Polysaccharides from Portulaca oleracea L Improve Exercise Endurance and Decrease Oxidative Stress in Forced Swimming Mice

Purpose: To explore the effects of polysaccharides from Portulaca oleracea L. (POP) on exercise endurance and oxidative stress in forced-swimming mice.Methods: Forty-eight mice were divided into four groups of twelve animals each. All treatments were administered orally and daily for 28 days. Group A received isotonic saline solution (50 ml/kg bodyweight) as control group; B, C and D groups received 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg body wt. of POP as treatment groups, respectively. After the final treatment with POP, the mice were subjected to swimming to exhaustion and the exhaustive swimming time, blood lactic acid (BLA), blood glucose, malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and catalase (CAT) were measured.Results: The exhaustive swimming time of the POP-treated groups (967.3 ± 79.2, 1234.8 ± 97.6 and 1314.3 ± 107.3 s) was significantly longer than that of the control group (513.6 ± 41.2 s) (p < 0.05). After the exhaustive swimming exercise, BLA levels of the POP-treated groups (8.63 ± 0.91, 8.04 ± 0.86 and 7.51 ± 0.78 mmol/L) were significantly lower than that of the control group (11.39 ± 1.17 mmol/L) (p < 0.05). MDA levels of the POP-treated groups (2.69 ± 0.21, 2.41 ± 0.17 and 2.37 ± 0.23 U/mg.pro) were significantly lower than that of the control group (3.21 ± 0.29 U/mg.pro) (p < 0.05). On the other hand, blood glucose levels of the POP-treated groups (5.47 ± 0.48, 5.74 ± 0.57 and 6.04 ± 0.51 mmol/L) were significantly higher than that of the control group (4.89 ± 0.32 mmol/L) (p < 0.05). SOD levels of the POP-treated groups (124.36 ± 14.87, 136.39±13.48 and 145.87 ± 17.39 U/mg.pro) were significantly higher than that of the control group (108.41 ± 11.63 U/mg.pro) (p < 0.05). GPx levels of the POPtreated groups (68.24 ± 4.68, 71.33 ± 5.29 and 72.64 ± 5.99 U/mg.pro) were significantly higher than that of the control group (53.17 ± 5.24 U/mg.pro) (p < 0.05). CAT levels of the POP-treated groups (23.57 ± 1.71, 24.28 ± 2.14 and 26.72 ± 2.21 U/mg.pro) were significantly higher than that of the control group (19.48 ± 2.03 U/mg.pro) (p < 0.05).Conclusion: This study provides compelling evidence that POP can improve exercise endurance and decrease oxidative stress in forced swimming mice.Keywords: Polysaccharides, Portulaca oleracea L., Oxidative stress, Swimming, Exercise endurance

Statin use and adverse effects among adults \u3e 75 years of age: Insights from the Patient and Provider Assessment of Lipid Management (PALM) registry

Background: Current statin use and symptoms among older adults in routine community practice have not been well characterized since the release of the 2013 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guideline. Methods and results: We compared statin use and dosing between adults \u3e75 and ≤75 years old who were eligible for primary or secondary prevention statin use without considering guideline-recommended age criteria. The patients were treated at 138 US practices in the Patient and Provider Assessment of Lipid Management (PALM) registry in 2015. Patient surveys also evaluated reported symptoms while taking statins. Multivariable logistic regression models examined the association between older age and statin use and dosing. Among 6717 people enrolled, 1704 (25%) were \u3e75 years old. For primary prevention, use of any statin or high-dose statin did not vary by age group: any statin, 62.6% in those \u3e75 years old versus 63.1% in those ≤75 years old (P=0.83); high-dose statin, 10.2% versus 12.3% in the same groups (P=0.14). For secondary prevention, older patients were slightly less likely to receive any statin (80.1% versus 84.2% [P=0.003]; adjusted odds ratio, 0.81; 95% confidence interval, 0.66-1.01 [P=0.06]), but were much less likely to receive a high-intensity statin (23.5% versus 36.2% [PP=0.0001]). Among current statin users, older patients were slightly less likely to report any symptoms (41.3% versus 46.6%; P=0.003) or myalgias (27.3% versus 33.3%; Conclusions: Overall use of statins was similar for primary prevention in those aged \u3e75 years versus younger patients, yet older patients were less likely to receive high-intensity statins for secondary prevention. Statins appear to be similarly tolerated in older and younger adult

