate for contributing to allergy, this study failed to find an association between specific SNPs in the TSLP gene and AR susceptibility in the Han Chinese population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ebola viruses (EBOVs) cause severe hemorrhagic fever with a high mortality rate. At present, there are no licensed vaccines or efficient therapies to combat EBOV infection. Previous studies have shown that both humoral and cellular immune responses are crucial for controlling Ebola infection. CD8+ T cells play an important role in mediating vaccine-induced protective immunity. The objective of this study was to identify H-2d-specific T cell epitopes in EBOV glycoproteins (GPs). Results: Computer-assisted algorithms were used to predict H-2d-specific T cell epitopes in two species of EBOV (Sudan and Zaire) GP. The predicted peptides were synthesized and identified in BALB/c mice immunized with replication-deficient adenovirus vectors expressing the EBOV GP. Enzyme-linked immunospot assays and intracellular cytokine staining showed that the peptides RPHTPQFLF (Sudan EBOV), GPCAGDFAF and LYDRLASTV (Zaire EBOV) could stimulate splenoctyes in immunized mice to produce large amounts of interferon-gamma. Conclusion: Three peptides within the GPs of two EBOV strains were identified as T cell epitopes. The identification of these epitopes should facilitate the evaluation of vaccines based on the Ebola virus glycoprotein in a BALB/c mouse model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe pandemic 2009 H1N1 influenza virus broke out in North America and spread rapidly throughout the world. The type I interferon (IFN) response represents one of the first lines of defense against influenza virus infections. In this study, the protective potential of human exogenous IFN-ω against pandemic 2009 A (H1N1) influenza virus was assessed both in vitroand in guinea pigs. The viral loads of pandemic 2009 A (H1N1) influenza virus strains A/California/04/2009 and A/Beijing/501/2009 were reduced by up to 5000-fold in Caco-2 cells by the addition of human IFN-ω. With daily intranasal treatment with human IFN-ω the viral load of pandemic 2009 A (H1N1) influenza virus strain A/California/04/2009 decreased by 1000-fold in lung tissues of guinea pigs. These results provide strong support for the application of human IFN-ω pretreatment to human influenza control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, we employed high performance liquid chromatography with an amide-C16 column to determine the eighteen major active ingredients in black tea, including theanine, gallic acid, four purine alkaloids, eight catechins and four theaflavins. The method was successfully used to analyse two new kinds of black teas from the leaves of Camellia ptilophylla and Camellia kucha in China and several other world- famous black teas. Forty percentage ethanol was chosen as the extraction solvent for preparing tea extracts. All of the eighteen compounds could be separated within 86 min with a gradient elution system. Excellent linearity was observed for all the standard calibration curves, and correlation coefficients were above 0.9991. The developed method is accurate and sensitive enough for the determination of active components in black tea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three new escinlike triterpene saponins, assamicins VI 1, VII 2, and VIII 3, were isolated from the seeds of A. assamica, together with a known saponin, isoescin Ib 4. Their structures were established as 28Oacetyl21O3,4diOangeloyl6deoxyβglucopyranosyl3OOβglucopyranosyl1→2Oβglucopyranosyl1→4βglucopyranuronosylprotoaescigenin 1, 21Oangeloyl3OOαrhamnopyranosyl1→2Oβglucopyranosyl1→3βglucopyranuronosylprotoaescigenin 2, and 21Oangeloyl3OOβglucopyranosyl1→3βglucopyranuronosylprotoaescigenin 3 on the basis of spectroscopic analysis protoaescigenin=3β,4β,16α,21β,22αolean12ene3,16,21,22,23,28hexol; angelic acid=2Z2methylbut2enoic acid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of ephedrine, an α,β-adrenoceptor agonist, on the regulation of human nasal ciliary beat frequency (CBF). Changes in (cultured) human nasal CBF in response to 0.25, 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 ephedrine were quantified by using high-speed (240 frames per second) digital microscopy combined with a beat-by-beat CBF analysis. At ∼25°C, we found that ephedrine induces an instant and moderate increase in human nasal CBF followed by an inhibitory response. With concentrations ranging from 0.25 to 2.0, while the increment is independent of ephedrine concentration, the inhibitory effect is dependent on the concentration of ephedrine. Based on these results we propose that the clinically used