On the Wind Reduction Effect of Windbreak Nets in Front of the Simple Greenhouse for Planting Fruits and Vegetables

The island of Taiwan experiences frequent strong winds coming with typhoons in the summer and with northeast monsoons in the winter. The strong winds are hazardous to the structure of a simple greenhouse that is widely used for vegetable and fruit plantation. The damage may reduce agricultural yields. Windbreak netting is a practical procedure for protecting a greenhouse from strong winds. The purpose of this study is to carry on the wind tunnel simulation test of windbreak nets in front of the simple greenhouse. Windbreak nets of densities 50%, 40%, 30% and 20% had a uniform dimension of 10 cm (per unit 1 h) in height and 29.2 cm in width. A windbreak net was tested at tilt angles of 0o, 5o, 10o and 15o. The wind tunnel simulation test is carried on at 10 m/s of reference wind velocity. The wind velocities at different horizontal distances and vertical distances front and behind the windbreak net are measured. The relative wind velocity is calculated. The wind reduction effect at different horizontal distances behind the windbreak net is analyzed and discussed. From the test results, it is known that when the tilt angle of windbreak net is 0o and the height of windbreak net is 1h, the corresponding wind reduction effect of windbreak nets with 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% porosity is 62%, 61%, 59% and 52% respectively at 2h horizontal distance. The corresponding wind reduction effect of windbreak nets with 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% porosity is 46%, 45%, 40% and 32% respectively at 10h horizontal distance. However, the increase of tilt angle of windbreak net does not have much influence on the wind reduction effect

Integrin-mediated membrane blebbing is dependent on the NHE1 and NCX1 activities.

Integrin-mediated signal transduction and membrane blebbing have been well studied to modulate cell adhesion, spreading and migration^1-6^. However, the relationship between membrane blebbing and integrin signaling has not been explored. Here we show that integrin-ligand interaction induces membrane blebbing and membrane permeability change. We found that sodium-proton exchanger 1 (NHE1) and sodium-calcium exchanger 1 (NCX1) are located in the membrane blebbing sites and inhibition of NHE1 disrupts membrane blebbing and decreases membrane permeability change. However, inhibition of NCX1 enhances cell blebbing to cause cell swelling which is correlated with an intracellular sodium accumulation induced by NHE17. These data suggest that sodium influx induced by NHE1 is a driving force for membrane blebbing growth, while sodium efflux induced by NCX1 in a reverse mode causes membrane blebbing retraction. Together, these data reveal a novel function of NHE1 and NCX1 in membrane permeability change and blebbing and provide the link for integrin signaling and membrane blebbing

Women with endometriosis have higher comorbidities: Analysis of domestic data in Taiwan

AbstractEndometriosis, defined by the presence of viable extrauterine endometrial glands and stroma, can grow or bleed cyclically, and possesses characteristics including a destructive, invasive, and metastatic nature. Since endometriosis may result in pelvic inflammation, adhesion, chronic pain, and infertility, and can progress to biologically malignant tumors, it is a long-term major health issue in women of reproductive age. In this review, we analyze the Taiwan domestic research addressing associations between endometriosis and other diseases. Concerning malignant tumors, we identified four studies on the links between endometriosis and ovarian cancer, one on breast cancer, two on endometrial cancer, one on colorectal cancer, and one on other malignancies, as well as one on associations between endometriosis and irritable bowel syndrome, one on links with migraine headache, three on links with pelvic inflammatory diseases, four on links with infertility, four on links with obesity, four on links with chronic liver disease, four on links with rheumatoid arthritis, four on links with chronic renal disease, five on links with diabetes mellitus, and five on links with cardiovascular diseases (hypertension, hyperlipidemia, etc.). The data available to date support that women with endometriosis might be at risk of some chronic illnesses and certain malignancies, although we consider the evidence for some comorbidities to be of low quality, for example, the association between colon cancer and adenomyosis/endometriosis. We still believe that the risk of comorbidity might be higher in women with endometriosis than that we supposed before. More research is needed to determine whether women with endometriosis are really at risk of these comorbidities

Atrasentan and renal events in patients with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease (SONAR): a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial

