On the Lyapunov functional of Leslie-Gower predator-prey models with time-delay and Holling's functional responses

The global stability on the dynamical behavior of the Leslie-Gower predator-prey system with delayed prey specific growth is analyzed by constructing the corresponding Lyapunov functional. Three different types of famous Holling's functional responses are considered in the present study. The sufficient conditions for the global stability analysis of the unique positive equilibrium point are derived accordingly. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the effect of different Holling-Type functional responses on the global stability of the Leislie-Gower predator-prey model

BETTER POSTURAL CONTROL DURING ACCURATE SHOOTING IN ELITE FEMALE BASKETBALL PLAYERS

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the differences of postural control (PC) during accurate and inaccurate shooting in elite female basketball players. 21 female professional basketball players recruited as subjects. The PC was evaluated by the Accusway as sway radius, velocity, radial and 95% area of the center of pressure (COP) during standard penalty line shooting. The results showed that the COP sway area during accurate shooting was significantly smaller than during inaccurate shooting (74.0 ± 37.9 vs. 110.6 ± 49.1, p < .05). Moreover, no significant differences were found between situations in the COP radius and velocity. This study found that during the accurate shooting, elite female basketball player had better PC which demonstrated that significant smaller COP sway area than inaccurate shooting

Effects of Growth Hormone Treatment on Height, Weight, and Obesity in Taiwanese Patients with Prader-Willi Syndrome

BackgroundInformation regarding the efficacy of growth hormone (GH) therapy in Asian Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) patients is lacking. We report our experience with GH treatment in children with PWS in Taiwan.MethodsForty-six PWS patients (27 males, 19 females; age range, 1 year 4 months to 13 years 7 months) who received and/or who are currently receiving GH treatment (0.1 IU/kg/day subcutaneously) for a period from 1 year to 3 years were retro-spectively analyzed. We evaluated height, weight, body mass index (BMI) and Rohrer index, before and after GH treatment.ResultsAfter patients had received GH for 1, 2 and 3 years, a significant improvement in mean height standard deviation score (SDS) was noted from −1.24 to −0.31 (p <0.01), 0.00 (p <0.001) and −0.26 (p <0.001), respectively. Mean BMI SDS decreased significantly from 1.93 to 1.13 (p <0.05) after 1 year of treatment; however, no significant changes were observed afterward. Mean Rohrer index decreased significantly, from 224.2 to 186.6 (p <0.001), 178.9 (p <0.001) and 169.3 (p <0.001). No significant gender or genotype pattern differences were noted among the 4 parameters examined.ConclusionThis 3-year, retrospective study indicates that PWS patients benefit from GH therapy in height increase and improved body composition

Efectos sobre la gestión del conocimiento y la cultura corporativa en el clima de innovación organizativa

El conocimiento y la innovación se consideran rasgos característicos de la nueva era de la economía del conocimiento. Toda organización debe ser capaz de gestionar el conocimiento y de innovar continuamente para hacer patentes sus ventajas competitivas. Sometidas a una creciente competencia de mercado, las empresas dependen cada vez más de la innovación para aumentar la competitividad que les permita sobrevivir y desarrollarse. Un clima de innovación organizativa desempeña por ello un papel central en la ejecución de operaciones y actividades. A tenor de los motivos y propósitos de investigaciones previas, en este estudio se pretende discutir la correlación entre el clima de innovación organizativa y la gestión del conocimiento. Nuestro objeto de investigación se centra en una muestra de trabajadores manuales del parque industrial de Linkou a los que se distribuye 650 cuestionarios. Una vez eliminados los cuestionarios que no eran válidos o los incompletos, se obtienen 348 válidos, con una tasa de recuperación del 54%. Los resultados empíricos muestran lo siguiente: 1. Se produce una correlación parcialmente significativa entre la gestión del conocimiento y la cultura corporativa. 2. Se da una considerable correlación entre cultura corporativa y clima de innovación organizativa. 3 Asimismo, se produce una notable correlación entre gestión del conocimiento y cultura corporativa. 4. Hay un efecto de mediación entre la cultura corporativa relacionada con la gestión del conocimiento y el clima de innovación organizativa.Knowledge and innovation are regarded as characteristics in the new knowledge economy era. Any organization should be able to manage knowledge and continuously innovate in order to present their competitive advantages. Under increasing market competition, enterprises depend more on innovation to enhance the competitiveness for survival and development. Organizational Innovation Climate therefore plays a critical role in the overall operation and activity performance. According to the previous research motives and purposes, this study aims to discuss the correlations between Organizational Innovation Climate and Knowledge Management. Manufacturers in Linkou Industrial Park are sampled as the research subjects and a total of 650 questionnaires are distributed. Having eliminated invalid and incomplete questionnaires, a total of 348 valid copies are retrieved, with a retrieval rate of 54%. The empirical results show 1. Partially significant correlations between Knowledge Management and Corporate Culture, 2. Remarkable correlations between Corporate Culture and Organizational Innovation Climate, 3. Notable correlations between Knowledge Management and Corporate Culture, and 4. Mediating effects of Corporate Culture on Knowledge Management and Organizational Innovation Climate