concentration of ephedrine, 0.5, has maximum stimulatory effect without obvious inhibitory effect on (cultured) human nasal CBF.Copyright © 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: We investigated the effects of oxymetazoline hydrochloride on the regulation of healthy human nasal ciliary beat frequency (CBF) and its influence on nasal mucociliary transport time (MIT). Methods: Changes in (cultured) human nasal CBF in response to increasing concentrations of oxymetazoline within 20 minutes were quantified by use of high-speed digital microscopy. Moreover, the MIT before and after application of 0.05% oxymetazoline was determined by use of the saccharin test. Results: Whereas no statistically significant difference was identified when compared to basal CBF at the concentration of 0.025% or 0.05%, both 0.10% and 0.20% oxymetazoline induced a significantly lower CBF at the end of the observation period. The decrement induced by 0.20% oxymetazoline appeared earlier. At concentrations ranging from 0.025% to 0.20%, the inhibitory effect was dependent on the concentration of oxymetazoline. In addition, the use of 0.05% oxymetazoline increased the mean (±SD) human nasal MIT from 474 ± 21 seconds to 572 ± 41 seconds (n = 29). Conclusions: The clinical concentration of oxymetazoline, 0.05%, has no obvious inhibitory effect on human nasal CBF in vitro. The increased MIT caused by 0.05% oxymetazoline in vivo is within the normal range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the soliton frequency shifts for few-cycle ultrashort laser pulses propagating through resonant media embedded within subwavelength structures, and we elucidate the underlying physics. Full-wave Maxwell–Bloch equations are solved numerically by using the finite-difference time-domain method. It is shown that both soliton blueshift and redshift can occur by changing the period of the structures. We found that the rereflected waves play an essential role in this process. When the pulse propagates through the periodic structures, the reflected waves can be rereflected back by the thin layers, which can further induce the controllable frequency shifts of the generated solitons. This suggests a way to tailor the light solitons over a large spectral range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the higher spectral component generations driven by a few-cycle laser pulse in a dense medium when a static electric field is present. Our results show that, when assisted by a static electric field, the dependence of the transmitted laser spectrum on the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) is significantly increased. Continuum and distinct peaks can be achieved by controlling the CEP of the few-cycle ultrashort laser pulse. Such a strong variation is due to the fact that the presence of the static electric field modifies the waveform of the combined electric field, which further affects the spectral distribution of the generated higher spectral components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We theoretically propose a method of generating a single sub-100 attosecond (as) pulse with a two-colour time-gating laser field. The field is synthesized by an 8 fs/800 nm (three optical cycles) pulse and a 24 fs/2400 nm (three optical cycles) pulse with an optimal time delay between them. In our simulation, we obtain a supercontinuum with an extremely broad spectrum of 150 eV and generate an isolated attosecond pulse with 96 as pulse duration without any dispersion compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feynman's path integral approach is to sum over all possible spatiotemporal paths to reproduce the quantum wave function and the corresponding time evolution, which has enormous potential to reveal quantum processes in the classical view. However, the complete characterization of the quantum wave function with infinite paths is a formidable challenge, which greatly limits the application potential, especially in the strong-field physics and attosecond science. Instead of brute-force tracking every path one by one, here we propose a deep-learning-performed strong-field Feynman's formulation with a preclassification scheme that can predict directly the final results only with data of initial conditions, so as to attack unsurmountable tasks by existing strong-field methods and explore new physics. Our results build a bridge between deep learning and strong-field physics through Feynman's path integral, which would boost applications of deep learning to study the ultrafast time-dependent dynamics in strong-field physics and attosecond science and shed new light on the quantum-classical correspondence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]