Study of Non-Local Chamber of Commerce: Retrospect, Review and Prospect

As one form of the Chamber of Commerce, non-local Chamber of Commerce plays an important role in social economy, and related research has made great achievements, while lacking systematic summary and comment at the same time. Based on the review of previous studies, this paper systematically reviews and comments on the results of non-local Chamber of Commerce, including its definition, foundations of its rising, the function positioning, the governance mechanism and the defects of management, recognizes the existing problems, makes up for the shortage, and puts forward suggestions for future research

Apolipoprotein A-I levels in the survival of patients with colorectal cancer: a retrospective study

BackgroundAbnormal lipid levels have been associated with cancer incidence and progression. However, limited studies have investigated the relationship between apolipoprotein A-I (ApoA-I) and colorectal cancer (CRC). This study assessed the significance of ApoA-I levels in progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) of patients with CRC.MethodsSurvival curves were compared using Kaplan–Meier analysis, while the predictive values of various lipid indicators in CRC prognosis were evaluated based on receiver operating characteristic curves. The factors influencing PFS and OS in patients with CRC were analyzed using Cox proportional hazards regression models. Finally, the relationship between ApoA-I level and disease recurrence was investigated through logistic regression analysis. The optimal Apo-I level was determined through maximally selected rank statistics.ResultsUsing the optimal ApoA-I cutoff value (0.9 g/L), the 1,270 patients with CRC were categorized into low (< 0.9 g/L, 275 cases) and high (≥0.9 g/L, 995 cases) ApoA-I groups. Compared with other lipid indicators, ApoA-I demonstrated superior predictive accuracy. The high ApoA-I group exhibited significantly higher survival rates than the low ApoA-I group (PFS, 64.8% vs. 45.2%, P < 0.001; OS, 66.1% vs. 48.6%, P < 0.001). Each one-standard-deviation increase in ApoA-I level was related to a 12.0% decrease in PFS risk (hazard ratio [HR] 0.880; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.801–0.968; P = 0.009) and an 11.2% decrease in OS risk (HR 0.888; 95%CI, 0.806–0.978; P = 0.015). Logistic regression analysis revealed that patients with low ApoA-I had a 32.5% increased risk of disease recurrence (odds ratio [OR] 0.675; 95%CI, 0.481–0.946; P = 0.0225) compared with those with high ApoA-I. PFS/OS nomograms based on ApoA-I demonstrated excellent prognostic prediction accuracy.ConclusionsSerum ApoA-I level may be a valuable and non-invasive tool for predicting PFS and OS in patients with CRC

Impact of Triage: A Study of Mozilla and Gnome

Abstract—Triage is of great interest in software projects because it has the potential to reduce developer effort by involving a broader base of non-developer contributors to filter and augment reported issues. Using issue tracking data and interviews with experienced contributors we investigate ways to quantify the impact of triagers on reducing the number of issues developers need to resolve in two OSS projects: Mozilla and Gnome. We find the primary impact of triagers to involve issue filtering, filling missing information, and determining the relevant product. While triagers were good at filtering invalid issues and as accurate as developers in filling in missing issue attributes, they had more difficulty accurately pinpointing the relevant product. We expect that this work will highlight the importance of issue triage in software projects and will help design further studies on understanding and improving triage practices. I

Product assignment recommender

Effectiveness of software development process depends on the accuracy of data in supporting tools. In particular, a customer issue assigned to a wrong product team takes much longer to resolve (negatively affecting user-perceived quality) and wastes developer effort. In Open Source Software (OSS) and in commercial projects values in issue-tracking systems (ITS) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) sys-tems are often assigned by non-developers for whom the assignment task is difficult. We propose PAR (Product As-signment Recommender) to estimate the odds that a value in the ITS is incorrect. PAR learns from the past activities in ITS and performs prediction using a logistic regression model. Our demonstrations show how PAR helps develop-ers to focus on fixing real problems, and how it can be used to improve data accuracy in ITS by crowd-sourcing non-developers to verify and correct low-accuracy data. Copyright ? 2014 ACM.EI

The value of carcinoembryonic antigen stage in staging, prognosis, and management of colorectal cancer: results from two cohort studies

