High-frequency rTMS over bilateral primary motor cortex improves freezing of gait and emotion regulation in patients with Parkinson’s disease: a randomized controlled trial

BackgroundFreezing of gait (FOG) is a common and disabling phenomenon in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), but effective treatment approach remains inconclusive. Dysfunctional emotional factors play a key role in FOG. Since primary motor cortex (M1) connects with prefrontal areas via the frontal longitudinal system, where are responsible for emotional regulation, we hypothesized M1 may be a potential neuromodulation target for FOG therapy. The purpose of this study is to explore whether high-frequency rTMS over bilateral M1 could relieve FOG and emotional dysregulation in patients with PD.MethodsThis study is a single-center, randomized double-blind clinical trial. Forty-eight patients with PD and FOG from the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University were randomly assigned to receive 10 sessions of either active (N = 24) or sham (N = 24) 10 Hz rTMS over the bilateral M1. Patients were evaluated at baseline (T0), after the last session of treatment (T1) and 30 days after the last session (T2). The primary outcomes were Freezing of Gait Questionnaire (FOGQ) scores, with Timed Up and Go Test (TUG) time, Standing-Start 180° Turn (SS-180) time, SS-180 steps, United Parkinson Disease Rating Scales (UPDRS) III, Hamilton Depression scale (HAMD)-24 and Hamilton Anxiety scale (HAMA)-14 as secondary outcomes.ResultsTwo patients in each group dropped out at T2 and no serious adverse events were reported by any subject. Two-way repeated ANOVAs revealed significant group × time interactions in FOGQ, TUG, SS-180 turn time, SS-180 turning steps, UPDRS III, HAMD-24 and HAMA-14. Post-hoc analyses showed that compared to T0, the active group exhibited remarkable improvements in FOGQ, TUG, SS-180 turn time, SS-180 turning steps, UPDRS III, HAMD-24 and HAMA-14 at T1 and T2. No significant improvement was found in the sham group. The Spearman correlation analysis revealed a significantly positive association between the changes in HAMD-24 and HAMA-14 scores and FOGQ scores at T1.ConclusionHigh-frequency rTMS over bilateral M1 can improve FOG and reduce depression and anxiety in patients with PD

Functionally Orthologous Viral and Cellular MicroRNAs Studied by a Novel Dual-Fluorescent Reporter System

Recent research raised the possibility that some viral microRNAs (miRNAs) may function as orthologs of cellular miRNAs. In the present work, to study the functional orthologous relationships of viral and cellular miRNAs, we first constructed a dual-fluorescent protein reporter vector system for the easy determination of miRNA function. By expressing the miRNAs and the indicator and internal control fluorescent proteins individually from a single vector, this simple reporter system can be used for miRNA functional assays that include visualizing miRNA activity in live cells. Sequence alignments indicated that the simian virus 40 (SV40) encoded miRNA sv40-mir-S1-5p contains a seed region identical to that of the human miRNA hsa-miR423-5p. Using the new reporter system, it was found that sv40-mir-S1-5p and hsa-miR423-5p downregulate the expression of common artificial target mRNAs and some predicted biological targets of hsa-miR423-5p, demonstrating that they are functional orthologs. The human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) encoded hiv1-miR-N367 also contains a seed sequence identical to that of the human miRNA hsa-miR192. Functional assays showed that hiv1-miR-N367 and hsa-miR192 could downregulate common artificial and predicted biological targets, suggesting that these miRNAs may also act as functional orthologs. Thus, this study presents a simple and universal system for testing miRNA function and identifies two new pairs of functional orthologs, sv40-mir-S1-5p and hsa-miR423-5p as well as hiv-1-miR-N367 and hsa-miR192. These findings also expand upon our current knowledge of functional homology and imply that a more general phenomenon of orthologous relationships exists between viral and cellular miRNAs

The Ninth Visual Object Tracking VOT2021 Challenge Results

acceptedVersionPeer reviewe

Association between extremely cold weather and ischemic heart disease-related death during 2011–2017, Jinan City

Objective: The objective of the study is to evaluate the acute effects of extreme cold weather and cold waves on the risk of death from ischemic heart disease (IHD) in Jinan city. Methods: Daily meteorological data, air pollution data, and IHD-related death data in Jinan from January 1, 2011, to December 31, 2017, were collected. The extreme cold weather was defined as temperatures below the 10th percentile (−1.6 C), 5th percentile (−3.3 C), and 1st percentile (−6.4 C) of the daily average temperature during the study period, expressed as P10, P5, and P1 respectively. Cold strokes were defined as P10, P5, or P1 temperatures lasting for 3 days or more, and were expressed as Cold stroke I, Cold stroke II, and Cold stroke III, respectively. A time-stratified case-crossover study was used to assess the acute effects of extreme cold weather and cold strokes on IHD-related deaths. Results: During the 1486 days of the 2011–2017 cold months, 50,845 IHD deaths were detected with an average of 34 daily deaths. The relatively cold years were observed in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2016 during the study, and the coldest was for 2012. The maximum effects of P10, P5, and P1 on IHD deaths occurred on lag6, lag6, and lag2, respectively, and the results were 1.08 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.04, 1.12), 1.10 (95% CI: 1.04, 1.15), and 1.20(95% CI:1.09, 1.32), respectively. The maximum effect of Cold stroke I and Cold stroke II on IHD mortality risk was 1.09 (95% CI: 1.04, 1.14) and 1.11 (95% CI: 1.04, 1.19), respectively, at lag6 and lag2. Conclusions: Extremely cold weather and cold strokes in the cold months of 2011–2017 in Jinan City significantly increased the risk of acute death from IHD. It was also found that the occurrence of cold weather and cold strokes after warm years can further increase the risk of acute death from IHD

