55 research outputs found
Homocysteine Aggravates Intestinal Epithelial Barrier Dysfunction in Rats with Experimental Uremia
Background/Aims: Previous studies have shown that homocysteine (Hcy) is an important intestinal-derived uremic toxin. However, whether Hcy is involved in the epithelial barrier dysfunction observed in uremia remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the effect of Hcy on intestinal permeability and intestinal barrier structure and function in adenine-induced uremic rats. Methods: Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into five groups: normal control (group NC), Hcy (group H), uremia (group U), uremia + Hcy (group UH), and uremia + Hcy + VSL#3 (group UHV). Experimental uremia was induced by intragastric adenine administration, and Hcy was injected subcutaneously. The animal models were assessed for renal function and pathological tissue staining. The pathological changes of intestinal tissue were observed by hematoxylin and eosin staining and electron microscopy. The serum and intestinal tissue levels of Hcy, interleukin (IL)-6, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, superoxide dismutase (SOD), and malondialdehyde (MDA) as well as serum endotoxin and intestinal permeability were assessed. The levels of the tight junction proteins claudin-1, occludin, and zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1) were assessed by western blotting. Results: Blood analyses and renal pathology indicated that experimental uremia was induced successfully. Pathological damage to intestinal structure was most obvious in group UH. Serum and tissue Hcy, serum endotoxin, and intestinal permeability were significantly elevated in group UH. The protein levels of claudin-1, occludin, and ZO-1 were decreased to various degrees in group UH compared with groups NC, H, and U. The serum and tissue levels of IL-6, TNF-α, and MDA were significantly increased, while SOD activity was markedly decreased. Supplementation with the probiotic VSL#3 improved these parameters to various degrees and up-regulated the abundance of tight junction proteins, which indicated a role for Hcy in the increase of intestinal permeability and destruction of the epithelial barrier in uremia. Conclusion: Hcy aggravates the increase of intestinal permeability and destruction of the epithelial barrier by stimulating inflammatory and oxidative damage. Probiotic administration can ameliorate this damage by reducing the levels of Hcy-induced inflammation and oxidation
Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting among cancer patients in Shanghai: a cross-sectional study
Background and purpose: Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) can cause severe damage to body functions and even lead to death. The prevention of CINV is critically important in patients receiving emetogenic chemotherapy regimen. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and treatment of CINV in Grade-A tertiary hospitals in Shanghai and explore risk factors of CINV to improve its management. Methods: The clinical data of 376 cancer patients in Grade-A tertiary hospitals in Shanghai from October 2022 to December 2022 were collected retrospectively. The questionnaire was used to conduct a cross-sectional study. The univariate and multivariable logistic regression models were used to evaluate the influencing factors of CINV. Results: The management and coincidence of the guideline in 2022 significantly improved compared to five years ago. For patients receiving high-emetic-risk chemotherapy regimen, the coincidence of the guideline increased from 21.6% to 67.0%. For patients receiving moderate-emetic-risk chemotherapy regimen, the neurokinin-1 (NK-1) receptor antagonist was not significantly associated with CINV. Multivariable analysis showed that the chemotherapy regimen was the only risk factor for CINV during the whole period (P<0.05). Conclusion: The chemotherapy regimen is the main risk factor for CINV. To control CINV better, clinical practitioners should focus on the intrinsic risk of chemotherapy regimens preferentially, estimate the risk and adhere better to guidelines
Cooperative Standoff Target Tracking using Multiple Fixed-Wing UAVs with Input Constraints in Unknown Wind
This paper investigates the problem of cooperative standoff tracking using multiple fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with control input constraints. In order to achieve accurate moving target tracking in the presence of unknown background wind, a coordinated standoff target tracking algorithm is proposed. The objective of the research is to steer multiple UAVs to fly a circular orbit around a moving target with prescribed intervehicle angular spacing. To achieve this goal, two control laws are proposed, including relative range regulation and space phase separation. On one hand, a heading rate control law based on a Lyapunov guidance vector field is proposed. The convergence analysis shows that the UAVs can asymptotically converge to a desired circular orbit around the target, regardless of their initial position and heading. Through a rigorous theoretical proof, it is concluded that the command signal of the proposed heading rate controller will not violate the boundary constraint on the heading rate. On the other hand, a temporal phase is introduced to represent the phase separation and avoid discontinuity of the wrapped space phase angle. On this basis, a speed controller is developed to achieve equal phase separation. The proposed airspeed controller meets the requirements of the airspeed constraint. Furthermore, to improve the robustness of the aircraft during target tracking, an estimator is developed to estimate the composition velocity of the unknown wind and target motion. The proposed estimator uses the offset vector between the UAV’s actual flight path and the desired orbit, which is defined by the Lyapunov guidance vector field, to estimate the composition velocity. The stability of the estimator is proved. Simulations are conducted under different scenarios to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed cooperative standoff target tracking algorithm. The simulation results indicate that the temporal-phase-based speed controller can achieve a fast convergence speed and small phase separation error. Additionally, the composition velocity estimator exhibits a fast response speed and high estimation accuracy