Background: Short-term treatment for people with type 2 diabetes using a low dose of the selective endothelin A receptor antagonist atrasentan reduces albuminuria without causing significant sodium retention. We report the long-term effects of treatment with atrasentan on major renal outcomes. Methods: We did this double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial at 689 sites in 41 countries. We enrolled adults aged 18–85 years with type 2 diabetes, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR)25–75 mL/min per 1·73 m 2 of body surface area, and a urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR)of 300–5000 mg/g who had received maximum labelled or tolerated renin–angiotensin system inhibition for at least 4 weeks. Participants were given atrasentan 0·75 mg orally daily during an enrichment period before random group assignment. Those with a UACR decrease of at least 30% with no substantial fluid retention during the enrichment period (responders)were included in the double-blind treatment period. Responders were randomly assigned to receive either atrasentan 0·75 mg orally daily or placebo. All patients and investigators were masked to treatment assignment. The primary endpoint was a composite of doubling of serum creatinine (sustained for ≥30 days)or end-stage kidney disease (eGFR <15 mL/min per 1·73 m 2 sustained for ≥90 days, chronic dialysis for ≥90 days, kidney transplantation, or death from kidney failure)in the intention-to-treat population of all responders. Safety was assessed in all patients who received at least one dose of their assigned study treatment. The study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01858532. Findings: Between May 17, 2013, and July 13, 2017, 11 087 patients were screened; 5117 entered the enrichment period, and 4711 completed the enrichment period. Of these, 2648 patients were responders and were randomly assigned to the atrasentan group (n=1325)or placebo group (n=1323). Median follow-up was 2·2 years (IQR 1·4–2·9). 79 (6·0%)of 1325 patients in the atrasentan group and 105 (7·9%)of 1323 in the placebo group had a primary composite renal endpoint event (hazard ratio [HR]0·65 [95% CI 0·49–0·88]; p=0·0047). Fluid retention and anaemia adverse events, which have been previously attributed to endothelin receptor antagonists, were more frequent in the atrasentan group than in the placebo group. Hospital admission for heart failure occurred in 47 (3·5%)of 1325 patients in the atrasentan group and 34 (2·6%)of 1323 patients in the placebo group (HR 1·33 [95% CI 0·85–2·07]; p=0·208). 58 (4·4%)patients in the atrasentan group and 52 (3·9%)in the placebo group died (HR 1·09 [95% CI 0·75–1·59]; p=0·65). Interpretation: Atrasentan reduced the risk of renal events in patients with diabetes and chronic kidney disease who were selected to optimise efficacy and safety. These data support a potential role for selective endothelin receptor antagonists in protecting renal function in patients with type 2 diabetes at high risk of developing end-stage kidney disease. Funding: AbbVie

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Summary Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled analysis, we used a database of cardiometabolic risk factors collated by the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1985 to 2019 in mean height and mean BMI in 1-year age groups for ages 5–19 years. The model allowed for non-linear changes over time in mean height and mean BMI and for non-linear changes with age of children and adolescents, including periods of rapid growth during adolescence. Findings We pooled data from 2181 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in 65 million participants in 200 countries and territories. In 2019, we estimated a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations (the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark, and Iceland for girls) and those with the shortest populations (Timor-Leste, Laos, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Timor-Leste for girls). In the same year, the difference between the highest mean BMI (in Pacific island countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, The Bahamas, Chile, the USA, and New Zealand for both boys and girls and in South Africa for girls) and lowest mean BMI (in India, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Chad for boys and girls; and in Japan and Romania for girls) was approximately 9–10 kg/m2. In some countries, children aged 5 years started with healthier height or BMI than the global median and, in some cases, as healthy as the best performing countries, but they became progressively less healthy compared with their comparators as they grew older by not growing as tall (eg, boys in Austria and Barbados, and girls in Belgium and Puerto Rico) or gaining too much weight for their height (eg, girls and boys in Kuwait, Bahrain, Fiji, Jamaica, and Mexico; and girls in South Africa and New Zealand). In other countries, growing children overtook the height of their comparators (eg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Iran) or curbed their weight gain (eg, Italy, France, and Croatia) in late childhood and adolescence. When changes in both height and BMI were considered, girls in South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some central Asian countries (eg, Armenia and Azerbaijan), and boys in central and western Europe (eg, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Montenegro) had the healthiest changes in anthropometric status over the past 3·5 decades because, compared with children and adolescents in other countries, they had a much larger gain in height than they did in BMI. The unhealthiest changes—gaining too little height, too much weight for their height compared with children in other countries, or both—occurred in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, and the USA for boys and girls; in Malaysia and some Pacific island nations for boys; and in Mexico for girls. Interpretation The height and BMI trajectories over age and time of school-aged children and adolescents are highly variable across countries, which indicates heterogeneous nutritional quality and lifelong health advantages and risks