BackgroundCombining the carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) level (C stage) with TNM staging can provide a more comprehensive prognostic assessment of colorectal cancer (CRC). However, the clinical value of incorporating CEA status into the TNM staging system needs to be evaluated.MethodsWe used the SEER database (N = 49,350) and a retrospective cohort from China (N = 1,440). A normal CEA level was staged as C0 and an elevated CEA level was staged as C1. Restricted cubic spline analysis was used to examine the dose-response relationship between the CEA level and survival. The Kaplan-Meier method with the log-rank test was used to plot survival curves. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression models with forward stepwise variable selection were used to estimate the hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals.ResultsPatients with C1 were more likely to have advanced disease than those with C0. CEA on a continuous scale was positively associated with mortality risk. Compared with patients with C0 stage, those with C1 stage had significantly lower survival rates. In the SEER dataset, C1 was independently associated with poor prognosis in patients with CRC, with an approximately 70% increased risk of mortality. Patients with C1 stage had significantly lower survival than those with C0 stage at all clinical stages. Incorporating the C stage into the TNM staging refined the prediction of prognosis of patients with CRC, with a gradual decline in prognosis from stage I C0 to stage IV C1. A similar pattern was observed in the present retrospective cohort study. At each lymph node stage, patients with C1 had significantly lower 5-year survival rates than patients with C0. Compared with lymph node positivity, CEA positivity may have a stronger correlation with a worse prognosis.ConclusionOur findings not only validated the independent prognostic significance of CEA in CRC but also demonstrated its enhanced prognostic value when combined with TNM staging. Our study provides evidence supporting the inclusion of C stage in the TNM staging system

Acute Colonic Pseudo-Obstruction with Feeding Intolerance in Critically Ill Patients: A Study according to Gut Wall Analysis

Objective. To compare the differences between acute colonic pseudo-obstruction (ACPO) with and without acute gut wall thickening. Methods. ACPO patients with feeding tolerance were divided into ACPO with no obvious gut wall thickening (ACPO-NT) group and ACPO with obvious acute gut wall thickening (ACPO-T) group according to computed tomography and abdominal radiographs. Patients’ condition, responses to supportive measures, pharmacologic therapy, endoscopic decompression, and surgeries and outcomes were compared. Results. Patients in ACPO-T group had a significantly higher APACHE II (11.82 versus 8.25, p=0.008) and SOFA scores (6.47 versus 3.54, p<0.001) and a significantly higher 28-day mortality (17.78% versus 4.16%, p=0.032) and longer intensive care unit stage (4 versus 16 d, p<0.001). Patients in ACPO-NT group were more likely to be responsive to supportive treatment (62.50% versus 24.44%, p<0.001), neostigmine (77.78% versus 17.64%, p<0.001), and colonoscopic decompression (75% versus 42.86%, p=0.318) than those in ACPO-T group. Of the patients who underwent ileostomy, 81.25% gained benefits. Conclusions. ACPO patients with gut wall thickening are more severe and are less likely to be responsive to nonsurgical treatment. Ileostomy may be a good option for ACPO patients with gut wall thickening who are irresponsive to nonsurgical treatment

Serum creatinine/cystatin C ratio as a prognostic indicator for patients with colorectal cancer

BackgroundThis study aimed to explore the relationship between creatinine/cystatin C ratio and progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients undergoing surgical treatment.MethodsA retrospective analysis was conducted on 975 CRC patients who underwent surgical resection from January 2012 to 2015. Restricted three-sample curve to display the non-linear relationship between PFS/OS and creatinine-cystatin C ratio. Cox regression model and Kaplan-Meier method were used to evaluate the effect of the creatinine-cystatin C ratio on the survival of CRC patients. Prognostic variables with p-value ≤0.05 in multivariate analysis were used to construct prognostic nomograms. The receiver operator characteristic curve was used to compare the efficacy of prognostic nomograms and the traditional pathological stage.ResultsThere was a negative linear relationship between creatinine/cystatin C ratio and adverse PFS in CRC patients. Patients with low creatinine/cystatin C ratio had significantly lower PFS/OS than those with high creatinine/cystatin C ratio (PFS, 50.8% vs. 63.9%, p = 0.002; OS, 52.5% vs. 68.9%, p &lt; 0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that low creatinine/cystatin C ratio was an independent risk factor for PFS (HR=1.286, 95%CI = 1.007–1.642, p=0.044) and OS (HR=1.410, 95%CI=1.087–1.829, p=0.010) of CRC patients. The creatinine/cystatin C ratio-based prognostic nomograms have good predictive performance, with a concordance index above 0.7, which can predict the 1–5-year prognosis.ConclusionCreatinine/cystatin C ratio may be an effective prognostic marker for predicting PFS and OS in CRC patients, aid in pathological staging, and along with tumour markers help in-depth prognostic stratification in CRC patients

