Effects of a mutual recovery intervention on mental health in depressed elderly community-dwelling adults: a pilot study

BackgroundThe prevalence of depression in the elderly is growing worldwide, and the population aging in China makes depression a major health problem for the elderly adults and a tremendous burden to the society. Effective interventions should be determined to provide an approach solving the problem and improving the situation. This study examined the effectiveness of a mutual recovery program intervention on depressive symptom, sleep quality, and well-being in community-dwelling elderly adults with depressive symptom in Shanghai.MethodsRecruitment was performed between July 2012 and August 2012. Using a cluster randomized wait-list controlled design, we randomized 6 communities (n = 237) into either the intervention group (3 communities, n = 105) or to a wait-list control group (3 communities, n = 132). All participants met the inclusion criteria for depression, which were defined by The Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15). From March to May of 2013, participants in the intervention group underwent a 2-month mutual recovery program intervention. The intervention included seven 90-min, weekly sessions that were based on a standardized self-designed schedule. Depression was used as primary outcome at three measurement moments: baseline (T1), before intervention at 24 weeks (T2), and immediately after intervention at 32 weeks (T3). Well-being and sleep quality were used as the secondary outcomes, and were evaluated based on the WHO-5 Well-being Index (WHO-5) and the Self-administered Sleep Questionnaire (SSQ). Finally, a total of 225 participants who completed all the sessions and the three measurements entered the final analysis. Mixed-model repeated measures ANOVAs were performed to estimate the intervention effects.ResultsThere was no significant difference in gender, marriage, age structure, post-work type, and education background between the intervention and control group at baseline. Multivariate ANOVAs showed that there was no significant difference within the groups in terms of sleep, well-being, and depression at baseline and before the intervention. Mixed-model repeated measures ANOVAs detected a group × time interaction on depression, sleep, and well-being and showed a favorable intervention effect within groups immediately after the intervention.ConclusionsThe mutual recovery program could be a creative and effective approach to improve mental health in older community-dwelling adults with depressive symptom

A survey on puncture models and path planning algorithms of bevel-tipped flexible needles

Percutaneous needle insertion is a minimally invasive surgery with broad medical application prospects, such as biopsy and brachytherapy. However, the currently adopted rigid needles have limitations, as they cannot bypass obstacles or correct puncture deviations and can only travel along a straight path. Bevel-tip flexible needles are increasingly being adopted to address these issues, owing to their needle body's ease of deformation and bending. Successful puncture of flexible needles relies on accurate models and path planning, ensuring the needle reaches the target while avoiding vital tissues. This review investigates puncture models and path-planning algorithms by reviewing recent literature, focusing on the path-planning part. According to the literature, puncture models can be divided into three types: mechanical, finite element method (FEM), and kinematic models, while path-planning algorithms are categorized and discussed following the division used for mobile robots, which differs from the conventional approach for flexible needles—an innovation in this review. This review systematically summarizes the following categories: graph theory search, sampling-based, intelligent search, local obstacle avoidance, and other algorithms, including their implementation, advantages, and disadvantages, to further explore the potential to overcome obstacles in path planning for minimally invasive puncture needles. Finally, this study proposes future development trends in path-planning algorithms, providing possible directions for subsequent research for bevel-tipped flexible needles. This research aims to provide a resource for researchers to quickly learn about common path-planning algorithms, their backgrounds, and puncture models

Isolation and Characterization of Two Pseudorabies Virus and Evaluation of Their Effects on Host Natural Immune Responses and Pathogenicity

Pseudorabies, caused by the pseudorabies virus (PRV), is an acute fatal disease, which can infect rodents, mammals, and other livestock and wild animals across species. Recently, the emergence of PRV virulent isolates indicates a high risk of a variant PRV epidemic and the need for continuous surveillance. In this study, PRV-GD and PRV-JM, two fatal PRV variants, were isolated and their pathogenicity as well as their effects on host natural immune responses were assessed. PRV-GD and PRV-JM were genetically closest to PRV variants currently circulating in Heilongjiang (HLJ8) and Jiangxi (JX/CH/2016), which belong to genotype 2.2. Consistently, antisera from sows immunized with PRV-Ea classical vaccination showed much lower neutralization ability to PRV-GD and PRV-JM. However, the antisera from the pigs infected with PRV-JM had an extremely higher neutralization ability to PRV-TJ (as a positive control), PRV-GD and PRV-JM. In vivo, PRV-GD and PRV-JM infections caused 100% death in mice and piglets and induced extensive tissue damage, cell death, and inflammatory cytokine release. Our analysis of the emergence of PRV variants indicate that pigs immunized with the classical PRV vaccine are incapable of providing sufficient protection against these PRV isolates, and there is a risk of continuous evolution and virulence enhancement. Efforts are still needed to conduct epidemiological monitoring for the PRV and to develop novel vaccines against this emerging and reemerging infectious disease

