In vitro assay to estimate tea astringency via observing flotation of artificial oil bodies sheltered by caleosin fused with histatin 3

AbstractAstringency, a sensory characteristic of food and beverages rich in polyphenols, mainly results from the formation of complexes between polyphenols and salivary proteins, causing a reduction of the lubricating properties of saliva. To develop an in vitro assay to estimate the astringency of oolong tea infusion, artificial oil bodies were constituted with sesame oil sheltered by a modified caleosin fused with histatin 3, one of the human salivary small peptides. Aggregation of artificial oil bodies was induced when they were mixed with oolong tea infusion or its major polyphenolic compound, (−)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) of 100μM as observed in light microscopy. The aggregated artificial oil bodies gradually floated on top of the solution and formed a visible milky layer whose thickness was in proportion to the concentrations of tea infusion. This assay system was applied to test four different oolong tea infusions with sensory astringency corresponding to their EGCG contents. The result showed that relative astringency of the four tea infusions was correlated to the thickness of floated artificial oil bodies, and could be estimated according to the standard curve generated by simultaneously observing a serial dilution of the tea infusion with the highest astringency

Neurosurgical interventions for patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a single institution experience

BACKGROUND: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a frequent head and neck cancer in southern China and Southeast Asia. The majority of NPC patients are managed by radiation oncologists, medical oncologists and head and neck surgeons. Actually, neurosurgical interventions are warranted under specific circumstances. In this article, we described our experience as neurosurgeons in the management of NPC patients. METHODS: Medical records of NPC patients who received neurosurgical procedure at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center were reviewed. RESULTS: Twenty-seven patients were identified. Among 27 cases, neurosurgical procedures were performed in 18 (66.7%) with radiation-induced temporal necrosis, 2 (7.4%) with radiation-induced sarcoma, 4 (14.8%) with synchronous NPC with primary brain tumors, 2 (7.4%) with recurrent NPC involving skull base, and 1 (3.7%) with metachronous skull eosinophilic granuloma, respectively. The diagnosis is challenging in specific cases and initial misdiagnoses were found in 6 (22.2%) patients. CONCLUSIONS: For NPC patients with intracranial or skull lesions, the initial diagnosis can be occasionally difficult because of the presence or a history of NPC and related treatment. Unawareness of these entities can result in misdiagnosis and subsequent improper treatment. Neurosurgical interventions are necessary for the diagnosis and treatment for these patients

Confinement of carbon dots localizing to the ultrathin layered double hydroxides toward simultaneous triple-mode bioimaging and photothermal therapy

It is a great challenge to develop multifunctional nanocarriers for cancer diagnosis and therapy. Herein, versatile CDs/ICG-uLDHs nanovehicles for triple-modal fluorescence/photoacoustic/two-photon bioimaging and effective photothermal therapy were prepared via a facile self-assembly of red emission carbon dots (CDs), indocyanine green (ICG) with the ultrathin layered double hydroxides (uLDHs). Due to the J-aggregates of ICG constructed in the self-assembly process, CDs/ICG-uLDHs was able to stabilize the photothermal agent ICG and enhanced its photothermal efficiency. Furthermore, the unique confinement effect of uLDHs has extended the fluorescence lifetime of CDs in favor of bioimaging. Considering the excellent in vitro and in vivo phototherapeutics and multimodal imaging effects, this work provides a promising platform for the construction of multifunctional theranostic nanocarrier system for the cancer treatment

Domestic Ducks and H5N1 Influenza Epidemic, Thailand

Traditional methods of raising ducks in Southeast Asia must be modified

Serological Thymidine Kinase 1 is a Biomarker for Early Detection of Tumours—A Health Screening Study on 35,365 People, Using a Sensitive Chemiluminescent Dot Blot Assay

