Dynamics testing and simulation of inflatable deployable

The inflatable deployablemembrane antenna structures have many advantages such as small folding size, high reliability and low cost. The structure mainly consists of its center hub, thin-plate ribs, inflatable thermo-curing torus, reflected membrane and inflation control system. This paper establishes a deployable system to simulate zero-gravity based on the parabolic membrane antenna with inflatable torus and tests the deployable process. The shell-membranes finite element model of the antenna structuresis modeled to simulateof the dynamics charactersof the structure. After that the effectsof the different inflatable pressure inside its support torus, the temperature of thermos-curing on the dynamic characteristics are also discussed.Finally,the dynamic charactersof the inflatable antenna was tested on the condition of the horizontal suspension system with 12 elastic strings and the fully structural vibrational frequency were given, and the mode of vibration and damping ratio was verified to the correctness of the simulation method. These results provide the reference for the design of inflatable deployment antenna structures

Prediction of Metabolic Syndrome for the Survival of Patients With Digestive Tract Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

Background and Objectives: Growing evidence indicates that metabolic syndrome confers a differential risk for the development and progression of many types of cancer, especially in the digestive tract system. We here synthesized the results of published cohort studies to test whether baseline metabolic syndrome and its components can predict survival in patients with esophageal, gastric, or colorectal cancer.Methods: Literature retrieval, publication selection and data extraction were performed independently by two authors. Analyses were done using STATA software (version 14.1).Results: A total of 15 publications involving 54,656 patients were meta-analyzed. In overall analyses, the presence of metabolic syndrome was associated with a non-significant 19% increased mortality risk for digestive tract cancer (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.19; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.45 to 2.520.95 to 1.49, P = 0.130; I2: 94.8%). In stratified analyses, the association between metabolic syndrome and digestive tract cancer survival was statistically significant in prospective studies (HR: 1.64, 95% CI: 1.18 to 2.28), in studies involving postsurgical patients (HR: 1.42, 95% CI: 1.06 to 1.92), and in studies assessing cancer-specific survival (HR: 1.91, 95% CI: 1.45 to 2.52). Further meta-regression analyses indicated that age and smoking were potential sources of between-study heterogeneity (both P < 0.001). The shape of the Begg's funnel plot seemed symmetrical (Begg's test P = 0.945 and Egger's test P = 0.305).Conclusions: Our findings indicate that metabolic syndrome is associated with an increased risk of postsurgical digestive tract cancer-specific mortality. Continued investigations are needed to uncover the precise molecule mechanism linking metabolic syndrome and digestive tract cancer

Prognostic Value of an Inflammation-Related Index in 6,865 Chinese Patients With Postoperative Digestive Tract Cancers: The FIESTA Study

Objectives: We sought to determine the optimal cutting points for two inflammatory biomarkers, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), to assess their prognostic value in patients with postoperative digestive tract cancers overall and by cancer sites, and further to construct an inflammation-related index based on the two biomarkers and assess its predictive performance.Methods: Total 6,865 assessable patients with digestive tract cancers who underwent tumor resection were consecutively enrolled from Fujian Cancer Hospital between January 2000 and December 2010, including 2535/3012/1318 patients with esophageal/gastric/colorectal cancer. The latest follow-up (median: 44.9 months) ended in December 2015. Optimal cutting points were determined using survival tree analysis overall and by cancer sites.Results: Among all study patients, the optimal cutting points were 2.07 and 168.50 to define high and low NLR and PLR, respectively. High NLR (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.48, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.37–1.61) and high PLR (HR: 1.41, 95% CI: 1.29–1.53) were associated with a significantly increased risk for the mortality of digestive tract cancers as a whole. By cancer sites, effect-size estimates were comparable and statistically significant. Elevation over the selected optimal cutting points for both NLR and PLR was associated with 1.69-fold increased risk of cancer-specific mortality compared to patients with simultaneously low NLR and PLR among all study patients, and this association persisted by cancer sites, especially for gastric cancer.Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that the preoperative integrated NLR and PLR, as an inflammation-related index, is a significant independent predictor for postoperative mortality in Chinese patients with digestive tract cancers both overall and by cancer sites

