Quantitative Evaluation of Chinese Herb Medicine in the Treatment of Sialorrhea and Frequent Nighttime Urination in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease

Aims. To evaluate the efficacy of Lian-Se formula (LSF), one Chinese herb formulation for treating sialorrhea and frequent overnight urination in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Methods. 96 PD patients suffering from sialorrhea and/or frequent nighttime urination were divided into two groups: an LSF group (n = 48) treated with LSF for 6 weeks and a placebo group (n = 48) treated with a placebo formula whose appearance and taste were the same as LSF for 6 weeks. All patients were treated by standard antiparkinsonism medicine according to the PD guideline of China. The changes of the quantity of saliva (QS) (mL), frequency of nighttime urination (FNU) and early sleep activity (ESA), and nocturnal activity (NA) by analyzing actigraphic records as the primary results and the total score of unified Parkinson’s disease rating scale (UPDRS) and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) as the secondary results were used to evaluate the clinical efficacy in both groups. Results. There were no significant differences in the baseline values of QS, FNU, NA, ESA, UPDRS total score, and ESS between the two groups. At the end of week 6, the QS, FNU, NA, and ESA in the LSF group showed superior results to those of the placebo group with no differences in the total UPDRS score between the two groups during the investigation. The ESS was significantly improved at the end of week 6 compared with the baseline and the placebo group. Laboratory test results indicated there were no side effects in either group. Conclusion. The findings of LSF treatment have clear clinical effects in patients with sialorrhea and frequent overnight urination. LSF thus appears to be a potential choice as an additional drug that can improve the sialorrhea and frequent overnight urination symptoms of PD patients

GUS-YOLO Remote Sensing Target Detection Algorithm Introducing Context Information and Attention Gate

At present, there are still some problems in the remote sensing target detection algorithm based on the general YOLO (you only look once) series, such as not making full use of the global context information of the image, not narrowing the semantic gap in the feature fusion pyramid part, and not suppressing the interference of redundant information. On the basis of combining the advantages of YOLO algorithms, this paper proposes GUS-YOLO (network of global context extraction unit and attention gate-based YOLOS) algorithm. It has a backbone network Global Backbone that can make full use of global context information. Other than that, this algorithm introduces the Attention Gate module into the top-down structure of the fused feature pyramid, which can emphasize the necessary feature information and suppress redundant information. Furthermore, this paper designs the best network structure for the Attention Gate module and proposes the feature fusion structure U-Net of proposed network.  Finally, because the ReLU activation function may lead to the problem that the model gradient is no longer updated, the Attention Gate module uses a learnable SMU (smooth maximum unit) activation function, which can improve the robustness of the model. On the NWPU VHR-10 remote sensing dataset, this algorithm achieves 1.64 percentage points and 9.39 percentage points performance improvement on mAP0.50 and mAP0.75 respectively compared with YOLOV7. Compared with the current 7 mainstream detection algorithms, this algorithm achieves better detection performance

Nao-Xue-Shu

Aim. To determine one traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) Nao-Xue-Shu oral liquid which protects and improves secondary brain insults (SBI) in hypertensive cerebral hemorrhage (HCH). Methods. 158 patients with HCH were divided into routine clinical medicine plus Nao-Xue-Shu oral liquid (n=78) as treatment group, and routine clinical medicine (n=80) only served as the control group. The incidence of SBI and the classification of a favorable prognosis and a bad prognosis using the Glasgow outcome scale (GOS) were assessed to evaluate the clinical effects. The changes of IL-6 and TNF-α levels were determined to study the mechanism of the effects for the TCM. Results. The incidence of SBI at the end of week 2 was 8.97% in the treatment group and 23.75% in the control group, and the difference was significant (P<0.001). The incidence of a favorable prognosis was 48.72% in the treatment group and 32.72% in the control group, and the difference was significant (P<0.01) at the end of week 2. These findings indicate clear differences for IL-6 and TNF-α at the end of week 1 and week 2 compared with before treatment for the treatment group and a marked difference at the end of week 2 between the two groups. It also shows a significant difference between the end of week 2 and before treatment for IL-6 and TNF-α for the control group, although the difference was much smaller than the treatment group. Conclusion. Nao-Xue-Shu oral liquid could protect against the occurrence of SBI and improve HCH and SBI patients. It may also decrease the damage and the mass effects of the hematoma by reducing IL-6 and TNF-α to obtain the effects, and thus it is a potentially suitable drug for HCH and SBI

