Case report: Peroral endoscopic myotomy for acute pandysautonomia-associated distal esophageal spasm in a child

Acute pandysautonomia-associated distal esophageal spasm is a rare disease with an unclear etiology. Here, we describe a 12-year-old boy with an acute pandysautonomia-associated distal esophageal spasm who was treated using a peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM). The patient's clinical features included recurrent dysphagia, nausea, vomiting, growth retardation, and signs of autonomic nerve dysfunction (e.g., a decreased production of tears and sweat, and an increased production of saliva). Signs of the distal esophageal spasm were visible in upper gastrointestinal radiography, endoscopy, and high-resolution esophageal manometry. After the POEM, the patient exhibited improvements in nausea and vomiting, and his dysphagia symptoms were relieved by the 6-month follow-up visit. However, the patient's neurological problems persisted. The satisfactory short-term clinical responses in our patient suggest that POEM is feasible, safe, and effective for the treatment of acute pandysautonomia-associated distal esophageal spasms in children

Implementation and performances of the IPbus protocol for the JUNO Large-PMT readout electronics

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a large neutrino detector currently under construction in China. Thanks to the tight requirements on its optical and radio-purity properties, it will be able to perform leading measurements detecting terrestrial and astrophysical neutrinos in a wide energy range from tens of keV to hundreds of MeV. A key requirement for the success of the experiment is an unprecedented 3% energy resolution, guaranteed by its large active mass (20 kton) and the use of more than 20,000 20-inch photo-multiplier tubes (PMTs) acquired by high-speed, high-resolution sampling electronics located very close to the PMTs. As the Front-End and Read-Out electronics is expected to continuously run underwater for 30 years, a reliable readout acquisition system capable of handling the timestamped data stream coming from the Large-PMTs and permitting to simultaneously monitor and operate remotely the inaccessible electronics had to be developed. In this contribution, the firmware and hardware implementation of the IPbus based readout protocol will be presented, together with the performances measured on final modules during the mass production of the electronics

Validation and integration tests of the JUNO 20-inch PMTs readout electronics

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a large neutrino detector currently under construction in China. JUNO will be able to study the neutrino mass ordering and to perform leading measurements detecting terrestrial and astrophysical neutrinos in a wide energy range, spanning from 200 keV to several GeV. Given the ambitious physics goals of JUNO, the electronic system has to meet specific tight requirements, and a thorough characterization is required. The present paper describes the tests performed on the readout modules to measure their performances.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figure

Mass testing of the JUNO experiment 20-inch PMTs readout electronics

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a multi-purpose, large size, liquid scintillator experiment under construction in China. JUNO will perform leading measurements detecting neutrinos from different sources (reactor, terrestrial and astrophysical neutrinos) covering a wide energy range (from 200 keV to several GeV). This paper focuses on the design and development of a test protocol for the 20-inch PMT underwater readout electronics, performed in parallel to the mass production line. In a time period of about ten months, a total number of 6950 electronic boards were tested with an acceptance yield of 99.1%

State of the art and applications in nanostructured biocatalysis

AbstractEnzymes have been widely studied for their excellent efficiency, selectivity and environmentally benign nature. However, the development of their biocatalytic applications is severely limited by the lack of stability and reusability. Nanostructured materials have been demonstrated as efficient hosts for the immobilization of enzyme due to their large surface areas as well as higher activities and long-term stability. Furthermore, nanomaterials with enzyme-like characteristics are explored as highly stable and low-cost alternatives to mimic the structures and functions of naturally occurring enzymes. This review offers an overview on the research status of enzymatic immobilization adapted from nanostructured materials and nanozymes in numerous fields, from biosensing and biocatalysis to environmental remediation, with emphasis focused on current challenges and future directions in highly selective and efficient biocatalysis

Analysis of Water Features in Gas Leakage Area

In a certain frequency range, gas is an effective absorber and scatterer of sound, which changes the compressibility of water, and then changes the speed and frequency of sound. Gas continues rising, deforming, and dissolving. The same bubble of natural gas has different radii at different depths. By analyzing these changes, the resonance frequency of gas bubble, and its impacts on sound wave, characteristics of the influences of gas at different depths on the incident sound wave can be obtained. The main sound features of gas are relevant to the gas size, gas content, velocity, attenuation, resonance frequency, the scattering cross-section, and so forth. Sound models with hydrate and free gas in the water and sediment are established. Through the practical application to actual data, the sound characteristics yielded when the gas (or gas hydrate dissociation) escaped the water of seismic data are very clear