The Epitope Study on the SARS-CoV Nucleocapsid Protein

The nucleocapsid protein (N protein) has been found to be an antigenic protein in a number of coronaviruses. Whether the N protein in severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) is antigenic remains to be elucidated. Using Western blot and Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA), the recombinant N proteins and the synthesized peptides derived from the N protein were screened in sera from SARS patients. All patient sera in this study displayed strong positive immunoreactivities against the recombinant N proteins, whereas normal sera gave negative immunoresponses to these proteins, indicating that the N protein of SARS-CoV is an antigenic protein. Furthermore, the epitope sites in the N protein were determined by competition experiments, in which the recombinant proteins or the synthesized peptides competed against the SARS-CoV proteins to bind to the antibodies raised in SARS sera. One epitope site located at the C-terminus was confirmed as the most antigenic region in this protein. A detailed screening of peptide with ELISA demonstrated that the amino sequence from Codons 371 to 407 was the epitope site at the C-terminus of the N protein. Understanding of the epitope sites could be very significant for developing an effective diagnostic approach to SARS

Editor\u27s Notes, Chiba Medical Journal 90-1

Multiple sequence alignment of deduced amino acid sequences of 25 wheat annexin genes with rice annexin OsAnn2 (Os05g31760) obtained by ClustalW. (PDF 212 kb

Replication of Putative Susceptibility Loci from Genome-Wide Association Studies Associated with Coronary Atherosclerosis in Chinese Han Population

BACKGROUND: Coronary atherosclerosis, the main cause of cardiovascular disease, is a progressive disease. Recent Genome Wide Association Studies (GWASs) discovered several novel loci associated with coronary artery disease (CAD) or its main complication myocardial infarction (MI). In this study, we investigated the associations between previously reported CAD- and MI-associated variants and coronary atherosclerosis in Chinese Han population. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We performed a case-control association study with 2,335 coronary atherosclerosis patients and 1,078 controls undergoing coronary angiography of Chinese Han from China. Fourteen single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), located at 1p13.3, 1q41, 2q36.3, 6q25.1, 9p21.3, 10q11.21 and 15q22.33, were genotyped in our sample collection. Six SNPs at 9p21 were associated with coronary atherosclerosis susceptibility (P(trend)<0.05) and rs10757274 showed the most significant association (P = 2.38×10(-08), OR = 1.34). These associations remained significant after adjustment for multiple comparisons. Rs17465637 at 1q41 (P(trend) = 6.83×10(-03), OR = 0.86) also showed significant association with coronary atherosclerosis, but the association was not significant after multiple comparisons. Additionally, rs501120 (P = 8.36×10(-03), OR = 0.80) at 10q11.21 was associated with coronary atherosclerosis in females, but did not show association in males and all participants. Variants at 1p13.3, 2q36.3, 6q25.1 and 15q22.33 showed no associations with coronary atherosclerosis and main cardiovascular risk factors in our data. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our findings indicated variants at 9p21 were significantly associated with coronary atherosclerosis in Han Chinese. Variants at 1q41 showed suggestive evidence of association and variants at 10q11.21 showed suggestive evidence of association in females, which warrant further study in a larger sample

Association analyses of East Asian individuals and trans-ancestry analyses with European individuals reveal new loci associated with cholesterol and triglyceride levels

