Prognostic Significance of miR-181b and miR-21 in Gastric Cancer Patients Treated with S-1/Oxaliplatin or Doxifluridine/Oxaliplatin

Background: The goal of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of S-1/Oxaliplatin vs. Doxifluridine/Oxaliplatin regimen and to identify miRNAs as potential prognostic biomarkers in gastric cancer patients. The expression of candidate miRNAs was quantified from fifty-five late stage gastric cancer FFPE specimens. Experimental Design: Gastric cancer patients with KPS>70 were recruited for the trial. The control group was treated with 400 mg/twice/day Doxifluridine plus i.v. with Oxaliplatin at 130 mg/m 2/first day/4 week cycle. The testing group was treated with S-1 at 40 mg/twice/day/4 week cycle plus i.v. with Oxaliplatin at 130 mg/m 2/first day/4 week cycle. Total RNAs were extracted from normal and gastric tumor specimens. The levels of miRNAs were quantified using real time qRT-PCR expression analysis. Results: The overall objective response rate (CR+PR) of patients treated with S-1/Oxaliplatin was 33.3% (CR+PR) vs. 17.6% (CR+PR) with Doxifluridine/Oxaliplatin for advanced stage gastric cancer patients. The average overall survival for patients treated with S-1/Oxaliplatin was 7.80 month vs. 7.30 month with patients treated with Doxifluridine/Oxaliplatin. The expression of miR-181b (P = 0.022) and miR-21 (P = 0.0029) was significantly overexpressed in gastric tumors compared to normal gastric tissues. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that low levels of miR-21 expression (Log rank test, hazard ratio: 0.17, CI = 0.06-0.45; P = 0.0004) and miR-181b (Log rank test, hazard ratio: 0.37, CI = 0.16-0.87; P = 0.018) are closely associated with better patient's overall survival for both S-1 and Doxifluridine based regimens. Conclusion: Patients treated with S-1/Oxaliplatin had a better response than those treated with Doxifluridine/Oxaliplatin. miR-21 and miR-181b hold great potential as prognostic biomarkers in late stage gastric cancer. © 2011 Jiang et al

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Improvement of Fast Kurtogram Combined with PCA for Multiple Weak Fault Features Extraction

Demodulation plays an important role in fault feature extraction for rotating machinery. The fast kurtogram method was proved to be effective for rotating machinery demodulation. However, the demodulation effectiveness of fast kurtogram was poor for multiple fault features extraction under low signal-to-noise ratio. In this paper, an improved method of fast kurtogram, called P-kurtogram, is presented. The proposed method extracted the multiple weak fault features from multiple envelope signals-based principal component analysis. Compared with extracting features from one envelope signal of fast kurtogram, P-kurtogram showed a better demodulation performance for multiple faults. Combined with principal component analysis method, the proposed method also showed a good performance under low signal-to-noise ratio(SNR). By simulation analysis, the P-kurtogram method showed good performance for multiple modulation features extraction and robust performance in demodulation under low SNR. Then, the proposed method was demonstrated by applications of bearing faults detection and propeller detection. The results verified that the P-kurtogram has a better demodulation performance than fast kurtogram for multiple weak fault features extraction, especially under low signal-to-noise ratio. The proposed method provides a reliable basis for multiple weak fault features extraction of rotating machinery

Yes-Associated Protein 1 as a Novel Prognostic Biomarker for Gastrointestinal Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

