Characteristics of Chinese patients with cough in primary care centre

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cough is one of the most common respiratory symptoms and is well characterized in specialized cough clinics with high success rates of diagnosis and treatment. However, there is a paucity of data regarding cough in primary care settings. The present study aimed at investigating clinical epidemiology of cough through a national study of two questionnaire surveys sent to primary care physicians in China.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Approximately 18,000 subjects recruited were having daytime or night symptoms of cough and diagnoses of respiratory disease from February 2005 to April 2006 as Survey 1 and from June 2007 to December 2007 as Survey 2. Patients suffering from respiratory malignancy, hyperthyroidism, hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, severe hypohepatia or renal dysfunction, pregnancy, possible pregnancy or lactation, neutropenia were not eligible. Information regarding demography, history of allergies, symptomatic profile, treatment and curative effects for cough was elicited.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>8216 questionnaires were collected in Survey 1 and 9711 in Survey 2. The mean values of ages were 25.7 and 22.3 years old, respectively. Symptoms included expectoration (74% and 76%), wheeze (59% and 74%), breathlessness (22% and 26%), chest pain (9% and 13%) and fever (15% and 18%). About 15% and 23% patients had hypersusceptibility, of whom 6% to 17% had a family history. More than 50% of the cases had histories of allergic rhinitis, asthma, conjunctivitis or atopic dermatitis. Asthma, COPD, and bronchitis were dominant etiologies of cough. Procaterol or the combination of antibiotics and steroids were used as the treatment.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Causes and outcomes of cough differed with ages and time in this particular national study, while successful and precise diagnosis and management of cough in primary care settings need to be further improved in China.</p

Almost sure convergence for a class of dependent random variables under sub-linear expectations

This article aimed to investigate the almost sure convergence theorem of widely negative orthant dependent (WNOD) random variables under sub-linear expectation space. The conclusions in this essay are an extension of the corresponding conclusions in the classical probability space

In vitro pharmacokinetics of sirolimus-coated stent for tracheal stenosis

Purpose: To investigate the in vitro pharmacokinetics of sirolimus-coated stent for tracheal stenosisMethods: Naked nickel titanium alloy stent was placed in methylene chloride leaching solution with different ratios of sirolimus/poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA). The morphology, thickness, and pellicles on the surface of the stent were observed by scanning electronic microscopy. Drug release from the stent was determined by enzyme amplification immunoassay.Results: Sirolimus was smoothly and uniformly attached to the stent, with an optimal sirolimus: PLGA coating ratio of 1:10. Further increases in sirolimus: PLGA ratio did not improve stent drug loading. A slow release of sirolimus from the stent was observed in the first week, followed by a rapid release and then much slower release process. Release of sirolimus persisted in the stent throughout the period of 42 days.Conclusion: The sirolimus-coated stent has a good surface morphology, and sustained and effective drug release characteristics. Thus, it may be effective and safe for use in the treatment of tracheal stenosis in vivo.Keywords: Tracheal stenosis, Sirolimus, Drug-coated stents, poly(lactic-co glycolic acid) PLG

Wireless capsule endoscopy exploration for diseases of the small intestine in China

For small bowel diseases, it is difficult for the ordinary enteroscopy to reach due to its specific curvature and length. Capsule endoscopy (CE) is a unique tool to visualize the mucosa of the small intestine. The aim of this study was to evaluate the detection rate and diagnostic yield of CE in a large group of patients with suspected digestive diseases in China. One hundred and two consecutive patients (75 male, mean age 50 years, range 32-87 years) underwent CE in our Gastroenterology Units, for a total of 102 procedures. Referrals were obscure occult/ overt gastrointestinal bleeding group (19 patients) and suspected small bowel disease group (83). In our study, the whole detection rate was 92 % (94/102), with a definite diagnosis yield of 63 % of the patients in the obscure gastrointestinal bleeding and 39 % of the patients in the suspected small bowel diseases. None of the patients developed symptoms of signs of mechanical obstruction, although the capsule was retained in the stomach in 2/102 patients for their somatostatin taken. CE seems to be a very safe, painless and effective procedure with a high diagnostic yield. Accurate selection of indications and critical evaluation of the results are essential to explore these diseases

