Mathematical model of blood and interstitial flow and lymph production in the liver.

We present a mathematical model of blood and interstitial flow in the liver. The liver is treated as a lattice of hexagonal \u2018classic\u2019 lobules, which are assumed to be long enough that end effects may be neglected and a two-dimensional problem considered. Since sinusoids and lymphatic vessels are numerous and small compared to the lobule, we use a homogenized approach, describing the sinusoidal and interstitial spaces as porous media. We model plasma filtration from sinusoids to the interstitium, lymph uptake by lymphatic ducts, and lymph outflow from the liver surface. Our results show that the effect of the liver surface only penetrates a depth of a few lobules\u2019 thickness into the tissue. Thus, we separately consider a single lobule lying sufficiently far from all external boundaries that we may regard it as being in an infinite lattice, and also a model of the region near the liver surface. The model predicts that slightly more lymph is produced by interstitial fluid flowing through the liver surface than that taken up by the lymphatic vessels in the liver and that the on-peritonealized region of the surface of the liver results in the total lymph production (uptake by lymphatics plus fluid crossing surface) being about 5 % more than if the entire surface were covered by the Glisson\u2013peritoneal membrane. Estimates of lymph outflow through the surface of the liver are in good agreement with experimental data. We also study the effect of non-physiological values of the controlling parameters, particularly focusing on the conditions of portal hypertension and ascites. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to model lymph production in the liver. The model provides clinically relevant information about lymph outflow pathways and predicts the systemic response to pathological variations

Lack of Evidence for Human-to-Human Transmission of Avian Influenza A (H9N2) Viruses in Hong Kong, China 19991

In April 1999, isolation of avian influenza A (H9N2) viruses from humans was confirmed for the first time. H9N2 viruses were isolated from nasopharyngeal aspirate specimens collected from two children who were hospitalized with uncomplicated, febrile, upper respiratory tract illnesses in Hong Kong during March 1999. Novel influenza viruses have the potential to initiate global pandemics if they are sufficiently transmissible among humans. We conducted four retrospective cohort studies of persons exposed to these two H9N2 patients to assess whether human-to-human transmission of avian H9N2 viruses had occurred. No serologic evidence of H9N2 infection was found in family members or health-care workers who had close contact with the H9N2-infected children, suggesting that these H9N2 viruses were not easily transmitted from person to person

Early intervention for incipient insanity: early notions from the 19th century English literature.

AIM: Early intervention programmes in mental illnesses started to bloom in the 1990s, and many programmes have been established worldwide during the past twenty years. However, the concept of early intervention has emerged during the 19th century but it did not make much impact on practice. The aim of this review is to identify the difficulties appeared during that period of time which could provide insight into the modern development of early intervention initiatives. METHODS: A narrative review which focused on English literature about early intervention for insanity during the 19th century was undertaken. RESULTS: Clinicians during the 19th century recognized that treatment would be the most effective at the early stage of the mental illness and they had emphasized the importance of early intervention. However, because of a number of factors, such as the limited roles of asylums, lack of knowledge about mental disorder and the lack of effective treatment, the idea of early intervention did not make impact in clinical service during that period of time. CONCLUSION: During the past two hundred years, understanding towards mental illness has advanced and more effective treatments, such as the use of anti-psychotic medications, have been developed. Reflecting on the past experience and difficulties might shed light on the development of today early intervention in mental disorder.This is the author accepted manuscript. It is currently under an indefinite embargo pending publication by Wiley

Meta-analysis Followed by Replication Identifies Loci in or near CDKN1B, TET3, CD80, DRAM1, and ARID5B as Associated with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus in Asians

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a prototype autoimmune disease with a strong genetic involvement and ethnic differences. Susceptibility genes identified so far only explain a small portion of the genetic heritability of SLE, suggesting that many more loci are yet to be uncovered for this disease. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies on SLE in Chinese Han populations and followed up the findings by replication in four additional Asian cohorts with a total of 5,365 cases and 10,054 corresponding controls. We identified genetic variants in or near CDKN1B, TET3, CD80, DRAM1, and ARID5B as associated with the disease. These findings point to potential roles of cell-cycle regulation, autophagy, and DNA demethylation in SLE pathogenesis. For the region involving TET3 and that involving CDKN1B, multiple independent SNPs were identified, highlighting a phenomenon that might partially explain the missing heritability of complex diseases

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

A 150-year record of black carbon (soot and char) and polycyclic aromatic compounds deposition in Lake Phayao, north Thailand

An improved understanding of the historical variation in the emissions and sources (biomass burning, BB vs. fossil fuel, FF combustion) of soot and char, the two components of black carbon (BC), and polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) may help in assessing the environmental effects of the Atmospheric Brown Cloud (ABC) in SE Asia. We therefore determined historical variations of the fluxes of soot, char, and PACs (24 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), 12 oxygenated PAHs (OPAHs), and 4 azaarenes) in a dated sediment core (covering the past ~150 years) of Phayao Lake in Thailand. The soot fluxes have been increasing in recent times, but at a far lower rate than previously estimated based on BC emission inventories. This may be associated with a decreasing BB contribution as indicated by the decreasing char fluxes from old to young sediments. The fluxes of high- and low-molecular-weight (HMW and LMW) PAHs, OPAHs, and azaarenes all sharply increased after ~1980, while the ΣLMW-/ΣHMW-PAHs ratios decreased, further supporting the reduction in BB contribution at the expense of increasing FF combustion emissions. We also suggest that the separate record of char and soot, which has up to now not been done in aerosol studies, is useful to assess the environmental effects of ABC because of the different light-absorbing properties of these two BC components. Our results suggest that besides the establishment of improved FF combustion technology, BB must be further reduced in the SE Asian region in order to weaken the ABC haze