Serological thymidine kinase 1 (STK1) is a reliable proliferation marker for prognosis, monitoring tumour therapy, and relapse. Here we investigated the use of STK1 in health screening for early detection of pre-malignant and malignant diseases. The investigation was based on 35,365 participants in four independent health screening studies in China between 2005–2011. All participants were clinically examined. The concentration of STK1 was determined by a sensitive chemiluminescent dot blot ECL assay. The ROCvalue of the STK1 assay was 0.96. At a cut-off STK1 value of 2.0 pM, the likelihood (+) value was 236.5, and the sensitivity and the specificity were 0.78 and 0.99, respectively. The relative number of city-dwelling people with elevated STK1 values (≥2.0 pM) was 0.8% (198/26,484), while the corresponding value for the group of oil-field workers was 5.8% (514/8,355). The latter group expressed significantly higher frequency of refractory anaemia, fatty liver, and obesity, compared to the city dwellers, but no cases of breast hyperplasia or prostate hyperplasia. Furthermore, people working in oil drilling/oil transportation showed higher STK1 values and higher frequency of pre-malignancies and benign diseases than people working in the oil-field administration. In the STK1 elevated group of the city-dwelling people, a statistically significantly higher number of people were found to have malignancies, pre-malignancies of all types, moderate/severe type of hyperplasia of breast or prostate, or refractory anaemia, or to be at high risk for hepatitis B, compared to people with normal STK1 values (<2.0 pM). No malignancies were found in the normal STK1 group. In the elevated STK1 group 85.4% showed diseases linked to a higher risk for pre-/early cancerous progression, compared to 52.4% of those with normal STK1 values. Among participants with elevated STK1 values, 8.8% developed new malignancies or progress in their pre-malignancies within 5 to 72 months, compared to 0.2% among people with normal STK1 values. People who showed elevated STK1 values were at about three to five times higher risk to develop malignancies compared to a calculated risk based on a cancer incidence rate of 0.2–0.3%. We conclude that serological TK1 protein concentration is a reliable marker for risk assessment of pre/early cancerous progression

Searching for the nano-Hertz stochastic gravitational wave background with the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array Data Release I

Observing and timing a group of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) with high rotational stability enables the direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs). The GW signals can be identified from the spatial correlations encoded in the times-of-arrival of widely spaced pulsar-pairs. The Chinese Pulsar Timing Array (CPTA) is a collaboration aiming at the direct GW detection with observations carried out using Chinese radio telescopes. This short article serves as a `table of contents' for a forthcoming series of papers related to the CPTA Data Release 1 (CPTA DR1) which uses observations from the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). Here, after summarizing the time span and accuracy of CPTA DR1, we report the key results of our statistical inference finding a correlated signal with amplitude \log A_{\rm c}= -14.4 \,^{+1.0}_{-2.8} for spectral index in the range of $\alpha\in [-1.8, 1.5]$ assuming a GW background (GWB) induced quadrupolar correlation. The search for the Hellings-Downs (HD) correlation curve is also presented, where some evidence for the HD correlation has been found that a 4.6-$\sigma$ statistical significance is achieved using the discrete frequency method around the frequency of 14 nHz. We expect that the future International Pulsar Timing Array data analysis and the next CPTA data release will be more sensitive to the nHz GWB, which could verify the current results.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, submitted to "Research in astronomy and astrophysics" 22nd March 202

Ilustrações de cartilhas escolares na Primeira República (1889-1930) : a historiografia da educação no Espírito Santo por entre traços e espaços em branco