Large-scale meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified >175 loci associated with fasting cholesterol levels, including total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and triglycerides (TG). With differences in linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure and allele frequencies between ancestry groups, studies in additional large samples may detect new associations. We conducted staged GWAS meta-analyses in up to 69,414 East Asian individuals from 24 studies with participants from Japan, the Philippines, Korea, China, Singapore, and Taiwan. These meta-analyses identified (P < 5 × 10-8) three novel loci associated with HDL-C near CD163-APOBEC1 (P = 7.4 × 10-9), NCOA2 (P = 1.6 × 10-8), and NID2-PTGDR (P = 4.2 × 10-8), and one novel locus associated with TG near WDR11-FGFR2 (P = 2.7 × 10-10). Conditional analyses identified a second signal near CD163-APOBEC1. We then combined results from the East Asian meta-analysis with association results from up to 187,365 European individuals from the Global Lipids Genetics Consortium in a trans-ancestry meta-analysis. This analysis identified (log10Bayes Factor ≥6.1) eight additional novel lipid loci. Among the twelve total loci identified, the index variants at eight loci have demonstrated at least nominal significance with other metabolic traits in prior studies, and two loci exhibited coincident eQTLs (P < 1 × 10-5) in subcutaneous adipose tissue for BPTF and PDGFC. Taken together, these analyses identified multiple novel lipid loci, providing new potential therapeutic targets

The trans-ancestral genomic architecture of glycemic traits

Glycemic traits are used to diagnose and monitor type 2 diabetes and cardiometabolic health. To date, most genetic studies of glycemic traits have focused on individuals of European ancestry. Here we aggregated genome-wide association studies comprising up to 281,416 individuals without diabetes (30% non-European ancestry) for whom fasting glucose, 2-h glucose after an oral glucose challenge, glycated hemoglobin and fasting insulin data were available. Trans-ancestry and single-ancestry meta-analyses identified 242 loci (99 novel; P < 5 x 10(-8)), 80% of which had no significant evidence of between-ancestry heterogeneity. Analyses restricted to individuals of European ancestry with equivalent sample size would have led to 24 fewer new loci. Compared with single-ancestry analyses, equivalent-sized trans-ancestry fine-mapping reduced the number of estimated variants in 99% credible sets by a median of 37.5%. Genomic-feature, gene-expression and gene-set analyses revealed distinct biological signatures for each trait, highlighting different underlying biological pathways. Our results increase our understanding of diabetes pathophysiology by using trans-ancestry studies for improved power and resolution. A trans-ancestry meta-analysis of GWAS of glycemic traits in up to 281,416 individuals identifies 99 novel loci, of which one quarter was found due to the multi-ancestry approach, which also improves fine-mapping of credible variant sets.Peer reviewe

Genetic drivers of heterogeneity in type 2 diabetes pathophysiology

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a heterogeneous disease that develops through diverse pathophysiological processes1,2 and molecular mechanisms that are often specific to cell type3,4. Here, to characterize the genetic contribution to these processes across ancestry groups, we aggregate genome-wide association study data from 2,535,601 individuals (39.7% not of European ancestry), including 428,452 cases of T2D. We identify 1,289 independent association signals at genome-wide significance (P &lt; 5 × 10-8) that map to 611 loci, of which 145 loci are, to our knowledge, previously unreported. We define eight non-overlapping clusters of T2D signals that are characterized by distinct profiles of cardiometabolic trait associations. These clusters are differentially enriched for cell-type-specific regions of open chromatin, including pancreatic islets, adipocytes, endothelial cells and enteroendocrine cells. We build cluster-specific partitioned polygenic scores5 in a further 279,552 individuals of diverse ancestry, including 30,288 cases of T2D, and test their association with T2D-related vascular outcomes. Cluster-specific partitioned polygenic scores are associated with coronary artery disease, peripheral artery disease and end-stage diabetic nephropathy across ancestry groups, highlighting the importance of obesity-related processes in the development of vascular outcomes. Our findings show the value of integrating multi-ancestry genome-wide association study data with single-cell epigenomics to disentangle the aetiological heterogeneity that drives the development and progression of T2D. This might offer a route to optimize global access to genetically informed diabetes care.</p