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities(.)(1,2) This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity(3-6). Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55% of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017-and more than 80% in some low- and middle-income regions-was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing-and in some countries reversal-of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories.Peer reviewe

Heterogeneous contributions of change in population distribution of body mass index to change in obesity and underweight NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC)

From 1985 to 2016, the prevalence of underweight decreased, and that of obesity and severe obesity increased, in most regions, with significant variation in the magnitude of these changes across regions. We investigated how much change in mean body mass index (BMI) explains changes in the prevalence of underweight, obesity, and severe obesity in different regions using data from 2896 population-based studies with 187 million participants. Changes in the prevalence of underweight and total obesity, and to a lesser extent severe obesity, are largely driven by shifts in the distribution of BMI, with smaller contributions from changes in the shape of the distribution. In East and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the underweight tail of the BMI distribution was left behind as the distribution shifted. There is a need for policies that address all forms of malnutrition by making healthy foods accessible and affordable, while restricting unhealthy foods through fiscal and regulatory restrictions

Homology Comparison of the cDNA Sequences in Vertebrates for Screening the Commonly Expressed Genes with Related Functions during Early Embryonic Stages

哺乳類動物早期胚發育時期泛指從受精卵到胚胎埋植入子宮前的發育階段，此階段包括了受精卵在生長、遷移、分化及形態上的變化等，是脊椎動物發育過程中的重要階段之一。公開資料庫中脊椎動物早期胚發育時期之相關基因庫，發現目前大部分物種在胚早期發育時期的研究甚少，某些物種甚至闕如。有鑑於此，本研究旨為利用現存於公開資料庫之脊椎動物胚早期發育的有限資料，找出脊椎動物物種間胚早期發育時期的共同表現基因，並進一步分析其相關功能，期能增加對脊椎動物在胚早期發育階段基因表現的暸解。 利用NCBI（National Center for Biotechnology Information）的UniGene資料庫和TIGR（The Institute for Genomic Research）的Gene Index資料庫分別收集牛（Bos taurus）、小鼠（Mus musculus）、豬（Sus scrofa）和非洲爪蟾（Xenopus laevis）四個物種在早期胚發育時期的基因庫。篩選上述基因庫中四物種之早期胚表現基因序列總數分別為：小鼠：13,705條、牛：2,407條、豬：4,015條和非洲爪蟾：15,329條。藉由序列比對工具BLAST（Basic Local Alignment Search Tool），以小鼠的早期胚表現基因序列資料為基礎對其他三物種之序列資料庫進行序列相似性分析。分析結果將四物種間共同表現基因分為七大群組，其總數分別為：小鼠與牛共同表現者：1,414條、小鼠與豬共同表現者：1,909條、小鼠與非洲爪蟾共同表現者：2,372條、小鼠、牛與豬共同表現者：411條、小鼠、牛與非洲爪蟾共同表現者：602條、小鼠、豬與非洲爪蟾共同表現者：860條和小鼠、豬、牛與非洲爪蟾共同表現者：254條。進一步分析物種間共同表現基因所具備之功能，利用三組共同表現基因：小鼠與豬、小鼠與非洲爪蟾以及小鼠、牛、豬與非洲爪蟾之共同表現者，分別以小鼠之共同表現基因身份為代表進行功能性解析。結果顯示，四個物種之共同表現基因在三大功能分項：生物作用（biological process, P）、分子功能（molecular function, F）和細胞組成（cellular component, C）分析中分別有112（P）、113（F）和105（C）個共同表現基因具有功能性註解；小鼠與豬之共同表現基因在三大功能分項分析中分別有857（P）、926（F）和862（C）個共同表現基因具有功能性註解；小鼠與非洲爪蟾之共同表現基因在三大功能分項分析中分別有1,208（P）、1,281（F）和1,145（C）個共同表現基因具有功能性註解。就生物作用分項分析結果而言，物種間共同表現基因的功能主要以參與代謝過程（meatabolic process）為主；在分子功能方面主要牽涉細胞分子鍵結（molecular binding）；而細胞組成功能分項也顯示共同表現基因的表現主要以細胞內為主。 利用生物資訊比對工具及公開資料庫可針對不同物種間之早期胚表現基因進行同源性比較篩選，所得之結果將有助生物學者廣泛瞭解脊椎動物在早期胚發育過程中的共同表現基因及所具備之相關功能。