Zanieczyszczenie, szczęście i chęć płacenia podatków: efekt wartości w ramach publicznych polityk ekologicznych
As China’s economic development pattern is marked by an excessive consumption of fossil fuels, environmental pollution problems in China are getting increasingly serious and threatening residents’ fundamental demands for a high quality of life. It has become a handicap to sustainable economic development and social well-being. In this paper, the happiness index method were used, and models depicting the relationship between residents’ sense of happiness and environmental pollution factors and between the willingness to pay taxes and environmental pollution factors have been established. The results show that environmental pollution, especially air pollution, significantly affects the residents’ sense of happiness. To improve residential environment quality and reduce pollution, residents are willing to pay the relevant taxes. If pollution control is considered a public policy, there exists a substantive weight of government between residents’ income and environmental quality. This will influence the choice of environmental public policy.Rozwój ekonomiczny Chin powiązany jest z nadmiernym zużywaniem paliw kopalnych, a zanieczyszczenia środowiska osiągają poziom, który stanowi zagrożenie dla oczekiwanego przez obywateli wysokiego poziomu życia. Stało się to przeszkodą dla zrównoważonego rozwoju gospodarczego i dobrobytu społecznego. W niniejszym opracowaniu wykorzystano metodę wskaźnika szczęścia. Opracowano modele obrazujące związek między poczuciem szczęścia mieszkańców a zanieczyszczeniami środowiska oraz między chęcią płacenia podatków a czynnikami zanieczyszczenia środowiska. Wyniki pokazują, że zanieczyszczenie środowiska, w szczególności zanieczyszczenie powietrza, znacząco wpływa na poczucie szczęścia mieszkańców. Aby poprawić jakość środowiska mieszkańców i zmniejszyć zanieczyszczenie, obywatele są skłonni zapłacić odpowiednie podatki. Jeżeli kontrola zanieczyszczeń jest uważana za politykę publiczną, rząd odgrywa istotną rolę w kształtowaniu relacji między dochodami mieszkańców a jakością środowiska. Wpłynie to bowiem na wybór polityki publicznej dotyczącej środowiska
Study on the Effect of Feiji Decoction for Soothing the Liver Combined with Psychotherapy on the Quality of Life for Primary Lung Cancer Patients
Background and objective Lung cancer is the most common type among all malignant tumors, bringing huge pain and mood disorders to patients suffering from it. This study aims to evaluate the effect of the Feiji Decoction for soothing the liver combined with psychotherapy for depression and anxiety on patients with primary lung cancer. It also aims to further explore the relationship between depression and anxiety. Methods A total of 118 patients with primary non-small cell lung cancer were randomly divided into two groups. The combined therapy group consisted of 57 patients who were treated with Feiji Decoction for soothing the liver and psychotherapy combined with chemotherapy. The control group consisted of 61 patients who were treated with chemotherapy only. Both groups were observed for two treatment courses. The Zung Self-reported Depression Scales (SDS) and Zung Self-reported Anxiety Scales (SAS) were used to assess the patients’ psychology status in both groups before and after treatment scales. Results After treatment, the depression and anxiety scores of the therapy group remarkably decreased compared with scores before treatment, indicating a statistical significance (P<0.01). In comparison, after treatment, the depression and anxiety scores of the control group significanfly increased compared with scores before treatment, indicating a statistical significance (P<0.01) as well. The depression and anxiety scores of the therapy group significanfly decreased compared with scores of the control group, showing statistical significance (P<0.01). Thus, depression and anxiety score has a close co-relationship, showing significant positive correlation (P<0.01). Conclusion Feiji Decoction for soothing the liver combined with psychotherapy can alleviate depression and anxiety in patients with primary lung cancer. This therapy has good clinical therapeutic effect
Metabolite Profiling of Feces and Serum in Hemodialysis Patients and the Effect of Medicinal Charcoal Tablets
Background/Aims: Recently, the colon has been recognized as an important source of various uremic toxins in patients with end stage renal disease. Medicinal charcoal tablets are an oral adsorbent that are widely used in patients with chronic kidney disease in China to remove creatinine and urea from the colon. A parallel fecal and serum metabolomics study was performed to determine comprehensive metabolic profiles of patients receiving hemodialysis (HD). The effects of medicinal charcoal tablets on the fecal and serum metabolomes of HD patients were also investigated. Methods: Ultra-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry was used to investigate the fecal and serum metabolic profiles of 20 healthy controls and 31 HD patients before and after taking medicinal charcoal tablets for 3 months. Results: There were distinct metabolic variations between the HD patients and healthy controls both