Treatment of Melasma in Asian Skin Using a Fractional 1,550-nm Laser: An Open Clinical Study

BACKGROUND Melasma is a common hyperpigmentation disorder that can cause refractory cosmetic disfigurement, especially in Asians. Fractional photothermolysis (FP) has been reported to be effective for the treatment of melasma, despite small study populations and short follow-up periods. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy and safety of FP for the treatment of melasma in Asians. PATIENTS AND METHODS Twenty-five patients with melasma received four monthly FP sessions and were followed up to 24 weeks after treatment completion. Efficacy was evaluated using objective and subjective ratings, Melasma Area and Severity Index (MASI), melanin index tracking, and skin elasticity measurements. RESULTS Investigators observed clinical improvements in 60% and patients in 44% at 4 weeks after treatment, but the figures decreased to 52% and 35%, respectively, at 24 weeks after treatment. Mean MASI scores decreased significantly from 7.6 to 6.2. Mean melanin index decreased significantly after the first two sessions, but it relapsed slightly in subsequent follow-ups. The treatment did not alter skin elasticity. Hyperpigmentation was observed in three of 23 subjects (13%). CONCLUSION Treatment of melasma with FP led to some clinical improvements, but it was not as efficacious as previously reported at 6-month follow-up. We recommend judicious use of FP for the treatment of melasma in Asian skin because of its limited efficacy. The authors have indicated no significant interest with commercial supporters.Kim BJ, 2008, AM J CLIN DERMATOL, V9, P33Lee HS, 2008, J DERMATOL TREAT, V19, P45, DOI 10.1080/09546630701691244Kim EH, 2007, J DERMATOL SCI, V46, P111, DOI 10.1016/j.jdermsci.2007.01.009Narurkar VA, 2007, DERMATOL THER, V20, pS10CHIU RJ, 2007, FACIAL PLAST SURG CL, V15, P229CHIU RJ, 2007, FACIAL PLAST SURG CL, V15, pR7Wanner M, 2007, DERMATOL SURG, V33, P23, DOI 10.1111/j.1524-4725.2007.33003.xHantash BM, 2006, J BIOMED OPT, V11, DOI 10.1117/1.2241745Kang HY, 2006, BRIT J DERMATOL, V154, P1094, DOI 10.1111/j.1365-2133.2006.07179.xRendon M, 2006, J AM ACAD DERMATOL, V54, pS272, DOI 10.1016/j.jaad.2005.12.039Geronemus RG, 2006, LASER SURG MED, V38, P169, DOI 10.1002/lsm.20310Rokhsar CK, 2005, DERMATOL SURG, V31, P1645TANNOUS ZS, 2005, J COSMET LASER THER, V7, P39Khunger N, 2004, DERMATOL SURG, V30, P756Manstein D, 2004, LASER SURG MED, V34, P426, DOI 10.1002/lsm.20048Briganti S, 2003, PIGM CELL RES, V16, P101Haddad AL, 2003, INT J DERMATOL, V42, P153Sarkar R, 2002, DERMATOL SURG, V28, P828Kang WH, 2002, BRIT J DERMATOL, V146, P228Nouri K, 1999, DERMATOL SURG, V25, P494Manaloto RMP, 1999, DERMATOL SURG, V25, P121Grimes PE, 1999, DERMATOL SURG, V25, P18KIMBROUGHGREEN CK, 1994, ARCH DERMATOL, V130, P727GRIFFITHS CEM, 1993, BRIT J DERMATOL, V129, P415GOLDBERG DJ, 1993, J DERMATOL SURG ONC, V19, P376SANCHEZ NP, 1981, J AM ACAD DERMATOL, V4, P6981

Spatial distribution and sources of winter black carbon and brown carbon in six Chinese megacities

The light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols, including black carbon (BC) and brown carbon (BrC), influenced heavily on aerosol environmental quality and the Earth's radiation. Here, a winter campaign to characterize BC and BrC in PM2.5 was conducted simultaneously in six Chinese megacities (i.e., Harbin, Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai, Wuhan, and Guangzhou) using continual aethalometers. The combinations of advanced aethalometer and generalized additive model (GAM) were used to precisely quantify the BC and BrC sources in these megacities. The averaged light-absorbing coefficients of BC (b(abs)-BC) and BrC (b(abs)-BrC) were 28.6 and 21.8 Mm(-1) in northern cities, they were 1.4 and 2.7 times higher than those in southern cities. The BrC dominated the total b(abs) (>40%) in northern cities but low to 20% in southern cities. On the other hand, the BC fractions were high in the southern cities, with the contributions of 62.4-79.7%, where as much lower values of 53.7-59.4% in the northern cities. Source apportionment showed that the combustion of liquid fuels (e.g., gasoline or diesel) was highly dominant to b(abs)-BC (>80%) in Guangzhou and Wuhan. This was further supported by the high NO2 loadings in the GAM model. Solid fuels (i.e., biomass or coal) contributed a substantial portion to total b(abs)-BC in the other four cities where the high abundances of primary b(abs)-BrC were observed. The diurnal trend showed the peaks of secondary-BrC (b(abs)-BrCS) and b(abs)-BrCS/Delta CO in the northern cities occurred at high relative humidity in nighttime, implying the secondary BrC formation was possibly related to aqueous reactions in winter. In contrast, in the southern cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou, the accumulation of vehicle emissions during the morning traffic rush hours lead the formation of secondary BrC through photochemical reactions. The results of this work can be applied for the development of more effective practices to control BC and BrC on regional scale. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Prevalence and incidence of stroke, white matter hyperintensities, and silent brain infarcts in patients with chronic heart failure: A systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression

10.3389/fcvm.2022.967197FRONTIERS IN CARDIOVASCULAR MEDICINE