Isolation and Characterization of Two Pseudorabies Virus and Evaluation of Their Effects on Host Natural Immune Responses and Pathogenicity

Pseudorabies, caused by the pseudorabies virus (PRV), is an acute fatal disease, which can infect rodents, mammals, and other livestock and wild animals across species. Recently, the emergence of PRV virulent isolates indicates a high risk of a variant PRV epidemic and the need for continuous surveillance. In this study, PRV-GD and PRV-JM, two fatal PRV variants, were isolated and their pathogenicity as well as their effects on host natural immune responses were assessed. PRV-GD and PRV-JM were genetically closest to PRV variants currently circulating in Heilongjiang (HLJ8) and Jiangxi (JX/CH/2016), which belong to genotype 2.2. Consistently, antisera from sows immunized with PRV-Ea classical vaccination showed much lower neutralization ability to PRV-GD and PRV-JM. However, the antisera from the pigs infected with PRV-JM had an extremely higher neutralization ability to PRV-TJ (as a positive control), PRV-GD and PRV-JM. In vivo, PRV-GD and PRV-JM infections caused 100% death in mice and piglets and induced extensive tissue damage, cell death, and inflammatory cytokine release. Our analysis of the emergence of PRV variants indicate that pigs immunized with the classical PRV vaccine are incapable of providing sufficient protection against these PRV isolates, and there is a risk of continuous evolution and virulence enhancement. Efforts are still needed to conduct epidemiological monitoring for the PRV and to develop novel vaccines against this emerging and reemerging infectious disease

Improved Decoupling Control for a Powershift Automatic Mechanical Transmission Employing a Model-Based PID Parameter Autotuning Method

Automatic mechanical transmission (AMT) with a gearshift assistant mechanism is a novel transmission architect concept aiming to improve the torque interruption and driveline jerk of AMT. During the shifting process, the shifting performance deteriorates as the varying road gradient and the friction coefficient worsen the coupling effect between the motor torque and the clutch friction torque. This paper focuses on improving the controller’s robustness of AMT with a gearshift assistant mechanism against the perturbed parameters during the stage of torque gap filling. In this paper, a detailed powertrain simulation model was presented. Based on a decoupling controller and a disturbance compensator, proportional-integral-differential (PID) controllers are applied to enhance the robustness and the decoupling effect. The PID parameters are automatically tuned by employing the Nelder-Mead method. In the tuning process, a cost function was established to demonstrate the outputs’ reference tracking performance, and the PID parameters are tuned by minimizing the cost function. Finally, the tuned parameters are stored in PID maps to make them adjustable online. Simulation results show that with the perturbed parameters well estimated, the upshift process was successful and the torque filling effect was also acceptable. The proposed transmission is a promising structure for industry applications

Pseudorabies virus gM and its homologous proteins in herpesviruses induce mitochondria-related apoptosis involved in viral pathogenicity.

Apoptosis is a critical host antiviral defense mechanism. But many viruses have evolved multiple strategies to manipulate apoptosis and escape host antiviral immune responses. Herpesvirus infection regulated apoptosis; however, the underlying molecular mechanisms have not yet been fully elucidated. Hence, the present study aimed to study the relationship between herpesvirus infection and apoptosis in vitro and in vivo using the pseudorabies virus (PRV) as the model virus. We found that mitochondria-dependent apoptosis was induced by PRV gM, a late protein encoded by PRV UL10, a virulence-related gene involved in enhancing PRV pathogenicity. Mechanistically, gM competitively combines with BCL-XL to disrupt the BCL-XL-BAK complex, resulting in BCL-2-antagonistic killer (BAK) oligomerization and BCL-2-associated X (BAX) activation, which destroys the mitochondrial membrane potential and activates caspase-3/7 to trigger apoptosis. Interestingly, similar apoptotic mechanisms were observed in other herpesviruses (Herpes Simplex Virus-1 [HSV-1], human cytomegalovirus [HCMV], Equine herpesvirus-1 [EHV-1], and varicella-zoster virus [VZV]) driven by PRV gM homologs. Compared with their parental viruses, the pathogenicity of PRV-ΔUL10 or HSV-1-ΔUL10 in mice was reduced with lower apoptosis and viral replication, illustrating that UL10 is a key virulence-related gene in PRV and HSV-1. Consistently, caspase-3 deletion also diminished the replication and pathogenicity of PRV and HSV-1 in vitro and in mice, suggesting that caspase-3-mediated apoptosis is closely related to the replication and pathogenicity of PRV and HSV-1. Overall, our findings firstly reveal the mechanism by which PRV gM and its homologs in several herpesviruses regulate apoptosis to enhance the viral replication and pathogenicity, and the relationship between gM-mediated apoptosis and herpesvirus pathogenicity suggests a promising approach for developing attenuated live vaccines and therapy for herpesvirus-related diseases