Este estudo objetivou investigar significados das ilustrações contidas nas cartilhas utilizadas no ensino primário, no Espírito Santo, na Primeira República, sendo que, nesse recorte temporal, procuramos tomar as duas reformas educacionais capixabas desse período: a Reforma Gomes Cardim (1908-1909) e a Reforma Atílio Vivacqua (1928-1930), como de pontos de referência em nossa investigação. Partindo de uma análise dessas ilustrações no conjunto de projetos políticos, pedagógicos, culturais e estéticos que perpassaram a escolarização no Espírito Santo, procuramos mapear o panorama que contextualizava a produção dessas ilustrações, nas esferas: social, política, econômica, cultural e educacional, procurando compreender suas relações de força e possíveis tensões; investigar se as ilustrações se relacionavam com os métodos de ensino propostos nas cartilhas, procurando estabelecer e compreender a presença ou ausência dessa relação nas práticas pedagógicas propostas para o ensino primário capixaba, nesse período; bem como, verificar quais os possíveis impactos e reflexos das Reformas Educacionais ocorridas na Primeira República, no Espírito Santo, sobre as ilustrações nas cartilhas, procurando identificá-los. Nessa investigação historiográfica, nossa ancoragem teórico-metodológica fundamenta-se em interlocuções com Marc Bloch, em sua perspectiva histórica, onde buscamos compreensão do ofício do historiador, de modo que, privilegiando a multiplicidade das fontes, procuramos tensioná-las a fim de alcançar o seu testemunho histórico; em Ginzburg, construímos fundamentos que nos permitiram tomar o método indiciário como ferramenta de pesquisa, assim como, suas reflexões sobre morfologia das imagens, por meio do método morelliano, e suas aproximações com as teorias warbuguianas, nos embasaram na abordagem histórica e leitura de fontes iconográficas; por fim, em Benjamin, procuramos compreender o contexto de produção das ilustrações, que, pertencendo ao campo de domínio da linguagem da arte, em suas várias formas de expressões, abrangem percepções de mundo, do seu momento histórico. Desse modo, analisando, historicamente, as ilustrações nas cartilhas, percebemos que as mesmas se constituem como indícios que nos oferecem pistas de propostas pedagógicas, tendências metodológicas e políticas públicas, do espaço e tempo de sua produção, circulação e utilização. Portanto, concluímos que as ilustrações têm a potência de narrativas de uma cultura escolar, ao representarem palavras, textos e temas, assim sendo, detêm valores, sentidos e significados. Portanto, enquanto objetos culturais, trazem informações, que registram pontos de vista culturais e escolares das épocas, além dos elementos que desenvolvem habilidades de leitura e escrita. À vista disso, concluímos que as ilustrações e seus significados, que lhe são atribuídos ao longo do tempo nos espaços escolares, se constituem como possibilidades que oportunizam narrativas historiográficas.This study aimed to investigate meanings of the illustrations contained in textbooks used in primary education in Espírito Santo, during the First Republic. Given this time frame, we attempted to take both capixaba educational reformations: Gomes Cardim Reformation (1908-1909) and the Atilio Vivacqua Reformation (1928-1930), as benchmarks in our investigation. Based on an analysis of these illustrations on the set of political, educational, cultural and aesthetic projects that permeated the school in Espírito Santo, we tried to map the landscape that contextualized the production of these illustrations, in the social, political, economic, cultural and educational realms, seeking to understand their power relations and possible tensions; investigating whether the illustrations were related to the teaching methods proposed in the textbooks, and trying to establish and understand the presence or absence of that relationship in the pedagogical practices proposed for the capixaba primary education in this period, as well as check what the possible impacts and outcomes of Educational Reforms occurred in the First Republic, in Espírito Santo on the illustrations in textbooks were, trying to identify them. For this historiographical research, our theoretical and methodological anchoring is based on dialogues with Marc Bloch, in his historical perspective, where we seek understanding of the historian's craft, so that in favoring the multiplicity of sources, we attempt to bend them in order to achieve their historical testimony; in Ginzburg, we build foundations that allowed us to take the evidential method as a research tool, as well as his reflections on the morphology of images, through the Morellian method and its approach to the Warburgian theories, which supported with the historical approach and the "reading" of iconographic sources; Finally, in Benjamin, we tried to understand the context of production of illustrations, which, belonging to the domain of the language of art, in its various forms of expression, encompasses perceptions of the world, and its historical moment. Thus, historically, analyzing the illustrations in textbooks, we realize that they constitute as evidence that give away hints of educational proposals, methodological trends and public policies, about the space and time of its production, circulation and use. We therefore conclude that the illustrations have the narrative power of a school culture, as they represent words, texts and themes, therefore, holding values, senses and meanings. Therefore, as cultural objects, provide information, which record cultural and school views of their times besides the elements meant to develop reading and writing skills. In view of this, we conclude that the illustrations and their meanings, which are assigned over the course of time in school spaces, are constituted as possibilities that allow for historiographical narratives.FAPE

Brain metastases from hepatocellular carcinoma: clinical features and prognostic factors

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Brain metastases (BM) from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are extremely rare and are associated with a poor prognosis. The aim of this study was to define clinical outcome and prognostic determinants in patients with BM from HCC.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Between January 1994 and December 2009, all patients with HCC and BM treated in Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center were retrospectively reviewed. Univariate and multivariate survival analyses were performed to identify possible prognostic factors.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Forty-one patients were diagnosed with BM from HCC, an incidence of 0.47%. The median age at diagnosis of BM was 48.5 years. Thirty-three patients (80.5%) developed extracranial metastases at diagnosis of BM, and 30 patients (73.2%) had hepatitis B. Intracranial hemorrhage occurred in 19 patients (46.3%). BM were treated primarily either with whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT; 5 patients), stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS; 7 patients), or surgical resection (6 patients). The cause of death was systemic disease in 17 patients and neurological disease in 23. Patients in a high RPA (recursive partitioning analysis) class, treated with conservatively and without lung metastases, tended to die from neurological disease. Median survival after the diagnosis of BM was 3 months (95% confidence interval: 2.2-3.8 months). In multivariate analysis, the presence of extracranial metastases, a low RPA class and aggressive treatment, were positively associated with improved survival.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>BM from HCC is rare and associated with an extremely poor prognosis. However, patients with a low RPA class may benefit from aggressive treatment. The clinical implication of extracranial metastases in HCC patients with BM needs further assessment.</p