Coarse-to-Fine Annotation Enrichment for Semantic Segmentation Learning

Rich high-quality annotated data is critical for semantic segmentation learning, yet acquiring dense and pixel-wise ground-truth is both labor- and time-consuming. Coarse annotations (e.g., scribbles, coarse polygons) offer an economical alternative, with which training phase could hardly generate satisfactory performance unfortunately. In order to generate high-quality annotated data with a low time cost for accurate segmentation, in this paper, we propose a novel annotation enrichment strategy, which expands existing coarse annotations of training data to a finer scale. Extensive experiments on the Cityscapes and PASCAL VOC 2012 benchmarks have shown that the neural networks trained with the enriched annotations from our framework yield a significant improvement over that trained with the original coarse labels. It is highly competitive to the performance obtained by using human annotated dense annotations. The proposed method also outperforms among other state-of-the-art weakly-supervised segmentation methods.Comment: CIKM 2018 International Conference on Information and Knowledge Managemen

Surface Decomposition of Doped PrBaMn₂O_5+δInduced by in Situ Nanoparticle Exsolution:Quantitative Characterization and Catalytic Effect in Methane Dry Reforming Reaction

The exsolution of metallic nanoparticles (NPs) from perovskite oxides is a promising strategy for synthesizing supported catalysts. The associated segregation of A-site cations on the surface is challenging to investigate experimentally and is often detrimental to the catalytic performance. In this work, we found that during the in situ exsolution of Ni-Co bimetallic nanoparticles from Pr0.45Ba0.45Mn1–x(Co1/3 Ni2/3)xO3±δ, A-site cation enrichment occurred on the surface when x is 0.1; yet, the perovskite surface decomposed when x reached 0.2, forming a thin layer comprising various nanocrystalline oxides, which partially blocked the active sites of the exsolved Ni-Co particles. A hydration and carbonation reaction facilitated the conversion of nanocrystalline BaO species into large and highly crystallized BaCO3 particles. This enabled the exposure of more Ni-Co active sites and offered a chance to quantify that the decomposed surface layer accounts for ∼7.2 wt % of the total perovskite. Because of this unique feature, the surface-decomposed catalyst showed higher activity in the dry methane reforming reaction with better stability. Importantly, the regeneration feature was not hampered as the complete exsolution-dissolution recyclability of the catalyst remained

Contact printed Co/insulator/Co molecular junctions

The authors report the contact printing of a Au/Co double layer (total thickness ∼20–40nm) onto a self-assembled monolayer surface to form molecular junctions under ambient conditions. The feature size ranges from 50×50μm2 to 2×2 mm2. Grazing incident x-ray diffraction of the multilayer junction shows all expected Au peaks, while elemental Co was confirmed by energy dispersive spectroscopy. Film thickness, roughness, and density were characterized by x-ray reflectivity. I-V measurements show a prominent hysteresis, likely associated with charge trapping at the metal-organic interface, not an intrinsic feature of alkanedithiol molecules

Targeted Therapies for Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is a serious health problem and the leading cause of cancer death worldwide, due to its high incidence and mortality. 85% of lung cancers are represented by the non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Traditional chemotherapy has been the main treatment option in NSCLC. However, it is often associated with limited efficacy and overall poor patient survival. In recent years, molecular targeting has achieved great progress in therapeutic treatment of cancer and plays a crucial role in the current clinical treatment of NSCLC, due to enhanced efficacy on cancer tissues and reduced toxicity for normal tissues. In this review, we summarize the current targeting treatment of NSCLC, including inhibition of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3Ks), mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR), epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (ErbB2), vascular epidermal growth factor receptor (VEGFR), kirsten human rat sarcoma protein (KRAS), mesenchymal-epithelial transition factor or hepatocyte growth factor receptor (c-MET), anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), v-Raf murine sarcoma viral oncogene homolog B (BRAF). This article may serve as a guide to clinicians and researchers alike by assisting in making therapeutic decisions. Challenges of acquired drug resistance targeted therapy and imminent newer treatment modalities against NSCLC are also discussed

