Diquark mass differences from unquenched lattice QCD

We calculate diquark correlation functions in the Landau gauge on the lattice using overlap valence quarks and 2+1-flavor domain wall fermion configurations. Quark masses are extracted from the scalar part of quark propagators in the Landau gauge. Scalar diquark quark mass difference and axial vector scalar diquark mass difference are obtained for diquarks composed of two light quarks and of a strange and a light quark. Light sea quark mass dependence of the results is examined. Two lattice spacings are used to check the discretization effects. The coarse and fine lattices are of sizes $24^3\times64$ and $32^3\times64$ with inverse spacings $1/a=1.75(4) {\rm~GeV}$ and $2.33(5) {\rm~GeV}$, respectively.Comment: 9 figure

High-Speed Railway Tunnel Hood: Seismic Dynamic Characteristic Analysis

When a high‐speed train is passing through a tunnel, micro‐compression wave may be created at the tunnel exit, which will affect the environment around the railway line. Setting hood at tunnel entrance is one of the efficacious ways for solving this problem. While in an earthquake region, in addition to consideration of controlling micro‐compression wave, the seismic safety of hood structure must not overlook the factor. In this chapter, using finite difference method, several types of hood seismic dynamic characteristic were analyzed, and their seismic dynamic respond stress curves were drawn out. As a result, the recommended hood type was determined, which is helpful for hood design in high intensity earthquake zone

An earthworm protease cleaving serum fibronectin and decreasing HBeAg in HepG2.2.15 cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Virus-binding activity is one of the important functions of fibronectin (FN). It has been reported that a high concentration of FN in blood improves the transmission frequency of hepatitis viruses. Therefore, to investigate a protease that hydrolyzes FN rapidly is useful to decrease the FN concentration in blood and HBV infection. So far, however, no specific protease digesting FN in serum has been reported.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We employed a purified earthworm protease to digest serum proteins. The rapidly cleaved protein (FN) was identified by MALDI-TOF MS and western blotting. The cleavage sites were determined by N-terminus amino acid residues sequencing. The protease was orally administrated to rats to investigate whether serum FN <it>in vivo </it>became decreased. The serum FN was determined by western blotting and ELISA. In cytological studies, the protease was added to the medium in the culture of HepG2.2.15 cells and then HBsAg and HBeAg were determined by ELISA.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The protease purified from earthworm <it>Eisenia fetida </it>was found to function as a fibronectinase (FNase). The cleavage sites on FN by the FNase were at R and K, exhibiting a trypsin alkaline serine-like function. The earthworm fibronectinase (EFNase) cleaved FN at four sites, R₂₅₉, R₁₀₀₅, K₁₅₅₇and R₂₀₃₉, among which the digested fragments at R₂₅₉, K₁₅₅₇and R₂₀₃₉were related to the virus-binding activity as reported. The serum FN was significantly decreased when the earthworm fibronectinase was orally administrated to rats. The ELISA results showed that the secretion of HBeAg from HepG2.2.15 cells was significantly inhibited in the presence of the FNase.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The earthworm fibronectinase (EFNase) cleaves FN much faster than the other proteins in serum, showing a potential to inhibit HBV infection through its suppressing the level of HBeAg. This suggests that EFNase is probably used as one of the candidates for the therapeutic agents to treat hepatitis virus infection.</p

Diquark Mass Differences from Unquenched Lattice QCD

We calculate diquark correlation functions in the Landau gauge on the lattice using overlap valence quarks and 2+1-flavor domain wall fermion configurations. Quark masses are extracted from the scalar part of quark propagators in the Landau gauge. The scalar diquark quark mass difference and axial vector scalar diquark mass difference are obtained for diquarks composed of two light quarks and of a strange and a light quark. The light sea quark mass dependence of the results is examined. Two lattice spacings are used to check the discretization effects. The coarse and fine lattices are of sizes 243 × 64 and 323 × 64 with inverse spacings 1/a = 1.75(4) GeV and 2.33(5) GeV, respectively

Phase I Trial of Escalating-dose Cisplatin with 5-fluorouracil and Concurrent Radiotherapy in Chinese Patients with Esophageal Cancer

