Changes in host muscles induced by excretory/secretory products of larval Trichinella spiralis and Trichinella pseudospiralis

Excretory/secretory (ES) products obtained by in vitro culture of infective-stage larvae of Trichinella spiralis and T. pseudospiralis were injected intramuscularly at various intervals into mice. Mini-osmotic pumps containing T. spiralis ES products were also implanted subcutaneously and intraperitoneally into rats. The introduction of ES materials into muscles elicited extensive lesions which included dissolution of myofibres, mobilization of mononuclear and polymorphonuclear leucocytes, angiogenesis, hypertrophy of myonuclei, myotube formation, mitosis, muscle bundles becoming rounded and separated from each other, disappearance of Z, I and A bands of sarcomeres, increase in endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi complexes, decrease in glycogen and relocation of mitochondria. These are considered as degenerative/regenerative changes of muscles to injury. Immunodominant epitopes of specific 45-53 kDa glycoproteins in ES antigens of T. spiralis could not be detected in hypertrophic nuclei of injected muscles by using polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies and immunocytochemical methods. ES products of T. spiralis failed to stimulate unsensitized lymphocytes in the lymphocyte transformation test. Infective-stage larvae of T. spiralis released from muscles were found capable of forming nurse cells after injection subcutaneously into rats. It is postulated that the invasion of muscles by trichinellids elicits two independent events, i.e. a general degenerative/regenerative response of muscles and a specific change in genomic expression of myonuclei. The two events are probably mediated by different effector molecules.published_or_final_versio

STUDY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHYSICAL STRUCTURAL INTEGRALITY AND ECOSYSTEM SERVICES VALUE IN THE RIPARIAN ZONE

Riparian zone is crucial to the health of streams and their surrounding environment. A healthy riparian zone can provide food, habitats, protecting water quality and many other ecological functions and environmental benefits. Evaluating riparian quality is essential to achieve and maintain good stream health, as well as to guarantee the ecological functions that riparian areas provide. In this study, we addressed the consistency of characterizing integrality of ecosystem of a riparian zone in Northeast China with physical structural integrality (PSI) and ecosystem service value (ESV), and explored the relationship between the PSI and ESV. The procedures included (1) evaluation of PSI of the riparian zone based on remote sensing; (2) calculation of the riparian ESV based on basic evaluation units (BEUs); (3) exploration of statistical relationships between the PSI and the ESV by the performance of linear regression. The study concluded that the trend of PSI was the same as the ESV, and they were consistent in describing the quantitative trend of the riparian zone’s ecosystem integrity. There was statistically significant correlation (R = 0.66, P \u3c 0.01 level) between PSI and ESV

Amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis supports the valid separate species status of Lucilia caesar and L. illustris (Diptera: Calliphoridae)

Common DNA-based species determination methods fail to distinguish some blow flies in the forensically and medically important genus Lucilia Robineau-Desvoidy. This is a practical problem, and it has also been interpreted as casting doubt on the validity of some morphologically defined species. An example is Lucilia illustris and L. caesar, which co-occur in Europe whilst only L. illustris has been collected in North America. Reports that these species shared both mitochondrial and nuclear gene sequences, along with claims that diagnostic morphological characters are difficult to interpret, were used to question their separate species status. We report here that amplified fragment length polymorphism profiles strongly support the validity of both species based on both assignment and phylogenetic analysis, and that traditional identification criteria based on male and female genital morphology are more reliable than has been claimed.publishedVersio

Insights into the clinical management of the syndrome of supine hypertension--orthostatic hypotension (SH-OH): the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA).