Experimental study on the reasonable proportions of rock-like materials for water-induced strength degradation in rock slope model test

Abstract Water-induced strength deterioration of rock mass is a crucial factor for rock slope instability. To better show the degradation process of rock slope water–rock interaction, we used bentonite as a water-sensitive regulator to build a new rock-like material that matches the features of water-induced strength degradation based on the cement-gypsum bonded materials. Twenty-five schemes of the material mixture proportion were designed using the orthogonal design method considering four factors with five variable levels, and a variety of experiments were conducted to obtain physico-mechanical parameters. In addition, one group of rock-like material proportion was selected and applied to the large-scale physical model test. The experiment results reveal that: (1) The failure mode of this rock-like material is highly similar to that of natural rock masses, and the physico-mechanical parameters vary over a wide range; (2) The bentonite content has a significant influence on the density, elastic modulus, and tensile strength of rock-like materials; (3) It is feasible to obtain the regression equation based on the linear regression analysis to determine the proportion of rock-like material; (4) Through application, the new rock-like material can effectively simulate or reveal the startup mechanism and instability characteristics of rock slopes under water-induced degradation. These studies can serve as a guide for the fabrication of rock-like material in the other model tests

Axial tensile behavior of hybrid steel-polypropylene fiber reinforced high-strength lightweight concrete

In practical engineering, concrete materials are mainly damaged by tension, especially for high-strength lightweight concrete (HSLC) whose tensile performance is not as satisfactory as ordinary concrete under the same compressive strength. Adding fibers is one of the most effective methods to improve the tensile properties of concrete. In this study, the tensile behavior of hybrid fiber reinforced HSLC was investigated through direct tensile test. The tensile stress-strain curve was obtained and the tensile toughness was calculated. Furthermore, the cracking process was measured and captured synchronously by digital image correlation (DIC) measurement. The results indicated that hybrid fibers enhanced the tensile properties of HSLC at both micro and macro levels. Polypropylene fibers increased the tensile toughness of HSLC by inhibiting the propagation of micro-cracks. Steel fibers improved the peak stress, peak strain, and tensile toughness of HSLC by extending the propagation path of macro-cracks and restraining the increase of the width of macro-cracks. According to the test results, an equation for the axial tensile stress-strain curve of the hybrid fiber reinforced HSLC related to fiber characteristic parameters was formulated, which can be used as a reference for engineering design

Research on the Sound Insulation Properties of Membrane-type Acoustic Metamaterials

Low- and medium-frequency noise from ship cabins is difficult to control effectively. Excessive noise can seriously affect the acoustic stealth performance of ships. A novel membrane-type acoustic metamaterial is proposed in this paper with light weight and good sound insulation performance at low frequencies. The sound insulation performance of the metamaterial structure is analysed by using the acoustic-solid coupling module in COMSOL software. Then, the ability to change the sound insulation performance of membrane-type acoustic metamaterials with cell structure and material parameters is obtained. The research results in this paper provide powerful technical support for noise control in ship cabins

Application of Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage Unit to Damp Power System Low Frequency Oscillations

AbstractThe objective of this paper is to theoreticallyinvestigate the application of superconducting magnetic energystorage (SMES) system in damping power system low-frequencyelectromechanical oscillations. In the paper, the SMES system isstudied in the context of a single-machine infinite-bus (SMIB)power system. The mathematical model of the SMIB powersystem including a SMES unit is established, and the Phillips-Heffron control structure of the power system is described. Basedon the principle of the complex torque coefficient (CTC) method,the expression of the complex electromagnetic torque of theentire power system including the SMES unit is derived. Anonlinear Proportion-Integral-Differential (PID) control strategyis proposed for the SMES system to enhance the power systemdamping. Simulation results demonstrate that the SMES iseffective in damping the power system low-frequency oscillationsand the proposed nonlinear PID controller is robust to regulatethe SMES unit.7 Halama

Experimental Study of Volumetric Fracturing Properties for Shale under Different Stress States

Shale gas can be commercially produced using the stimulated reservoir volume (SRV) with multistage fracturing or multiwell synchronous fracturing. These fracturing technologies can produce additional stress fields that significantly influence the crack initiation pressure and the formation of an effective fracture network. Therefore, this study primarily investigated the evolution of crack initiation and propagation in a hydraulic rock mass under various stress conditions. Combining the in situ stress characteristics of a shale reservoir and fracturing technology, three types of true triaxial volumetric fracturing simulation experiments were designed and performed on shale, including three-dimensional constant loading, one-dimensional pressurization disturbance, and one-dimensional depressurization disturbance. The results indicate that the critical failure strength of the shale rock increases as the three-dimensional constant loads are increased. The rupture surface is always parallel to the maximum principal stress plane in both the simulated vertical and horizontal wells. Under the same in situ stress conditions in the wellbore direction, if the lateral pressure becomes larger, the critical failure strength of shale rock would increase. Additionally, when the lateral in situ stress difference coefficient is smaller, the rock specimen has an evident trend to form more complex cracks. When the shale rock was subjected to lateral disturbance loads, the critical failure strength was approximately 10 MPa less than that in the state of constant loading, indicating that the specimen with disturbance loads is more likely to be fractured. Moreover, shale rock under the depressurization disturbance load is more easily fractured compared with the pressurization disturbance. These findings could provide a theoretical basis and technical support for multistage or multiwell synchronous fracturing in shale gas production