The design and protocol of acupuncture for migraine prophylaxis: A multicenter randomized controlled trial

Background: Many studies have already reported encouraging results in the prophylactic therapy of migraine by acupuncture, but there seems to be a lack of high quality randomized controlled trials from China. We design and perform a randomized controlled clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of acupuncture compared with flunarizine in the prophylactic therapy of patients with migraine without aura in China. Methods: This trial is a multicenter, prospective, randomized controlled clinical trial. The 140 migraine patients are randomly allocated to two different groups. The acupuncture groups (n = 70) is treated with acupuncture and placebo medicine; while the control group (n = 70) is treated with sham acupuncture and medicine (Flunarizine). Both Flunarizine and placebo are taken 10 mg once per night for the first 2 weeks and then 5 mg once per night for the next 2 weeks. Patients in both groups receive 12 sessions of verum/sham acupuncture in 4 weeks. Discussion: The study design and the long term clinical practice of acupuncturists guarantee a high external validity for the results. The results of our trial will be helpful to supply the evidence on the efficacy of acupuncture for migraine prophylaxis in China. Trial Registration: The trial is registered at Controlled Clinical Trials: ISRCTN49839714.Medicine, Research & ExperimentalSCI(E)0ARTICLEnull1

A common variant near TGFBR3 is associated with primary open angle glaucoma

Primary open angle glaucoma (POAG), a major cause of blindness worldwide, is a complex disease with a significant genetic contribution. We performed Exome Array (Illumina) analysis on 3504 POAG cases and 9746 controls with replication of the most significant findings in 9173 POAG cases and 26 780 controls across 18 collections of Asian, African and European descent. Apart from confirming strong evidence of association at CDKN2B-AS1 (rs2157719 [G], odds ratio [OR] = 0.71, P = 2.81 × 10−33), we observed one SNP showing significant association to POAG (CDC7–TGFBR3 rs1192415, ORG-allele = 1.13, Pmeta = 1.60 × 10−8). This particular SNP has previously been shown to be strongly associated with optic disc area and vertical cup-to-disc ratio, which are regarded as glaucoma-related quantitative traits. Our study now extends this by directly implicating it in POAG disease pathogenesis

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Abstract Primary open angle glaucoma (POAG), a major cause of blindness worldwide, is a complex disease with a significant genetic contribution. We performed Exome Array ), we observed one SNP showing significant association to POAG (CDC7-TGFBR3 rs1192415, OR G-allele = 1.13, P meta = 1.60 × 10 −8 ). This particular SNP has previously been shown to be strongly associated with optic disc area and vertical cup-to-disc ratio, which are regarded as glaucoma-related quantitative traits. Our study now extends this by directly implicating it in POAG disease pathogenesis

Functionalization of single-walled carbon nanotubes with Prussian blue

Chemical functionalization of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) has constructed plenty of new structures with ample new properties into them. But the modification was often confined to organic molecules, either by covalence or non-covalence. In this report, SWNTs were successfully functionalized with one kind of electroactive inorganic compounds: Prussian blue (PB). And the molecular interactions between them were firstly investigated. Interestedly, π–π stacking interaction coupled with ionic interaction was found between SWNTs and PB. The electrochemical properties of SWNTs–PB were also investigated. It would pave a new pathway to manipulate molecular entities of SWNTs by cooperation with functional inorganic electroactive compounds. Keywords: Carbon nanotubes, Prussian blue, Interaction, Electrochemical propertie

Complete mitochondrial genome of Geoemyda spengleri

In this study, we determined the complete mitochondrial genome of Geoemyda spengleri. The genome was 17,448bp in length and contained 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes, and 1 main non-coding regions. The overall base composition of G. spengleri is A 33.67%, T 27.64%, C 25.56%, and G 13.14%, with a highly A + T bias of 61.31%. Here, we describe a phylogenetic analysis of 16 species of Tesudines based on the complete mitochondrial genome, the result showed that G. japonica is most closely related to G. spengleri. This mitogenome sequence data would play an important role in the investigation of phylogenetic relationship, taxonomic resolution and phylogeography of the Tesudines