ATACgraph: Profiling genome-wide chromatin accessibility from ATAC-seq

Assay for transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing data (ATAC-seq) is an efficient and precise method for revealing chromatin accessibility across the genome. Most of the current ATAC-seq tools follow chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) strategies that do not consider ATAC-seq-specific properties. To incorporate specific ATAC-seq quality control and the underlying biology of chromatin accessibility, we developed a bioinformatics software named ATACgraph for analyzing and visualizing ATAC-seq data. ATACgraph profiles accessible chromatin regions and provides ATAC-seq-specific information including definitions of nucleosome-free regions (NFRs) and nucleosome-occupied regions. ATACgraph also allows identification of differentially accessible regions between two ATAC-seq datasets. ATACgraph incorporates the docker image with the Galaxy platform to provide an intuitive user experience via the graphical interface. Without tedious installation processes on a local machine or cloud, users can analyze data through activated websites using pre-designed workflows or customized pipelines composed of ATACgraph modules. Overall, ATACgraph is an effective tool designed for ATAC-seq for biologists with minimal bioinformatics knowledge to analyze chromatin accessibility. ATACgraph can be run on any ATAC-seq data with no limit to specific genomes. As validation, we demonstrated ATACgraph on human genome to showcase its functions for ATAC-seq interpretation. This software is publicly accessible and can be downloaded at https://github.com/RitataLU/ATACgraph

Efectos sobre la gestión del conocimiento y la cultura corporativa en el clima de innovación organizativa

El conocimiento y la innovación se consideran rasgos característicos de la nueva era de la economía del conocimiento. Toda organización debe ser capaz de gestionar el conocimiento y de innovar continuamente para hacer patentes sus ventajas competitivas. Sometidas a una creciente competencia de mercado, las empresas dependen cada vez más de la innovación para aumentar la competitividad que les permita sobrevivir y desarrollarse. Un clima de innovación organizativa desempeña por ello un papel central en la ejecución de operaciones y actividades. A tenor de los motivos y propósitos de investigaciones previas, en este estudio se pretende discutir la correlación entre el clima de innovación organizativa y la gestión del conocimiento. Nuestro objeto de investigación se centra en una muestra de trabajadores manuales del parque industrial de Linkou a los que se distribuye 650 cuestionarios. Una vez eliminados los cuestionarios que no eran válidos o los incompletos, se obtienen 348 válidos, con una tasa de recuperación del 54%. Los resultados empíricos muestran lo siguiente: 1. Se produce una correlación parcialmente significativa entre la gestión del conocimiento y la cultura corporativa. 2. Se da una considerable correlación entre cultura corporativa y clima de innovación organizativa. 3 Asimismo, se produce una notable correlación entre gestión del conocimiento y cultura corporativa. 4. Hay un efecto de mediación entre la cultura corporativa relacionada con la gestión del conocimiento y el clima de innovación organizativa.<br><br>Knowledge and innovation are regarded as characteristics in the new knowledge economy era. Any organization should be able to manage knowledge and continuously innovate in order to present their competitive advantages. Under increasing market competition, enterprises depend more on innovation to enhance the competitiveness for survival and development. Organizational Innovation Climate therefore plays a critical role in the overall operation and activity performance. According to the previous research motives and purposes, this study aims to discuss the correlations between Organizational Innovation Climate and Knowledge Management. Manufacturers in Linkou Industrial Park are sampled as the research subjects and a total of 650 questionnaires are distributed. Having eliminated invalid and incomplete questionnaires, a total of 348 valid copies are retrieved, with a retrieval rate of 54%. The empirical results show 1. Partially significant correlations between Knowledge Management and Corporate Culture, 2. Remarkable correlations between Corporate Culture and Organizational Innovation Climate, 3. Notable correlations between Knowledge Management and Corporate Culture, and 4. Mediating effects of Corporate Culture on Knowledge Management and Organizational Innovation Climate

Intramuscular electroporation with the pro-opiomelanocortin gene in rat adjuvant arthritis

Endogenous opioid peptides have an essential role in the intrinsic modulation and control of inflammatory pain, which could be therapeutically useful. In this study, we established a muscular electroporation method for the gene transfer of pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) in vivo and investigated its effect on inflammatory pain in a rat model of rheumatoid arthritis. The gene encoding human POMC was inserted into a modified pCMV plasmid, and 0–200 μg of the plasmid-POMC DNA construct was transferred into the tibialis anterior muscle of rats treated with complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) with or without POMC gene transfer by the electroporation method. The safety and efficiency of the gene transfer was assessed with the following parameters: thermal hyperalgesia, serum adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and endorphin levels, paw swelling and muscle endorphin levels at 1, 2 and 3 weeks after electroporation. Serum ACTH and endorphin levels of the group into which the gene encoding POMC had been transferred were increased to about 13–14-fold those of the normal control. These levels peaked 1 week after electroporation and significantly decreased 2 weeks after electroporation. Rats that had received the gene encoding POMC had less thermal hypersensitivity and paw swelling than the non-gene-transferred group at days 3, 5 and 7 after injection with CFA. Our promising results showed that transfer of the gene encoding POMC by electroporation is a new and effective method for its expression in vivo, and the analgesic effects of POMC cDNA with electroporation in a rat model of rheumatoid arthritis are reversed by naloxone

A novel deep intronic variant strongly associates with Alkaptonuria.

Alkaptonuria is a rare autosomal recessive inherited disorder of tyrosine metabolism, which causes ochronosis, arthropathy, cardiac valvular calcification, and urolithiasis. The epidemiology of alkaptonuria in East Asia is not clear. In this study, patients diagnosed with alkaptonuria from January 2010 to June 2020 were reviewed. Their clinical and molecular features were further compared with those of patients from other countries. Three patients were found to have alkaptonuria. Mutation analyses of the homogentisate 1,2-dioxygenase gene (HGD) showed four novel variants c.16-2063 A > C, p.(Thr196Ile), p.(Gly344AspfsTer25), and p.(Gly362Arg) in six mutated alleles (83.3%). RNA sequencing revealed that c.16-2063 A > C activates a cryptic exon, causing protein truncation p.(Tyr5_Ile6insValTer17). A literature search identified another 6 patients with alkaptonuria in East Asia; including our cases, 13 of the 18 mutated alleles have not been reported elsewhere in the world. Alkaptonuria is rare in Taiwan and East Asia, with HGD variants being mostly novel and private