Accessibility of Primary Health Care Settings for People with Disabilities

People with disabilities report physical barriers in doctors’ offices that affect the quality of care. The analysis seeks to describe overall primary care office physical accessibility and identify (1) in which areas offices meet access criteria, (2) which accessibility criteria are most often not met, and (3) whether there are urban/non-urban differences

On the Main Problems and Countermeasures of Green Travel in Wuhan

At present, the main problems of green travel in Wuhan are as follows: serious segmentation, insufficient promotion of green new energy vehicles, single way of QR code scanning, low public participation, etc. In order to solve these problems and further improve the green travel rate and air quality in Wuhan, the following countermeasures need to be adopted: improving the top-level design, strengthening tax relief and financial support, establishing a market-oriented incentive mechanism, developing green public transport, regularly making statistics and releasing relevant data of green travel, strengthening the education and publicity of green travel, etc

Advances in the Development of Biomarkers for Poststroke Epilepsy

Stroke is the main cause of acquired epilepsy in elderly people. Poststroke epilepsy (PSE) not only affects functional recovery after stroke but also brings considerable social consequences. While some factors such as cortical involvement, hemorrhagic transformation, and stroke severity are associated with increased seizure risk, so far that remains controversial. In recent years, there are an increasing number of studies on potential biomarkers of PSE as tools for diagnosing and predicting epileptic seizures. Biomarkers such as interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), glutamate, and S100 calcium-binding protein B (S100B) in blood are associated with the occurrence of PSE. This review is aimed at summarizing the progress on potential biomarkers of PSE

Complex transport behaviors of rectangular graphene quantum dots subject to mechanical vibrations

Graphene-based mechanical resonators have attracted much attention due to their superior elastic properties and extremely low mass density. We investigate the effects of mechanical vibrations on electronic transport through graphene quantum dots, under the physically reasonable assumption that the time scale associated with electronic transport is much shorter than that with mechanical vibration so that, at any given time, an electron “sees” a static but deformed graphene sheet. We find that, besides periodic oscillation in the quantum transmission at the same frequency as that of mechanical vibrations, structures at finer scales can emerge as an intermediate state, which may lead to spurious higher-frequency components in the current through the device

Phosphate (Pi) Starvation Up-Regulated GmCSN5A/B Participates in Anthocyanin Synthesis in Soybean (Glycine max) Dependent on Pi Availability

Phosphorus (P) is an essential macronutrient for plant growth and development. Among adaptive strategies of plants to P deficiency, increased anthocyanin accumulation is widely observed in plants, which is tightly regulated by a set of genes at transcription levels. However, it remains unclear whether other key regulators might control anthocyanin synthesis through protein modification under P-deficient conditions. In the study, phosphate (Pi) starvation led to anthocyanin accumulations in soybean (Glycine max) leaves, accompanied with increased transcripts of a group of genes involved in anthocyanin synthesis. Meanwhile, transcripts of GmCSN5A/B, two members of the COP9 signalosome subunit 5 (CSN5) family, were up-regulated in both young and old soybean leaves by Pi starvation. Furthermore, overexpressing GmCSN5A and GmCSN5B in Arabidopsis thaliana significantly resulted in anthocyanin accumulations in shoots, accompanied with increased transcripts of gene functions in anthocyanin synthesis including AtPAL, AtCHS, AtF3H, AtF3′H, AtDFR, AtANS, and AtUF3GT only under P-deficient conditions. Taken together, these results strongly suggest that P deficiency leads to increased anthocyanin synthesis through enhancing expression levels of genes involved in anthocyanin synthesis, which could be regulated by GmCSN5A and GmCSN5B

AlScN-Based Dual-Mode Devices with Temperature Compensated Strategy and Process Optimization