PRMT5-mediated regulation of developmental myelination

Oligodendrocytes (OLs) are the myelin-forming cells of the central nervous system. They are derived from differentiation of oligodendrocyte progenitors through a process requiring cell cycle exit and histone modifications. Here we identify the histone arginine methyl-transferase PRMT5, a molecule catalyzing symmetric methylation of histone H4R3, as critical for developmental myelination. PRMT5 pharmacological inhibition, CRISPR/cas9 targeting, or genetic ablation decrease p53-dependent survival and impair differentiation without affecting proliferation. Conditional ablation of Prmt5 in progenitors results in hypomyelination, reduced survival and differentiation. Decreased histone H4R3 symmetric methylation is followed by increased nuclear acetylation of H4K5, and is rescued by pharmacological inhibition of histone acetyltransferases. Data obtained using purified histones further validate the results obtained in mice and in cultured oligodendrocyte progenitors. Together, these results identify PRMT5 as critical for oligodendrocyte differentiation and developmental myelination by modulating the cross-talk between histone arginine methylation and lysine acetylation

Molecular prevalence and subtype distribution of Blastocystis spp. among children who have diarrheia or are asymptomatic in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China

Blastocystis sp., a significant zoonotic parasite with a global distribution, was the focus of this study, which aimed to investigate its prevalence and genetic diversity among diarrheic and asymptomatic children in Wenzhou, China. We collected 1,032 fecal samples from Yuying Children’s Hospital, Wenzhou, China, comprising 684 from children with diarrhea and 348 from asymptomatic children. Genomic DNA extracted from these samples was used to detect Blastocystis spp. by PCR, targeting the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene. Subsequently, a phylogenetic tree was constructed, applying the maximum likelihood method. Blastocystis spp. were detected in 67 (6.5%) of the fecal samples. The prevalence rate of Blastocystis spp. in diarrheic children (8.8%; 60/684) was significantly higher than that in asymptomatic children (2.0%; 7/348) (χ 2 = 17.3, p < 0.001). Sequence analysis of the SSU rRNA gene identified five known Blastocystis spp. subtypes, ST1 (n = 12), ST2 (n = 5), ST3 (n = 35), ST4 (n = 12), and ST7 (n = 3). ST1 and ST3 were present in both diarrheic and asymptomatic children, while ST2, ST4, and ST7 were exclusive to diarrheic children. Intra-subtype genetic polymorphisms were identified, comprising four variations in ST1 (ST1-1 to ST1-4), five in ST3 (ST3-1 to ST3-5), two in ST4 (ST4-1 and ST4-2), and two in ST7 (ST7-1 and ST7-2). Notably, ST1-2 to ST1-4, ST3-3 to ST3-5, and ST7-1 and ST7-2 represent newly identified variations. The composition and genetic characteristics of subtypes among children in this region suggest various sources of infection, including human-to-human and animal-to-human transmission

Prevalence and Characterization of Staphylococcus aureus Isolated From Women and Children in Guangzhou, China

The prevalent Staphylococcus aureus clones and antibiotic susceptibility profiles are known to change dynamically and geographically; however, recent S. aureus strains causing infections in women and children in China have not been characterized. In this study, we analyzed the molecular epidemiology and antimicrobial resistance of S. aureus isolated from patients in four centers for women and children in Guangzhou, China. In total, 131 S. aureus isolates (100 from children and 31 from women) were analyzed by spa typing, multi-locus sequence typing, virulence gene and antimicrobial resistance profiling, staphylococcal chromosomal cassette mec typing, and mutation analyses of rpoB. A total of 58 spa types, 27 sequence types (STs), and 10 clonal complexes (CCs) were identified. While CC59 (ST59-IV, 48.8%; ST338-III, 35.7%) and CC45 (ST45-IV, 100%) were the major clones (84.4%) among MRSA isolates, CC5 (ST188, 24.3%; ST1, 21.6%) and CC398 (ST398, 70%) were the major ones (70.1%) among MSSA isolates. ST338-MRSA-III mostly found in pus but hardly in respiratory tract samples while ST45-MRSA-IV was on the opposite, even though they both found in blood and cerebrospinal fluid sample frequently. Staphylococcal enterotoxin genes seb-seq-sek were strongly associated with ST59 and ST338, while sec was associated with ST45, ST121, ST22, and ST30. All ST338, ST1232, and SCCmec III isolates carried lukF/S-PV genes. A total of 80% of ST338 isolates were resistant to erythromycin, clindamycin, and tetracycline. All ST45 isolates exhibited intermediate or complete resistance to rifampicin. In total, 481 HIS/ASN mutations in rpoB were found in rifampicin-resistant or intermediate-resistant isolates. ST338-III and ST45-IV emerged as two of three major clones in MRSA isolates from women and children in Guangzhou, China, though ST59-MRSA-IV remained the most prevalent MRSA clone. Clonal distribution of S. aureus varied, depending on the specimen source. Virulence genes and antibiograms were closely associated with the clonal lineage. These results clarified the molecular epidemiology of S. aureus from women and children in Guangzhou, China, and provide critical information for the control and treatment of S. aureus infections