We defined the maximum-tolerated dose (MTD) of chemoradiotherapy (cisplatin (CDDP) with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and concurrent chemoradiotherapy) for Chinese patients with esophageal cancer. Twenty-one previously untreated patients with primary esophageal cancer were entered into this study. Escalating doses of CDDP with 5-FU were administered in a modified Fibonacci sequence, with concurrent conventional fractionation radiotherapy (CFR) of 60 Gy or 50 Gy. The starting doses were CDDP 37.5 mg/m2 on day 1, and 5-FU 500 mg/m2 on days 1-5, respectively. The regimen was repeated 4 times every 28 days. If no dose-limiting toxicity (DLT) was observed, the next dose level was applied. The procedures were repeated until DLT appeared. The MTD was declared to be 1 dose level below the level at which DLT appeared. DLT was grade 3 radiation-induced esophagitis at a dose level of CDDP 60 mg/m2 with 5-FU 700 mg/m2 and concurrent 60 Gy CFR. MTD was defined as CDDP 52.5 mg/m2 with 5-FU 700 mg/m2 and concurrent 50 Gy CFR. The MTD of CDDP with 5-FU and in concurrent chemoradiotherapy for Chinese patients with esophageal cancer is CDDP 52.5 mg/m2 on day 1 and 5FU 700 mg/m2 on days 1-5, repeated 4 times every 28 days, and concurrent 50 Gy CFR. Further evaluation of this regimen in a prospective phase II trial is ongoing.</p

A new diagnostic model of primary open angle glaucoma based on FD-OCT parameters

AIM: To build a clinical diagnostic model of primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) using the normal probability chart of frequency-domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT). METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study. Total 133 eyes from 133 healthy subjects and 99 eyes from 99 early POAG patients were included in the study. The retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL) thickness parameters of optic nerve head (ONH) and RNFL3.45 scan were measured in one randomly selected eye of each subject using RTVue-100 FD-OCT. Then, we used these parameters to establish the diagnostic models. Four different diagnostic models based on two different area partition strategies on ONH and RNFL3.45 parameters, including ONH traditional area partition model (ONH-T), ONH new area partition model (ONH-N), RNFL3.45 traditional area partition model (RNFL3.45-T) and RNFL3.45 new area partition model (RNFL3.45-N), were built and tested by cross-validation. RESULTS: The new area partition models had higher area under the receiver operating characteristic (AROC; ONH-N: 0.990; RNFL3.45-N: 0.939) than corresponding traditional area partition models (ONH-T: 0.979; RNFL3.45-T: 0.881). There was no statistical difference among AROC of ONH-T, ONH-N, and RNFL3.45-N. Nevertheless, ONH-N was the simplest model. CONCLUSION: The new area partition models had higher diagnostic accuracy than corresponding traditional area partition models, which can improve the diagnostic ability of early POAG. In particular, the simplest ONH-N diagnostic model may be convenient for clinical application

Investigation of the morbidity of dry eye among special crowd in Shunde district

AIM: To investigate the morbidity of dry eye in policeman of Shunde district, and to analyze the related factors and proposed methods of preventing and treating dry eye.<p>METHODS:Totally 650 policemen who came for physical examination in Shunde district recived questionnaire survey. The patients with dye eye disease were finally diagnosed through slit lamp examination, Schirmer test, tear film break-up time(BUT)measurement and keratoconjunctival fluorescent staining. The morbidity among different policemen was further analyzed and stasticed.<p>RESULTS:The results showed that 152 in 650 policemen suffered from dry eye disease, the ratio was 23.4%. Comparied with security police and crimanl police, the ratio in traffic police, patrolman,and back office police was significantly higher. The prevalence was higher when the ages were greater than 40.<p>CONCLUSION: Unsuitable working environment, air contamination are high risk factors of dry eye disease

Transcriptomic analysis of the response of Avena sativa to Bacillus amyloliquefaciens DGL1

