One Thousand Dollar Assist Heart Pump for Patients from Developing Countries

In spite of continuous improvements in device design and applications, the profound use of heart pump has been limited because of its high price. The available clinically applied heart pump costs mostly about 100 thousands US Dollars. The author has since long tried to develop a heart pump costing only 1000 Dollars for recovery or bridge to heart transplantation therapies. The device is a radially driven centrifugal pump with a brush-less DC motor and a streamlined impeller. Its bearing is rolling bearing using 4 to 6 needles, manufactured by special wear-proof polythene with super-high-molecular weight, thus the service life achieves more than 10 years. To avoid thrombus formation, a special purge system is introduced to the bearing, allowing the saline with heparin to be infused through the bearing into the pump. The bearing, therefore, keeps working in the saline, and absolutely no thrombus will be formed along the bearing. Animal experiments demonstrated that a 30 mL fluid infusion per hour is enough to prevent thrombus formation. With these improvements, the impeller pump has continuously run for 14 months in the laboratory, and no bearing wear can be measured. The device, weighing 150 g, is fully implantable, consumes approximately 9.6 W, delivers a 9Lmin-1 blood flow against a 120 mmHg mean pressure, and reaches a highest total efficiency of 24.7% for the motor (including the controller) and the pump. The device has been used in animal experiments together with an American artificial lung for more than one month in the University of Texas and also in human trials in the Taiwan University

Reconstruction of the complete characteristics of the hydro turbine based on inner energy loss

The power output characteristics of the hydro turbine is one of the core contents for transient calculation of the hydro turbine generating sets (HTGS). In particular, the hydro turbine operates far beyond the given parameters region during the load rejection transient. As such, obtaining the complete characteristics of the hydro turbine becomes one of the key issues in calculating the transient process. In this study, methods for calculating the energy losses are proposed by analyzing the general characteristics of the inner energy losses within the hydro turbine. Characteristic parameters in the hydro turbine power model are calculated from the synthetical characteristics of the model hydro turbine. The transient power model of the hydro turbine has been established and applied to calculate and reconstruct the complete characteristics of the hydro turbine. Furthermore, the relationship curve between the mechanical friction loss power and the rotation speed under different head can be established by combing the runaway curve with the proposed turbine power model. This relationship is applied to construct the complete characteristics of the mechanical friction loss. Combining the proposed two complete characteristics, the power model of the hydro turbine is suitable for simulation with a wide range of fluctuations as well as the load rejection transient. Details of the computational procedures are presented and demonstrated using a case study.The research reported here is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 51579124, 51469011,51279071

Disease Gene Interaction Pathways: A Potential Framework for How Disease Genes Associate by Disease-Risk Modules

BACKGROUND: Disease genes that interact cooperatively play crucial roles in the process of complex diseases, yet how to analyze and represent their associations is still an open problem. Traditional methods have failed to represent direct biological evidences that disease genes associate with each other in the pathogenesis of complex diseases. Molecular networks, assumed as 'a form of biological systems', consist of a set of interacting biological modules (functional modules or pathways) and this notion could provide a promising insight into deciphering this topic. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In this paper, we hypothesized that disease genes might associate by virtue of the associations between biological modules in molecular networks. Then we introduced a novel disease gene interaction pathway representation and analysis paradigm, and managed to identify the disease gene interaction pathway for 61 known disease genes of coronary artery disease (CAD), which contained 46 disease-risk modules and 182 interaction relationships. As demonstrated, disease genes associate through prescribed communication protocols of common biological functions and pathways. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our analysis was proved to be coincident with our primary hypothesis that disease genes of complex diseases interact with their neighbors in a cooperative manner, associate with each other through shared biological functions and pathways of disease-risk modules, and finally cause dysfunctions of a series of biological processes in molecular networks. We hope our paradigm could be a promising method to identify disease gene interaction pathways for other types of complex diseases, affording additional clues in the pathogenesis of complex diseases

Clinical research evidence of cupping therapy in China: a systematic literature review