BACKGROUND: Our previously proposed morphological classification of orthostatic hypotension (MOH) is an approach to the definition of three typical orthostatic hemodynamic patterns using non-invasive beat-to-beat monitoring. In particular, the MOH pattern of large drop/non-recovery (MOH-3) resembles the syndrome of supine hypertension-orthostatic hypotension (SH-OH), which is a treatment challenge for clinicians. The aim of this study was to characterise MOH-3 in the first wave of The Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing (TILDA), with particular attention to concurrent symptoms of orthostatic intolerance (OI), prescribed medications and association with history of faints and blackouts. METHODS: The study included all TILDA wave 1 participants who had a Finometer® active stand. Automatic data signal checks were carried out to ensure that active stand data were of sufficient quality. Characterisation variables included demographics, cardiovascular and neurological medications (WHO-ATC), and self-reported information on comorbidities and disability. Multivariable statistics consisted of logistic regression models. RESULTS: Of the 4,467 cases, 1,456 (33%) were assigned to MOH-1 (small drop, overshoot), 2,230 (50%) to MOH-2 (medium drop, slower but full recovery), and 781 (18%) to MOH-3 (large drop, non-recovery). In the logistic regression model to predict MOH-3, statistically significant factors included being on antidepressants (OR = 1.99, 95% CI: 1.50 - 2.64, P < 0.001) and beta blockers (OR = 1.60, 95% CI: 1.26 - 2.04, P < 0.001). MOH-3 was an independent predictor of OI after full adjustment (OR = 1.47, 95% CI: 1.25 - 1.73, P < 0.001), together with being on hypnotics or sedatives (OR = 1.83, 95% CI: 1.31 - 2.54, P < 0.001). In addition, OI was an independent predictor of history of falls/blackouts after full adjustment (OR = 1.27, 95% CI: 1.09 - 1.48, P = 0.003). CONCLUSIONS: Antidepressants and beta blockers were independently associated with MOH-3, and should be used judiciously in older patients with SH-OH. Hypnotics and sedatives may add to the OI effect of MOH-3. Several trials have demonstrated the benefits of treating older hypertensive patients with cardiovascular medications that were not associated with adverse outcomes in our study. Therefore, the evidence of benefit does not necessarily have to conflict with the evidence of potential harm

Manifold Elastic Net: A Unified Framework for Sparse Dimension Reduction

It is difficult to find the optimal sparse solution of a manifold learning based dimensionality reduction algorithm. The lasso or the elastic net penalized manifold learning based dimensionality reduction is not directly a lasso penalized least square problem and thus the least angle regression (LARS) (Efron et al. \cite{LARS}), one of the most popular algorithms in sparse learning, cannot be applied. Therefore, most current approaches take indirect ways or have strict settings, which can be inconvenient for applications. In this paper, we proposed the manifold elastic net or MEN for short. MEN incorporates the merits of both the manifold learning based dimensionality reduction and the sparse learning based dimensionality reduction. By using a series of equivalent transformations, we show MEN is equivalent to the lasso penalized least square problem and thus LARS is adopted to obtain the optimal sparse solution of MEN. In particular, MEN has the following advantages for subsequent classification: 1) the local geometry of samples is well preserved for low dimensional data representation, 2) both the margin maximization and the classification error minimization are considered for sparse projection calculation, 3) the projection matrix of MEN improves the parsimony in computation, 4) the elastic net penalty reduces the over-fitting problem, and 5) the projection matrix of MEN can be interpreted psychologically and physiologically. Experimental evidence on face recognition over various popular datasets suggests that MEN is superior to top level dimensionality reduction algorithms.Comment: 33 pages, 12 figure

The All-Data-Based Evolutionary Hypothesis of Ciliated Protists with a Revised Classification of the Phylum Ciliophora (Eukaryota, Alveolata)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The file attached is the published version of the article

Solar-type dynamo behaviour in fully convective stars without a tachocline

In solar-type stars (with radiative cores and convective envelopes), the magnetic field powers star spots, flares and other solar phenomena, as well as chromospheric and coronal emission at ultraviolet to X-ray wavelengths. The dynamo responsible for generating the field depends on the shearing of internal magnetic fields by differential rotation. The shearing has long been thought to take place in a boundary layer known as the tachocline between the radiative core and the convective envelope. Fully convective stars do not have a tachocline and their dynamo mechanism is expected to be very different, although its exact form and physical dependencies are not known. Here we report observations of four fully convective stars whose X-ray emission correlates with their rotation periods in the same way as in Sun-like stars. As the X-ray activity - rotation relationship is a well-established proxy for the behaviour of the magnetic dynamo, these results imply that fully convective stars also operate a solar-type dynamo. The lack of a tachocline in fully convective stars therefore suggests that this is not a critical ingredient in the solar dynamo and supports models in which the dynamo originates throughout the convection zone.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in Nature (28 July 2016). Author's version, including Method