Actigraph Evaluation of Acupuncture for Treating Restless Legs Syndrome

We evaluated the effects of acupuncture in patients with restless legs syndrome (RLS) by actigraph recordings. Among the 38 patients with RLS enrolled, 31 (M=12, F=19; mean age, 47.2±9.7 years old) completed the study. Patients were treated with either standard acupuncture n=15 or randomized acupuncture n=16 in a single-blind manner for 6 weeks. Changes in nocturnal activity (NA) and early sleep activity (ESA) between week 0 (baseline), week 2, week 4, and week 6 were assessed using leg actigraph recordings, the International Restless Legs Syndrome Rating Scale (IRLSRS), and Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS). Standard but not randomized acupuncture reduced the abnormal leg activity of NA and ESA significantly in week 2, week 4, and week 6 based on the changes in the clinical scores for IRLSRS and ESS in week 4 and week 6 compared with the baseline. No side effects were observed. The results indicate that standard acupuncture might improve the abnormal leg activity in RLS patients and thus is a potentially suitable integrative treatment for long-term use

Nao-Xue-Shu Oral Liquid Improves Aphasia of Mixed Stroke

Objective. The objective is to observe whether the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) Nao-Xue-Shu oral liquid improves aphasia of mixed stroke. Methods. A total of 102 patients with aphasia of mixed stroke were divided into two groups by a single blind random method. The patients treated by standard Western medicine plus Nao-Xue-Shu oral liquid ( = 58) were assigned to the treatment group while the remaining patients treated only by standard Western medicine ( = 58) constituted the control group. Changes in the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB), Modified Rankin Scale (mRS), National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), and hemorheology parameters were assessed to evaluate the effects of the treatments. Results. Excluding the patients who dropped out, 54 patients in the treatment group and 51 patients in the control group were used to evaluate the effects. Significant and persistent improvements in the WAB score, specifically comprehension, repetition, naming, and calculating, were found in the treatment group when the effects were evaluated at the end of week 2 and week 4, respectively, compared with baseline. The naming and writing scores were also improved at the end of week 4 in this group. The comprehension and reading scores were improved at the end of week 4 in the control group compared with the baseline, but the improvements were smaller than those in the treatment group. The percentages of patients at the 0-1 range of mRS were increased at the end of week 2 and week 4 in both groups, but the improvements in the treatment group were much larger than those in the control group. Greater improvements in the NIHSS scores and the hemorheology parameters in the treatment group were also observed compared with the control group at the end of week 2 and week 4. Conclusion. Nao-Xue-Shu oral liquid formulation improved aphasia in mixed stroke patients and thus might be a potentially effective drug for treating stroke aphasia

A repeating fast radio burst associated with a persistent radio source

The dispersive sweep of fast radio bursts (FRBs) has been used to probe the ionized baryon content of the intergalactic medium1, which is assumed to dominate the total extragalactic dispersion. Although the host-galaxy contributions to the dispersion measure appear to be small for most FRBs2, in at least one case there is evidence for an extreme magneto-ionic local environment3,4 and a compact persistent radio source5. Here we report the detection and localization of the repeating FRB 20190520B, which is co-located with a compact, persistent radio source and associated with a dwarf host galaxy of high specific-star-formation rate at a redshift of 0.241 ± 0.001. The estimated host-galaxy dispersion measure of approximately 903−111+72 parsecs per cubic centimetre, which is nearly an order of magnitude higher than the average of FRB host galaxies2,6, far exceeds the dispersion-measure contribution of the intergalactic medium. Caution is thus warranted in inferring redshifts for FRBs without accurate host-galaxy identifications