Background. Yes-associated protein 1 (YAP1) is an effector of Hippo pathway, which plays a significant role in cell proliferation and tumor progression. The relationship between YAP1 and gastrointestinal cancer has been explored in many previous studies. We conducted a meta-analysis to explore the prognostic effect of YAP1 in patients with gastrointestinal cancer. Methods. A systematic search was performed through the PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and Cochrane library databases to collect eligible studies. The pooled hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to evaluate the relationship between YAP1 expression and gastrointestinal cancer clinical outcomes. Results. A total of 2941 patients from 18 studies were enrolled. The results showed that elevated YAP1 expression predicted a poor prognosis in gastrointestinal cancer (HR = 1.56; 95% CI: 1.29-1.89; P < 0.001). Subgroup analyses indicated significant association between YAP1 overexpression and shorter OS of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (HR = 1.85; 95% CI: 1.25-2.73; P = 0.002), gastric cancer (HR = 1.41,95% CI: 1.02-1.95; P = 0.037), and colorectal cancer (pooled HR = 1.75; 95% CI: 1.42-2.15; P < 0.001). However, YAP1 expression did not affect DFS of patients with gastrointestinal cancer (pooled HR = 1.33; 95% CI: 0.95-1.88; P = 0.101). Conclusion. Elevated YAP1 expression in patients with gastrointestinal cancer might be related to shorter OS. YAP1 protein could serve as a potential predictor of poor prognosis in gastrointestinal cancer

The Antiviral Effect of Panax Notoginseng Polysaccharides by Inhibiting PRV Adsorption and Replication In Vitro

Porcine pseudorabies (PR) is an important infectious disease caused by pseudorabies virus (PRV), which poses a major threat to food safety and security. Vaccine immunization has become the main means to prevent and control the disease. However, since 2011, a new PRV variant has caused huge economic losses to the Chinese pig industry. Panax notoginseng polysaccharides have immunomodulatory activity and other functions, but the antiviral effect has not been reported. We studied the anti-PRV activity of Panax notoginseng polysaccharides in vitro. A less cytopathic effect was observed by increasing the concentration of Panax notoginseng polysaccharides. Western blot, TCID50, plaque assay, and IFA revealed that Panax notoginseng polysaccharides could significantly inhibit the infectivity of PRV XJ5 on PK15 cells. In addition, we also found that Panax notoginseng polysaccharides blocked the adsorption and replication of PRV to PK15 cells in a dose-dependent manner. These results show that Panax notoginseng polysaccharides play an antiviral effect mainly by inhibiting virus adsorption and replication in vitro. Therefore, Panax notoginseng polysaccharides may be a potential anti-PRV agent

Evaluating the Prognostic Value of microRNA-203 in Solid Tumors Based on a Meta-Analysis and the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Datasets

Background: It has been reported that miR-203 expression was aberrant in various types of cancers, and it could be used as a prognostic biomarker. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of miR-203 expression in solid tumors by using meta-analysis and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) datasets. Methods: By doing a literature research in PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane Library (last update by December 2016), we were able to identify the studies assessing the prognostic role of miR-203 in various tumors. We then used TCGA datasets to validate the results of meta-analysis. Results:33 studies from 26 articles were qualified and enrolled in this meta-analysis. Pooled analyses showed that higher expression of miR-203 in tissues couldn’t predict poor overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) in solid tumors. However, the results of subgroup analyses revealed that the upregulation of tissue miR-203 expression was associated with poor OS in colorectal cancer (hazard ratio (HR)=1.81, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.31-2.49; P&#x3c;0.001), pancreatic cancer (HR=1.19, 95% CI 1.09-1.31; P&#x3c;0.001) and ovarian cancer (HR=1.85, 95% CI 1.45-2.37; P&#x3c;0.001); but it had opposite association in liver cancer (HR=0.52, 95% CI 0.28-0.97; P=0.040) and esophageal cancer (HR=0.41, 95% CI 0.25-0.66; P&#x3c;0.001). Based on TCGA datasets, we found the same results for pancreatic cancer and esophageal cancer, but not for colorectal cancer and liver cancer. Moreover, patients with high circulating miR-203 in blood had significantly poor OS and PFS in colorectal cancer and breast cancer. Conclusion: Our study showed that the prognostic values of tissue miR-203 varied in different tumor types. In addition, the upregulation of circulating miR-203 in blood was associated with poor prognosis in colorectal cancer and breast cancer

