Tai Chi for Chronic Pain Conditions: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Several studies reported that Tai Chi showed potential effects for chronic pain, but its role remains controversial. This review assessed the evidence regarding the effects of Tai Chi for chronic pain conditions. 18 randomized controlled trials were included in our review. The aggregated results have indicated that Tai Chi showed positive evidence on immediate relief of chronic pain from osteoarthritis (standardized mean difference [SMD],-0.54; 95% confidence intervals [CI],-0.77 to-0.30; P < 0.05). The valid duration of Tai Chi practice for osteoarthritis may be more than 5 weeks. And there were some beneficial evidences regarding the effects of Tai Chi on immediate relief of chronic pain from low back pain (SMD,-0.81; 95% CI,-1.11 to-0.52; P < 0.05) and osteoporosis (SMD,-0.83; 95% CI,-1.37 to-0.28; P = 0.003). Therefore, clinicians may consider Tai Chi as a viable complementary and alternative medicine for chronic pain conditions

Indirect and direct impacts of typhoon In-Fa (2021) on heavy precipitation in inland and coastal areas of China: synoptic-scale environments and return period analysis

In July 2021, Typhoon In-Fa (TIF) triggered a significant indirect heavy precipitation event (HPE) in central China and a direct HPE in eastern China. Both these events led to severe disasters. However, the synoptic-scale conditions and the impacts of these HPEs on future estimations of return periods remain poorly understood. Here, we find that the remote HPE that occurred̰2200 km ahead of TIF over central China was a predecessor rain event (PRE). The PRE unfolded under the equatorward entrance of the upper-level westerly jet. This event, which encouraged divergent and adiabatic outflow in the upper level, subsequently intensified the strength of the upper-level westerly jet. In contrast, the direct HPE in eastern China was due primarily to the long duration and slow movement of TIF. The direct HPE occurred in areas situated less than 200 km from TIF’s center and to the left of TIF’s propagation trajectory. Anomaly analyses reveal favorable thermodynamic and dynamic conditions and abundant atmospheric moisture that sustained TIF’s intensity. A saddle-shaped pressure field in the north of eastern China and peripheral weak steering flow impeded TIF’s movement northward. Hydrologically, the inclusion of these two HPEs in the historical record leads to a decrease in the estimated return periods of similar HPEs. Our findings highlight the potential difficulties that HPEs could introduce for the design of hydraulic engineering infrastructure as well as for the disaster mitigation measures required to alleviate future risk, particularly in central China

The rapid formation a large rotating disk galaxy three billion years after the Big Bang

[Abridged] Over the past two decades observations and theoretical simulations have established a global frame-work of galaxy formation and evolution in the young Universe. Galaxies formed as baryonic gas cooled at the centres of collapsing dark matter halos. Mergers of halos led to the build up of galaxy mass. A major step forward in understanding these issues requires well resolved physical information on individual galaxies at high redshift. Here we report adaptive optics, spectroscopic observations of a representative luminous star forming galaxy when the Universe was only twenty percent of its age. The superior angular resolution of these data reveals the physical and dynamical properties of a high redshift galaxy in unprecedented detail. A large and massive rotating proto-disk is channelling gas towards a growing central stellar bulge hosting an accreting massive black hole.Comment: Narure, accepted (Released Aug 17th

Genome-wide linkage analysis of 972 bipolar pedigrees using single-nucleotide polymorphisms.

Because of the high costs associated with ascertainment of families, most linkage studies of Bipolar I disorder (BPI) have used relatively small samples. Moreover, the genetic information content reported in most studies has been less than 0.6. Although microsatellite markers spaced every 10 cM typically extract most of the genetic information content for larger multiplex families, they can be less informative for smaller pedigrees especially for affected sib pair kindreds. For these reasons we collaborated to pool family resources and carried out higher density genotyping. Approximately 1100 pedigrees of European ancestry were initially selected for study and were genotyped by the Center for Inherited Disease Research using the Illumina Linkage Panel 12 set of 6090 single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Of the ~1100 families, 972 were informative for further analyses, and mean information content was 0.86 after pruning for linkage disequilibrium. The 972 kindreds include 2284 cases of BPI disorder, 498 individuals with bipolar II disorder (BPII) and 702 subjects with recurrent major depression. Three affection status models (ASMs) were considered: ASM1 (BPI and schizoaffective disorder, BP cases (SABP) only), ASM2 (ASM1 cases plus BPII) and ASM3 (ASM2 cases plus recurrent major depression). Both parametric and non-parametric linkage methods were carried out. The strongest findings occurred at 6q21 (non-parametric pairs LOD 3.4 for rs1046943 at 119 cM) and 9q21 (non-parametric pairs logarithm of odds (LOD) 3.4 for rs722642 at 78 cM) using only BPI and schizoaffective (SA), BP cases. Both results met genome-wide significant criteria, although neither was significant after correction for multiple analyses. We also inspected parametric scores for the larger multiplex families to identify possible rare susceptibility loci. In this analysis, we observed 59 parametric LODs of 2 or greater, many of which are likely to be close to maximum possible scores. Although some linkage findings may be false positives, the results could help prioritize the search for rare variants using whole exome or genome sequencing