The early embryonic stages of mammals are the developmental process from zygote to preimplantation. The stages of embryogenesis are critical for embryonic development in vertebrates. Several key developmental events occurr in these stages, such as cell growth, migration, differentiation, and morphogenesis. In spite of the importance occurring in the early embryogenesis, limited information has been provided by previous studies. For this reason, the purpose of this study is to utilize the public databases to screen those commonly expressed genes with their related functions at early embryonic stages in vertebrates. The UniGene and the Gene Index databases in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) were designed to collect and assemble sequences of expressed sequences tags (ESTs) and mRNA. Each assembled entry is a set of transcript sequences that appear to come from the same transcription locus. The numbers of unigene entries and tentative consensuses (TC) of embryos before implantation collected from Bos taurus (Bt), Mus musculus (Mm), Sus scrofa (Ssc) and Xenopus laevis (Xl) were 2,407, 13,705, 4,015, and 15,329, respectively. The analytic results among four species were divided into seven groups. All of the commonly expressed genes were 1,414 for Mm and Bt; 1,909 for Mm and Ssc; 2,372 for Mm and Xl; 411 for Mm, Bt and Ssc; 602 for Mm, Bt and Xl and 860 for Mm, Ssc and Xl. However, there were 254 genes commonly expressed in all these four species. Furthermore, the unigenes of Mm were classified according to the Gene Ontology (GO) by three categories: biological process (P), molecular function (F) and cellular component (C). The results among Mm, Bt, Ssc and Xl showed the entries with GO identifiers were 112 (P), 113 (F) and 105 (C); the results between Mm and Ssc showed the entries with GO identifiers were 857 (P), 926 (F) and 862 (C); the results between Mm and Xl showed the entries with GO identifiers were 1,208 (P), 1,281 (F) and 1,145 (C). For the entries that mapped to biological processes, most of them with their functional annotations were related to metabolic processes. For molecular function, most of the commonly expressed genes were related to some macromolecule or ion binding. In addition, these activated genes are expressed intracellularly at early developmental stages. The commonly expressed genes and their related functions might be annotated using comparison tool among sequence databases of different species. The analytical procedure would assist animal scientists to screen the conserved genes with fundamental roles and functions.目錄……………………………………………………………………………………..I 圖次…………………………………………………………………………………… III 表次……………………………………………………………………………………IV 中文摘要……………………………………………………………………………….V 英文摘要…………………………………………………………………………… .VII 壹、緒言……………………………………………………………………………… 1 貳、文獻檢討………………………………………………………………………… 2 一、早期胚發育過程概述……………………………………………………… 2 二、脊椎動物胚胎埋植前發育過程…………………………………………… 4 三、脊椎動物早期胚發育階段之調控機制……………………..…………… 12 四、資料庫及分析工具簡介……………………………………..…………… 13 參、材料與方法……………………………………………………………..……… 22 一、收集脊椎動物早期胚之表現基因序列.......................................................22 二、脊椎動物早期胚之共同表現基因篩選.......................................................32 三、脊椎動物早期胚共同表現基因之功能性解析...........................................33 肆、結果…………………………………………………………..………………… 35 一、小鼠、牛、豬和非洲爪蟾四個物種間之早期胚共同表現基因...............35 二、物種間共同表現基因之功能性解析...........................................................38 伍、討論…………………………………………………………………..…….……48 一、蛋白質代謝過程...........................................................................................48 二、胚胎發育.......................................................................................................60 三、細胞分化…………………………………………………………………...63 四、細胞生長調控...............................................................................................66 陸、結論……………………………………………………………………………… 69 柒、參考文獻………………………………………………………………………… 70 捌、附錄……………………………………………………………………………7