MicroRNA-143 Targets MACC1 to Inhibit Cell Invasion and Migration in Colorectal cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been suggested to play a vital role in tumor initiation and progression by negatively regulating oncogenes and tumor suppressors. Quite recently, studies have identified some miRNAs operating to promote or suppress tumor invasion or metastasis via regulating metastasis-related genes, providing potential therapeutic targets on anti-metastasis strategy. Metastasis-associated in colon cancer-1 (MACC1) has been newly identified to express highly in colorectal cancer (CRC) and promote tumor metastasis through transactivating metastasis-inducing HGF/MET signaling pathway. In this study, we investigated whether miRNA 143 is involved in the regulation of MACC1 and thus plays a functional role in CRC.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using both in silico prediction and western blot assay, we found the previously reported tumor suppressive miR-143 targeted MACC1 in CRC. The direct interaction between them was confirmed by 3' UTR luciferase reporter gene. In concordance with the inhibitory effects induced by siRNA mediated knockdown of MACC1, restoration of miR-143 by mimics in SW620 cells significantly attenuated cell growth, migration and invasion. It is notable that combined treatment of miR-143 mimics and MACC1 siRNA induced synergistic inhibitory effects compared to either miR-143 mimics or MACC1 siRNA treatment alone. Conversely, reduction of miR-143 by inhibitors in SW480 cells apparently stimulated these phenotypes. Furthermore, we observed that miR-143 level was inversely correlated with MACC1 mRNA expression in CRC tissues.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our findings newly described miR-143/MACC1 link and provided a potential mechanism for MACC1 dysregulation and contribution to CRC cell invasion. It may help to estimate the therapeutic utility of miR-143 in CRC.</p

The explicit formula and parity for some generalized Euler functions

Utilizing elementary methods and techniques, the explicit formula for the generalized Euler function $\varphi_{e}(n)(e = 8, 12)$ has been developed. Additionally, a sufficient and necessary condition for $\varphi_{8}(n)$ or $\varphi_{12}(n)$ to be odd has been obtained, respectively

A Research on Community-Based Livestock of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Qinghai-Tibet Plateau locates in Southwestern China, covering the whole area of Tibet Autonomous Region, Qinghai Province, Southern part of Gansu Province, Northwestern part of Sichuan Province and Northwestern part of Yunnan Province, with an area of around 139.08 million hectares of natural grassland, accounting for 39% of the total area of natural grassland in China. It is also the largest natural ecozones in China and one of the least disturbed regions by human activities, with its air, water sources, soil, grassland, wildlife in their pristine state. Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the native home for Tibetan people. Grassland animal husbandry is the foundation of the economy of QTP and the main source of livelihood for local nomadic people. During the long term of concerted evolution with the nature, Tibetan people living on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have formed a uniquely holistic grassland ecological culture that is compatible with their production system and the ecosystem. The majority of Tibetan people observe Tibetan Buddhism. Their respect for nature and their belief in that all sentient beings are equal take deep root in their traditional culture. Their harmonious co-existence with nature exemplifies the eco-civilization ideas and provides a solid cultural foundation for both ecology conservation and featured animal husbandry development. On Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, national policies and initiatives such as dual contract of livestock and forage, natural grassland vegetation recovery, returning grazing land to grassland, grassland ecosystem subsidy and rewarding mechanism have been implemented, playing an important role in promoting grassland ecosystem conservation and grassland animal husbandry development. However, since grassland animal husbandry is a complex system involving grassland, farm animal, environment, society, economy, culture, etc, there are still many outstanding problems to be solved

Occupation prediction with multimodal learning from Tweet messages and Google Street View images

Despite the development of various heuristic and machine learning models, social media user occupation predication remains challenging due to limited high-quality ground truth data and difficulties in effectively integrating multiple data sources in different modalities, which can be complementary and contribute to informing the profession or job role of an individual. In response, this study introduces a novel semi-supervised multimodal learning method for Twitter user occupation prediction with a limited number of training samples. Specifically, an unsupervised learning model is first designed to extract textual and visual embeddings from individual tweet messages (textual) and Google Street View images (visual), with the latter capturing the geographical and environmental context surrounding individuals’ residential and workplace areas. Next, these high-dimensional multimodal features are fed into a multilayer transfer learning model for individual occupation classification. The proposed occupation prediction method achieves high evaluation scores for identifying Office workers, Students, and Others or Jobless people, with the F1 score for identifying Office workers surpassing the best previously reported scores for occupation classification using social media data

Distinct mechanisms define murine B cell lineage immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) repertoires

Processes that define immunoglobulin repertoires are commonly presumed to be the same for all murine B cells. However, studies here that couple high-dimensional FACS sorting with large-scale quantitative IgH deep-sequencing demonstrate that B-1a IgH repertoire differs dramatically from the follicular and marginal zone B cells repertoires and is defined by distinct mechanisms. We track B-1a cells from their early appearance in neonatal spleen to their long-term residence in adult peritoneum and spleen. We show that de novo B-1a IgH rearrangement mainly occurs during the first few weeks of life, after which their repertoire continues to evolve profoundly, including convergent selection of certain V(D)J rearrangements encoding specific CDR3 peptides in all adults and progressive introduction of hypermutation and class-switching as animals age. This V(D)J selection and AID-mediated diversification operate comparably in germ-free and conventional mice, indicating these unique B-1a repertoire-defining mechanisms are driven by antigens that are not derived from microbiota