A Novel Design of Sparse Prototype Filter for Nearly Perfect Reconstruction Cosine-Modulated Filter Banks

Cosine-modulated filter banks play a major role in digital signal processing. Sparse FIR filter banks have lower implementation complexity than full filter banks, while keeping a good performance level. This paper presents a fast design paradigm for sparse nearly perfect-reconstruction (NPR) cosine-modulated filter banks. First, an approximation function is introduced to reduce the non-convex quadratically constrained optimization problem to a linearly constrained optimization problem. Then, the desired sparse linear phase FIR prototype filter is derived through the orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) performed under the weighted l 2 norm. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme is an effective paradigm to design sparse NPR cosine-modulated filter banks

The design and protocol of acupuncture for migraine prophylaxis: A multicenter randomized controlled trial

Abstract Background Many studies have already reported encouraging results in the prophylactic therapy of migraine by acupuncture, but there seems to be a lack of high quality randomized controlled trials from China. We design and perform a randomized controlled clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of acupuncture compared with flunarizine in the prophylactic therapy of patients with migraine without aura in China. Methods This trial is a multicenter, prospective, randomized controlled clinical trial. The 140 migraine patients are randomly allocated to two different groups. The acupuncture groups (n = 70) is treated with acupuncture and placebo medicine; while the control group (n = 70) is treated with sham acupuncture and medicine (Flunarizine). Both Flunarizine and placebo are taken 10 mg once per night for the first 2 weeks and then 5 mg once per night for the next 2 weeks. Patients in both groups receive 12 sessions of verum/sham acupuncture in 4 weeks. Discussion The study design and the long term clinical practice of acupuncturists guarantee a high external validity for the results. The results of our trial will be helpful to supply the evidence on the efficacy of acupuncture for migraine prophylaxis in China. Trial Registration The trial is registered at Controlled Clinical Trials: ISRCTN49839714.</p

Effects of Acid Modulators on the Microwave-Assisted Synthesis of Cr/Sn Metal-Organic Frameworks

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted remarkable attention for their distinguished structural designability. Precisely controlling the particle size and improving the structural stability of MOF nanoparticles influence their catalytic activity significantly. In this study, six acids (nitric, hydrochloric, formic, acetic, succinic, and citric acids) were used as modulators to prepare bimetallic MIL-101 (Cr, Sn) (MIL stands for Materials of Institut Lavoisier) via a microwave-assisted hydrothermal method. Changes in volumetric, structural, stability, and catalytic properties, size, and shape of MIL-101 (Cr, Sn) were examined using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, and N2 adsorption&ndash;desorption measurements. All modulators altered the MOF properties. Compared with other samples, acetic acid as a modulator mildly altered the MOF morphology by narrowing their particle size distribution, enhancing the specific surface area, and significantly improving their water and thermal stabilities. The addition of acetic acid was suitable for the catalytic conversion of glucose to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF), achieving a 43.1% 5-HMF yield with 91.4% glucose conversion in a mixed solution of &gamma;-valerolactone and saturated salt water at 150 &deg;C after 30 min

Integral scattering microscopy of single molecules beyond quantum noise limit

Due to the intrinsically small molecular scattering cross section and quantum noise limit, optical detection of single unlabeled molecules relies on increased optical intensity, leading to limitations in photodamage, sensitivity and space bandwidth. We discovered that integral detection with in-plane scattering of surface plasmon polaritons provides a sensitivity beyond the quantum noise limit. We demonstrate the integral scattering microscopy (InS) with a three orders of magnitude reduction in optical intensity and a two orders of magnitude increase in space bandwidth product, while maintaining state-of-the-art single-molecule sensitivity. InS can be applied in as wide as mass imaging single macromolecules, quantifying dynamics of single-molecule interaction, characterizing cell-secreted supermere, and detecting biomarkers in a multiplexed and label-free manner