IntroductionBacillus amyloliquefaciens DGL1, isolated from the arid sandy areas in Dagler, Qinghai Province, China, promotes the growth of Avena sativa variety “Qing Yan 1”.MethodsTo elucidate the transcriptomic changes in the oat root system following interaction with DGL1 and to reveal the molecular mechanism by which DGL1 promotes oat growth, treatment and control groups of oat roots at 2, 4, 8, and 12 h after inoculation with a suspension of strain DGL1 were analyzed using Illumina high-throughput transcriptome sequencing technology. The differentially expressed genes were determined through Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses, and the metabolic pathways and key genes were analyzed.ResultsThe results showed that 7874, 13,392, 13,169, and 19,026 differentially expressed genes were significantly enriched in the glycolysis/gluconeogenesis pathway, amino acid metabolism, nitrogen metabolism, plant hormone signal transduction, and other related metabolic pathways in the oat roots at 2, 4, 8, and 12 h after inoculation with a DGL1 suspension. The GO and KEGG enrichment analyses revealed that the genes encoding plasma membrane ATPase, phosphoglycerate kinase gene PGK, ammonium transporter protein gene AMT, cellulose synthase gene CSLF6, and growth hormone response family gene IAA18 were significantly upregulated.DiscussionIt is hypothesized that the pro-growth mechanism of strain DGL1 in oats is the result of the coordination of multiple pathways through the promotion of oat energy metabolism, phytohormone signaling, secondary metabolite synthesis, and amino acid metabolism

Human papillomavirus viral load as a useful triage tool for non-16/18 high-risk human papillomavirus positive women: A prospective screening cohort study

ASCCP cervical cancer screening guidelines recommend triaging high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) positive women with cytology and genotyping, but cytology is often unavailable in resource-limited areas. We compared the long-term risk of cervical cancer and precancers among type-specific hrHPV-positive women triaged by viral load to cytology and visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA).A cohort of 1742 Chinese women was screened with cytology, VIA, and Hybrid Capture 2 (HC2) test and followed for ten years. All HC2-positive samples were genotyped. Viral load was measured by HC2 relative light units/cutoff (RLU/CO). Ten-year cumulative incidence rate (CIR) of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or worse (CIN2 +) for type-specific hrHPV viral load was estimated using Kaplan-Meier methods.Baseline hrHPV viral load stratified by specific genotypes was positively correlated with prevalent cytological lesions. Ten-year CIR of CIN2 + was associated with cytological lesions and viral load. Among HPV 16/18-positive women, ten-year CIR of CIN2 + was high, even with normal cytology (15.3%), normal VIA (32.4%), viral load with RLU/CO < 10 (23.6%) or RLU/CO < 100 (33.8%). Among non-16/18 hrHPV positive women, ten-year CIR of CIN2 + was significantly stratified by cytology grade of atypical squamous cell of undetermined significance or higher (2.0% VS. 34.6%), viral load cutoffs at 10 RLU/CO (5.1% VS. 27.2%), at 100 RLU/CO (11.0% VS. 35.5%), but not by VIA (19.1% VS. 19.0%).Our findings support the guidelines in referring all HPV16/18 positive women to colposcopy and suggest triaging non-16/18 hrHPV positive women using viral loads in resource-limited areas where cytology screening was inaccessible

Temporal proteomic profiling reveals functional pathways in vaccinia virus-induced cell migration

IntroductionViral diseases have always been intricate and persistent issues throughout the world and there is a lack of holistic discoveries regarding the molecular dysregulations of virus-host interactions. The temporal proteomics strategy can identify various differentially expressed proteins and offer collaborated interaction networks under pathological conditions.MethodHerein, temporal proteomics at various hours post infection of Vero cells were launched to uncover molecular alternations during vaccinia virus (VACV)-induced cell migration. Different stages of infection were included to differentiate gene ontologies and critical pathways at specific time points of infection via bioinformatics.ResultsBioinformatic results showed functional and distinct ontologies and pathways at different stages of virus infection. The enrichment of interaction networks and pathways verified the significances of the regulation of actin cytoskeleton and lamellipodia during VACV-induced fast cell motility.DiscussionThe current results offer a systematic proteomic profiling of molecular dysregulations at different stages of VACV infection and potential biomedical targets for treating viral diseases