Developmental Methylmercury Exposure affects Avoidance Learning Outcomes in Adult Zebrafish

The present study investigated the neurobehavioral effects of embryonic exposure to methylmercury (MeHg) in zebrafish using avoidance conditioning as the behavioral paradigm. In this study, adult zebrafish developmentally exposed as embryos to 0.00, 0.01, 0.03, 0.1, or 0.3 µM of MeHg were trained and tested for avoidance responses. The results showed that control zebrafish hatched from embryos unexposed to MeHg learned avoidance responses during training and showed significantly increased avoidance responses during testing. Zebrafish developmentally exposed to MeHg as embryos were hyperactive as they frequently swam back and forth, and showed no significant changes in avoidance responses from training to testing. Results of the present study suggested that embryonic methylmercury exposure produced hyperactivity and impaired avoidance learning

Blood Flow Restriction Training After Patellar INStability (BRAINS Trial)

Background Patellar instability is a common and understudied condition that disproportionally affects athletes and military personnel. The rate of post-traumatic osteoarthritis that develops following a patellar dislocation can be up to 50% of individuals 5–15 years after injury. Conservative treatment is the standard of care for patellar instability however, there are no evidence-informed rehabilitation guidelines in the scientific literature. The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of blood-flow restriction training (BFRT) for patellar instability. Our hypotheses are that this strategy will improve patient-reported outcomes and accelerate restoration of symmetric strength and knee biomechanics necessary to safely return to activity. Methods/Design This is a parallel-group, superiority, randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial at the University of Kentucky, sports medicine clinic that aims to recruit 78 patients with acute patellar dislocations randomly allocated into two groups: (1) sham BFRT and (2) BFRT. Both groups will receive the current standard of care physical therapy 3 times per week for up to 9 weeks. Physical therapy sessions will consist of typical standard of care treatment followed by BFRT or sham BFRT. Primary outcomes include the Norwich Patellar Instability Scale, quadriceps strength, and imaging and biochemical biomarkers of cartilage degradation. Discussion The current standard of care for non-operative treatment of patellar instability is highly variable does not adequately address the mechanisms necessary to restore lower extremity function and protect the long-term health of articular cartilage following injury. This proposed novel intervention strategy uses an easily implementable therapy to evaluate if BFRT significantly improves patient-reported outcomes, function, and joint health over the first year of recovery. Trial Registration Blood Flow Restriction Training, Aspiration, and Intraarticular Normal Saline (BRAINS) NCT04554212. Registered on 18 September 2020

Role overload, knowledge acquisition and job satisfaction: an ambidexterity perspective on boundary-spanning activities of IT employees

Building upon the ambidexterity perspective, this study conceptualizes boundary-spanning activities as both transactional and learning to illuminate their different effects on IT employees’ job satisfaction. Specifically, we offer an overarching theoretical framework rooted in ambidexterity by connecting the role theory and knowledge acquisition perspective to reconcile the inconsistency of extant findings. Role overload has a mediating effect on the relationship between boundary-spanning activities (both transactional and learning) and job satisfaction, whereas knowledge acquisition mediates the relationship between learning boundary-spanning activities and job satisfaction. Furthermore, high achievement motivation and learning goal orientation moderate the positive effect of learning boundary-spanning activities on job satisfaction. The quantitative analysis of IT employees in Chinese state-owned enterprises largely supports our hypotheses. We conclude this paper by discussing theoretical and managerial implications for ambidexterity, boundary spanning, and job satisfaction

Designing forest biodiversity experiments : general considerations illustrated by a new large experiment in subtropical China

Funded by German Research Foundation. Grant Number: DFG FOR 891/1 and 2 National Natural Science Foundation of China. Grant Numbers: NSFC 30710103907, 30930005, 31170457 , 31210103910 Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Sino-German Centre for Research Promotion in BeijingPeer reviewedPublisher PD