The CMM-PWD: a feature extraction method of subway fan under piston wind effect

Subway fans play significant roles in subway system such as ventilation, smoke discharging and cooling. Nowadays, fast and effective condition monitoring of subway fan is highly important for the safety and comfort in subway system. However, as one of the most important monitoring tool, fan vibration signals are strongly interfered by frequent piston winds during train arrival-depart, such effect will cause many unnecessary false alarm and deteriorate the fault detection performance. To overcome this problem, this study proposes a condition monitoring method of subway fan under piston wind effect. Piston wind detection method and feature extraction method two key techniques for CMM-PWD method. The piston wind detection method is based on similarity estimation and a new similarity criterion is proposed in this paper. For feature extraction, cyclostationary analysis is exploited for the cyclic feature extraction. And the proposed approach is verified by the piston wind experiments and bolt looseness experiments of axial flow fan and jet fan, which are widely used in subway ventilation system. The results show that the piston wind is accurately detected by proposed method, and fan fault feature is effectively extracted. More importantly, this approach could have great potential to extend to deal with other background interference in fault diagnosis of rotating machinery

A hint from phosphine complex: The π back-bonding in cobalt-phosphorene composite enables enhanced electrocatalytic performance

Regulating the electronic structure of the metal electrocatalyst is fundamental for its performance optimizing. The electronic states of the active metal centers are highly dependent on their coordination environment, especially when bonding is formed. The π back-bonding can induce great electron density redistribution around metals, yet it is barely applied in electrocatalyst design. Herein we electrodeposited metallic cobalt on black phosphorus (BP) nanosheets, forming BP-Co with a unique π back-bonding on the interfaces. The BP-Co exhibited high electrocatalytic activity and stability for hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline electrolyte. The electrochemical and spectroscopic characterizations demonstrated that the BP acted as σ donor and π acceptor to coordinate with electron-rich metallic Co, similar to the phosphine complex. The directional σ bond strengthen the relationship between BP and Co, while the non-directional π bond accelerated the in-plane electron transfer. The π back donation also decreased the oxophilicity of Co to make BP-Co resist the poison from oxygen species. This study can intrigue new thinking prospective for the electrocatalyst design

Huaier Polysaccharide Interrupts PRV Infection via Reducing Virus Adsorption and Entry

A pseudorabies virus (PRV) novel virulent variant outbreak occurred in China in 2011. However, little is known about PRV prevention and treatment. Huaier polysaccharide has been used to treat some solid cancers, although its antiviral activity has not been reported. Our study confirmed that the polysaccharide can effectively inhibit infection of PRV XJ5 in PK15 cells. It acted in a dose-dependent manner when blocking virus adsorption and entry into PK15 cells. Moreover, it suppressed PRV replication in PK15 cells. In addition, the results suggest that Huaier polysaccharide plays a role in treating PRV XJ5 infection by directly inactivating PRV XJ5. In conclusion, Huaier polysaccharide might be a novel therapeutic agent for preventing and controlling PRV infection

Modulation characteristics of multi-physical fields induced by air–gap eccentricity faults for typical rotating machine

Air-gap eccentricity is one of the common faults of typical rotating machine, which results in a dynamic instability state of multi-physical fields. To investigate the muti-physical instabilities of rotating machine under air–gap eccentricity fault, combining numerical and experimental methods were applied. The electromagnetism simulations were conducted to calculate magnetic flux density and unbalanced magnetic pull. The signal acquisition including magnetic flux density, vibration acceleration, and pressure fluctuation were conducted to muti-physical coupling experiment. The modulation characteristics caused by air–gap eccentricity were extracted with a signal demodulation method based on principle component analysis. The results indicate that modulation effects of the rotating frequency (fs) and twice the rotating frequency (2 fs) generated by the magnetic field were transmitted to the structure field and flow field. In the demodulation results of pressure pulsation, the modulation effect of blade passing frequency near the pump inlet was enhanced. Correlations between the instability of magnetic field, structure field, and flow field are determined to develop monitoring, detection, and diagnosis for rotating machine system, while the modulation characteristics of muti-physical field signals can serve as indicators of instabilities