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Though cupping therapy has been used in China for thousands of years, there has been no systematic summary of clinical research on it.</p> <p>This review is to evaluate the therapeutic effect of cupping therapy using evidence-based approach based on all available clinical studies.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We included all clinical studies on cupping therapy for all kinds of diseases. We searched six electronic databases, all searches ended in December 2008. We extracted data on the type of cupping and type of diseases treated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>550 clinical studies were identified published between 1959 and 2008, including 73 randomized controlled trials (RCTs), 22 clinical controlled trials, 373 case series, and 82 case reports. Number of RCTs obviously increased during past decades, but the quality of the RCTs was generally poor according to the risk of bias of the Cochrane standard for important outcome within each trials. The diseases in which cupping was commonly employed included pain conditions, herpes zoster, cough or asthma, etc. Wet cupping was used in majority studies, followed by retained cupping, moving cupping, medicinal cupping, etc. 38 studies used combination of two types of cupping therapies. No serious adverse effects were reported in the studies.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>According to the above results, quality and quantity of RCTs on cupping therapy appears to be improved during the past 50 years in China, and majority of studies show potential benefit on pain conditions, herpes zoster and other diseases. However, further rigorous designed trials in relevant conditions are warranted to support their use in practice.</p

Determination of the number of J/ψ events with J/ψ → inclusive decays

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Two-photon widths of the χ c0,2 states and helicity analysis for χ c2→γγ

Based on a data sample of 106×106 ψ ′ events collected with the BESIII detector, the decays ψ ′→γχ c0,2, χ c0,2→γγ are studied to determine the two-photon widths of the χ c0,2 states. The two-photon decay branching fractions are determined to be B(χ c0→γγ)=(2. 24±0.19±0.12±0.08)×10 -4 and B(χ c2→γγ)=(3.21±0.18±0. 17±0.13)×10 -4. From these, the two-photon widths are determined to be Γ γγ(χ c0)=(2. 33±0.20±0.13±0.17)keV, Γ γγ(χ c2)=(0.63±0.04±0. 04±0.04)keV, and R=Γ γγ(χ c2)/ Γ γγ(χ c0)=0.271±0. 029±0.013±0.027, where the uncertainties are statistical, systematic, and those from the PDG B(ψ ′→γχ c0,2) and Γ(χ c0,2) errors, respectively. The ratio of the two-photon widths for helicity λ=0 and helicity λ=2 components in the decay χ c2→γγ is measured for the first time to be f 0/2=Γγγλ= 0(χ c2)/Γγγλ=2(χ c2)=0. 00±0.02±0.02. © 2012 American Physical Society.published_or_final_versio

Search for a light exotic particle in J/psi radiative decays

Using a data sample containing 1.06x10^8 psi' events collected with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII electron-positron collider, we search for a light exotic particle X in the process psi' -> pi^+ pi^- J/psi, J/psi -> gamma X, X -> mu^+ mu^-. This light particle X could be a Higgs-like boson A^0, a spin-1 U boson, or a pseudoscalar sgoldstino particle. In this analysis, we find no evidence for any mu^+mu^- mass peak between the mass threshold and 3.0 GeV/c^2. We set 90%-confidence-level upper limits on the product-branching fractions for J/psi -> gamma A^0, A^0 -> mu^+ mu^- which range from 4x10^{-7} to 2.1x10^{-5}, depending on the mass of A^0, for M(A^0)<3.0 GeV/c^2. Only one event is seen in the mass region below 255 MeV/c^2 and this has a mu^+mu^- mass of 213.3 MeV/c^2 and the product branching fraction upper limit 5x10^{-7}.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Physical Review

Advances in structure elucidation of small molecules using mass spectrometry

The structural elucidation of small molecules using mass spectrometry plays an important role in modern life sciences and bioanalytical approaches. This review covers different soft and hard ionization techniques and figures of merit for modern mass spectrometers, such as mass resolving power, mass accuracy, isotopic abundance accuracy, accurate mass multiple-stage MS(n) capability, as well as hybrid mass spectrometric and orthogonal chromatographic approaches. The latter part discusses mass spectral data handling strategies, which includes background and noise subtraction, adduct formation and detection, charge state determination, accurate mass measurements, elemental composition determinations, and complex data-dependent setups with ion maps and ion trees. The importance of mass spectral library search algorithms for tandem mass spectra and multiple-stage MS(n) mass spectra as well as mass spectral tree libraries that combine multiple-stage mass spectra are outlined. The successive chapter discusses mass spectral fragmentation pathways, biotransformation reactions and drug metabolism studies, the mass spectral simulation and generation of in silico mass spectra, expert systems for mass spectral interpretation, and the use of computational chemistry to explain gas-phase phenomena. A single chapter discusses data handling for hyphenated approaches including mass spectral deconvolution for clean mass spectra, cheminformatics approaches and structure retention relationships, and retention index predictions for gas and liquid chromatography. The last section reviews the current state of electronic data sharing of mass spectra and discusses the importance of software development for the advancement of structure elucidation of small molecules