Zwitterionic Modification of Polyethyleneimine for Efficient In Vitro siRNA Delivery

Polyethylenimine (PEI) has been widely used in gene delivery. However, its high cytotoxicity and undesired non-specific protein adsorption hinder the overall delivery efficacy and the practical applications of PEI-based gene delivery systems. In this study, we prepared hydrophobically modified PEIs (H-PEIs) via the reaction of octanal with 40% of primary amines in PEI25k and PEI10k, respectively. Two common zwitterionic molecules, 1,3-propanesultone and β-propiolactone, were then used for the modification of the resulting H-PEIs to construct polycationic gene carriers with zwitterionic properties (H-zPEIs). The siRNA delivery efficiency and cytotoxicity of these materials were evaluated in Hela-Luc and A549-Luc cell lines. Compared with their respective parental H-PEIs, different degrees of zwitterionic modification showed different effects in reducing cytotoxicity and delivery efficiency. All zwitterion-modified PEIs showed excellent siRNA binding capacity, reduced nonspecific protein adsorption, and enhanced stability upon nuclease degradation. It is concluded that zwitterionic molecular modification is an effective method to construct efficient vectors by preventing undesired interactions between polycationic carriers and biomacromolecules. It may offer insights into the modification of other cationic carriers of nucleic acid drugs

Synthesis and biological evaluation of water-soluble <i>trans</i>-[bicyclo[2.2.2]octane-7<i>R</i>,8<i>R</i>-diamine]platinum(II) complexes with linear or branched alkoxyacetates as leaving groups

<p>Four platinum(II) complexes, <i>trans</i>-[bicyclo[2.2.2]octane-7<i>R</i>,8<i>R</i>-diamine]bis(alkoxyacetato-<i>O</i>,<i>O’</i>) platinum(II) (alkoxyacetate = methoxyacetate (<b>2</b>), ethoxyacetate (<b>3</b>), isopropoxyacetate (<b>4</b>), and <i>tert</i>-butoxyacetate (<b>5</b>)) were synthesized and spectrally characterized. The cytotoxicity of these water-soluble complexes was evaluated by CCK-8 assay <i>in vitro</i> against HCT-116, HepG-2, and A549 cancer cell lines. Most of the complexes had cytotoxic activity against the tested cancer cell lines. Among them, <b>3</b> showed more potent antitumor effect than cisplatin or oxaliplatin. Complex <b>3</b> could cause HCT-116 cell line death based on an apoptotic pathway since it has a dicyclic moiety similar to 1<i>R</i>,2<i>R</i>-diaminocyclohexane in oxaliplatin. Agarose gel electrophoresis on the interaction between <b>3</b> and DNA indicated that it has different behavior from that of cisplatin or oxaliplatin, which has a high correlation with the ligand used.</p

The Influencing Factors Analysis of Aquaculture Mechanization Development in Liaoning, China

Promoting the mechanization of aquaculture is one of the most important supporting measures to ensure the high-quality development of the aquaculture industry in China. In order to solve the problems of predominantly manual work and to decrease the costs of aquaculture, the influencing factors of China’s aquaculture mechanization were systematically analyzed. The triple bottom theory was selected, and three aspects were identified, including environmental, economic, and social aspects. Through the literature review, the Delphi method, and the analytic hierarchy process, the comprehensive evaluation indicator system, including 18 influencing factors, was proposed. Moreover, the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method was combined with the model to solve the evaluation results. A case study in Liaoning Province was offered and, according to the analysis results, the economic aspect at the first level was the most critical factor; the financial subsidy for the purchase of aquaculture machinery, the energy consumption of the machinery and equipment, and the promotion and use of aquaculture technology were the most important factors and had the greatest impact on the development of aquaculture mechanization in China. The effective implementation paths and countermeasures were proposed, such as the promotion of mechanized equipment and the enhancement of the machinery purchase subsidies, in order to provide an important decision-making basis for the improvement of the level of aquaculture mechanization