MEMS resonators with interdigital transducer (IDT) based on aluminum nitride (AlN) thin-film (a few micrometers thickness) materials gradually arouse researchers\u27 interest due to their ability to excite multiple modes of acoustic waves. However, the low electromechanical coupling coefficient is still one of the main reasons that limit the AlN-based resonators. In this article, we demonstrate a design journey for 10% scandium-doped AlN-based dual-mode acoustic wave resonators. Also, we investigated the influence of stack architectures with and without introduced AlN interlays, as well as the influence of stacked film thicknesses, on the performance of resonators. Simulation results show that changes in the SiO2 film thickness have different effects on the TCF of the two acoustic wave modes, providing a way for sensors to decouple two parameters that jointly affect the frequency drift. Moreover, measured results show that the introduced AlN interlayer (AlN-IL) induces a better crystalline orientation of the scandium-doped AlN (AlScN) thin film and a higher coupling coefficient of the leaky longitudinal (LL) mode (K2 : from 4.19% to 4.96%), which make the resonators have great potential in surface acoustic wave (SAW)-based applications such as sensors and high-frequency applications

Analysis of aqueous humor concentrations of cytokines in retinoblastoma.

To investigate the components of the aqueous humor (AH) in patients with retinoblastoma (RB). We collected 0.1 ml AH of 35 children with RB and 20 patients with congenital cataracts as controls. Multiplex enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) and Luminex xMAP technology were used to assess 45 cytokines/chemokines, matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), and acute-phase proteins in the identification cohort. The concentrations of IL-6, IL-7, IL-8, IFN-γ, PIGF-1, VEGF-A, β-NGF, HGF, EGF and FGF-2 were significantly higher in the AH of patients with RB than those in the control group (P<0.05). The study showed that the higher levels of IP-10, IL-6, IL-7, IL-8, IFN-γ, PIGF-1, VEGF-A, β-NGF, HGF, EGF and FGF-2 in AH may be associated with RB. Our findings may facilitate a better understanding of the molecular pathways of tumors and solid molecular targets for new strategies for therapy and the earlier diagnosis of RB

Vitamin E‑Labeled Polyethylenimine for <i>in vitro</i> and <i>in vivo</i> Gene Delivery

A series of Vitamin E (vitE)-labeled PEIs (PEI-vitE_<i>n</i>) were synthesized and showed excellent complexation ability with plasmid DNA (pDNA). The cellular uptake of PEI-vitE_<i>n</i>/pDNA complexes was greatly enhanced with the increase of vitE labeling, which is much better than that of control PEI25 in three different cell lines. PEI-vitE₆ showed the best performance in <i>gfp</i> pDNA delivery and following GFP expression in HEK-293A cells. In addition, <i>in vivo</i> gene delivery in living mice also confirmed that PEI-vitE₆ showed low toxicity and efficiently delivered <i>gfp</i> pDNA to the cells of liver and lung tissues for gene expression

Protective Effects of ζ-Carotene-like Compounds against Acute UVB-Induced Skin Damage

The previous study successfully established an expression strain of ζ-carotene-like compounds (CLC) and demonstrated its remarkable antioxidant activity, which exhibited resistance to photodamage caused by UVB radiation on the skin following gavage administration. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact and mechanism of CLC on UVB-induced skin damage through topical application. Cell viability, anti-apoptotic activity, ROS scavenging ability, the inhibition of melanin synthesis, the regulation of inflammatory factors and collagen deposition were assessed in cells and mice using qRT-PCR, WB, Elisa assays, immunohistochemistry staining and biochemical kits, etc. The experimental results demonstrated that CLC-mitigated apoptosis induced by UVB irradiation up-regulated the Keap1/Nrf2/ARE antioxidant pathway to attenuate levels of ROS and inflammatory factors (NF-κB, TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-β), and suppressed MAPK/AP-1 and CAMP/PKA/CREB signaling pathways to mitigate collagen degradation, skin aging and melanin formation. In conclusion, this study underscored the potential of CLC as a safe and efficacious source of antioxidants, positioning it as a promising ingredient in the formulation of cosmetics targeting anti-aging, skin brightening and sunburn repair