in the feces and serum according to multivariate data analysis. Metabolic disturbances of alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, arginine and proline metabolism figured prominently in the serum. However, in the feces, alterations of tryptophan metabolism, lysine degradation and beta-alanine metabolism were pronounced, and the levels of several amino acids (leucine, phenylalanine, lysine, histidine, methionine, tyrosine, and tryptophan) were increased dramatically. Nineteen fecal metabolites and 21 serum metabolites were also identified as biomarkers that contributed to the metabolic differences. Additionally, medicinal charcoal treatment generally enabled the serum and fecal metabolomes of the HD patients to draw close to those of the control subjects, especially the serum metabolic profile. Conclusion: Parallel fecal and serum metabolomics uncovered the systematic metabolic variations of HD patients, especially disturbances in amino acid metabolism in the colon. Medicinal charcoal tablets had an impact on the serum and fecal metabolomes of HD patients, but their exact effects still need to be studied further
Machine learning prediction models for different stages of non-small cell lung cancer based on tongue and tumor marker: a pilot study
Abstract Objective To analyze the tongue feature of NSCLC at different stages, as well as the correlation between tongue feature and tumor marker, and investigate the feasibility of establishing prediction models for NSCLC at different stages based on tongue feature and tumor marker. Methods Tongue images were collected from non-advanced NSCLC patients (n = 109) and advanced NSCLC patients (n = 110), analyzed the tongue images to obtain tongue feature, and analyzed the correlation between tongue feature and tumor marker in different stages of NSCLC. On this basis, six classifiers, decision tree, logistic regression, SVM, random forest, naive bayes, and neural network, were used to establish prediction models for different stages of NSCLC based on tongue feature and tumor marker. Results There were statistically significant differences in tongue feature between the non-advanced and advanced NSCLC groups. In the advanced NSCLC group, the number of indexes with statistically significant correlations between tongue feature and tumor marker was significantly higher than in the non-advanced NSCLC group, and the correlations were stronger. Support Vector Machine (SVM), decision tree, and logistic regression among the machine learning methods performed poorly in models with different stages of NSCLC. Neural network, random forest and naive bayes had better classification efficiency for the data set of tongue feature and tumor marker and baseline. The models’ classification accuracies were 0.767 ± 0.081, 0.718 ± 0.062, and 0.688 ± 0.070, respectively, and the AUCs were 0.793 ± 0.086, 0.779 ± 0.075, and 0.771 ± 0.072, respectively. Conclusions There were statistically significant differences in tongue feature between different stages of NSCLC, with advanced NSCLC tongue feature being more closely correlated with tumor marker. Due to the limited information, single data sources including baseline, tongue feature, and tumor marker cannot be used to identify the different stages of NSCLC in this pilot study. In addition to the logistic regression method, other machine learning methods, based on tumor marker and baseline data sets, can effectively improve the differential diagnosis efficiency of different stages of NSCLC by adding tongue image data, which requires further verification based on large sample studies in the future
Prevalence, Awareness, Treatment and Control of Diabetes Mellitus in a Chinese Population.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the prevalence, awareness, treatment and glycemic control of diabetes mellitus (DM) in a Chinese population. The findings from this study are expected to offer scientific evidence to better prevent and control the growing number of reported and untreated cases.A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Jiangsu, China. We recruited permanent residents over 18 years of age from eight towns in Jintan (JT) and six towns in Yangzhong (YZ) using a three-stage stratified cluster sampling method. The rates of DM prevalence, awareness, treatment and control as well as their related factors were analyzed.A total number of 15,404 people were entered into the analysis. The DM prevalence, awareness, treatment and control rates were 7.31%, 58.35%, 51.87% and 14.12%, respectively. Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that being female was positively related to prevalence (OR=1.21, 95% CI: 1.07-1.37), awareness (OR=1.52, 95% CI: 1.19-1.93), treatment (OR=1.48, 95% CI: 1.17-1.88) and control (OR=1.87, 95% CI: 1.30-2.67) of DM. Having a family history of diabetes was significantly correlated with DM risk (OR=1.86, 95% CI: 1.37-2.54) and increased awareness (OR=3.12, 95% CI: 2.19-4.47), treatment (OR=3.47, 95% CI: 2.45-4.90) and control (OR=1.81, 95% CI: 1.22-2.68) of DM. Former smoking status (OR=1.82, 95% CI: 1.23-2.71), overweight (OR=2.11, 95% CI: 1.72-2.60) and obesity (OR=3.46, 95% CI: 2.67-4.50) were related to the risk of DM. Additionally, we found current drinking status to be positively correlated with DM risk (OR=1.30, 95% CI: 1.01-1.66) and negatively correlated with DM awareness (OR=0.41, 95% CI: 0.29-0.59) and treatment (OR=0.41, 95% CI: 0.29-0.59). Our study highlights the high prevalence and inadequate awareness, treatment and control of DM in the Chinese population.Management and prevention of DM-related complications should be considered an essential strategy by governments and society. This study assessed the reasons why DM has been increasing and established the first step in determining where to start regarding preventative methods
- …