Stop the Top Background of the Stop Search

The main background for the supersymmetric stop direct production search comes from Standard Model ttbar events. For the single-lepton search channel, we introduce a few kinematic variables to further suppress this background by focusing on its dileptonic and semileptonic topologies. All are defined to have end points in the background, but not signal distributions. They can substantially improve the stop signal significance and mass reach when combined with traditional kinematic variables such as the total missing transverse energy. Among them, our variable M^W_T2 has the best overall performance because it uses all available kinematic information, including the on-shell mass of both W's. We see 20%-30% improvement on the discovery significance and estimate that the 8 TeV LHC run with 20 fb-1 of data would be able to reach an exclusion limit of 650-700 GeV for direct stop production, as long as the stop decays dominantly to the top quark and a light stable neutralino. Most of the mass range required for the supersymmetric solution of the naturalness problem in the standard scenario can be covered.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Frequency of Chlamydia trachomatis in Ureaplasma-positive healthy women attending their first prenatal visit in a community hospital in Sapporo, Japan

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although <it>Chlamydia trachomatis </it>is the most commonly reported pathogen that causes urogenital infection such as urethritis or cervicitis, <it>Ureaplasma parvum </it>and <it>Ureaplasma urealyticum</it>, which are commensals in the genital tract, have also now been recognized as contributors to urogenital infection. However, whether the presence of either <it>U. parvum </it>or <it>U. urealyticum </it>is related to that of <it>C. trachomatis </it>in the urogenital tract remains unknown. We therefore attempted to estimate by PCR the prevalence of <it>C. trachomatis, U. parvum </it>and <it>U. urealyticum </it>in endocervical samples obtained from healthy women attending their first prenatal visit in Sapporo, Japan.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The samples were taken from 303 apparently healthy women, and the extracted DNAs (<it>n </it>= 280) were used for PCR detection targeting <it>C. trachomatis, U. parvum </it>and <it>U. urealyticum</it>. Statistical analysis of the data was performed by Fisher's exact test.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>PCR detection revealed that the prevalence of <it>C. trachomatis, U. parvum </it>and <it>U. urealyticum </it>was 14.3% (40/280), 41.7% (117/280) and 8.9% (25/280), respectively. <it>C. trachomatis ompA </it>genotype D was most frequently identified. Surprisingly, either <it>C. trachomatis </it>or <it>Ureaplasma </it>spp. was detected in almost half of the healthy women. Mixed infection of <it>C. trachomatis </it>with either <it>U. parvum </it>or <it>U. urealyticum </it>was also observed in 9.2% (26/280) of the women. There was a significant association between <it>C. trachomatis </it>and either <it>U. parvum </it>(<it>p </it>= 0.023) or <it>Ureaplasma </it>total (<it>p </it>= 0.013), but not <it>U. urealyticum </it>(<it>p </it>= 0.275).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study demonstrated that the presence of <it>Ureaplasma </it>had a significant effect on the presence of <it>C. trachomatis </it>in the genital tract of healthy women, suggesting that mixed infection is an important factor in bacterial pathogenesis in the genital tract.</p

Reduction in Phencyclidine Induced Sensorimotor Gating Deficits in the Rat Following Increased System Xc − Activity in the Medial Prefrontal Cortex

Rationale: Aspects of schizophrenia, including deficits in sensorimotor gating, have been linked to glutamate dysfunction and/or oxidative stress in the prefrontal cortex. System xc −, a cystine–glutamate antiporter, is a poorly understood mechanism that contributes to both cellular antioxidant capacity and glutamate homeostasis. Objectives: Our goal was to determine whether increased system xc − activity within the prefrontal cortex would normalize a rodent measure of sensorimotor gating. Methods: In situ hybridization was used to map messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of xCT, the active subunit of system xc −, in the prefrontal cortex. Prepulse inhibition was used to measure sensorimotor gating; deficits in prepulse inhibition were produced using phencyclidine (0.3–3 mg/kg, sc). N-Acetylcysteine (10–100 μM) and the system xc − inhibitor (S)-4-carboxyphenylglycine (CPG, 0.5 μM) were used to increase and decrease system xc − activity, respectively. The uptake of 14C-cystine into tissue punches obtained from the prefrontal cortex was used to assay system xc − activity. Results: The expression of xCT mRNA in the prefrontal cortex was most prominent in a lateral band spanning primarily the prelimbic cortex. Although phencyclidine did not alter the uptake of 14C-cystine in prefrontal cortical tissue punches, intraprefrontal cortical infusion of N-acetylcysteine (10–100 μM) significantly reduced phencyclidine- (1.5 mg/kg, sc) induced deficits in prepulse inhibition. N-Acetylcysteine was without effect when coinfused with CPG (0.5 μM), indicating an involvement of system xc −. Conclusions: These results indicate that phencyclidine disrupts sensorimotor gating through system xc − independent mechanisms, but that increasing cystine–glutamate exchange in the prefrontal cortex is sufficient to reduce behavioral deficits produced by phencyclidine