Are Asians comfortable with discussing death in health valuation studies? A study in multi-ethnic Singapore

BACKGROUND To characterize ease in discussing death (EID) and its influence on health valuation in a multi-ethnic Asian population and to determine the acceptability of various descriptors of death and "pits"/"all-worst" in health valuation. METHODS In-depth interviews (English or mother-tongue) among adult Chinese, Malay and Indian Singaporeans selected to represent both genders and a wide range of ages/educational levels. Subjects rated using 0–10 visual analogue scales (VAS): (1) EID, (2) acceptability of 8 descriptors for death, and (3) appropriateness of "pits" and "all-worst" as descriptors for the worst possible health state. Subjects also valued 3 health states using VAS followed by time trade-off (TTO). The influence of sociocultural variables on EID and these descriptors was studied using univariable analyses and multiple linear regression (MLR). The influence of EID on VAS/TTO utilities with adjustment for sociocultural variables was assessed using MLR. RESULTS Subjects (n = 63, 35% Chinese, 32% Malay, median age 44 years) were generally comfortable with discussing death (median EID: 8.0). Only education significantly influenced EID (p = 0.045). EID correlated weakly with VAS/TTO scores (range: VAS: -0.23 to 0.07; TTO: -0.14 to 0.11). All subjects felt "passed away", "departed" and "deceased" were most acceptable (median acceptability: 8.0) while "sudden death" and "immediate death" were least acceptable (median acceptability: 5.0). Subjects clearly preferred "all-worst" to "pits" (63% vs. 19%, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION Singaporeans were generally comfortable with discussing death and had clear preferences for several descriptors of death and for "all-worst". EID is unlikely to influence health preference measurement in health valuation studies

Modeling, Oscillation Analysis and Distributed Stabilization Control of Autonomous PV-based Microgrids

Driven by rising energy demand and the goal of carbon neutrality, renewable energy generations (REGs), especially photovoltaic (PV) generations, are widely used in the urban power energy systems. While the intelligent control of microgrids (MG) brings economic and efficient operation, its potential stability problem cannot be ignored. To date, most of the research on modeling, analyzing and enhancing the stability of MG usually assume the DC-link as an ideal voltage source. However, this practice of ignoring the dynamics of DC-link may omit the latent oscillation phenomena of autonomous PV-based MG. First, this paper establishes a complete dynamic model of autonomous PV-based MG including PV panels and DC-link. Different from previous conclusions of idealizing DC-link dynamics, participation factor analysis finds the potential impact of DC-link dynamics on system dynamic performance, and different influence factors including critical control parameters and non-linear V-I output characteristic of PV array are considered to further reveal oscillation mechanisms. Second, based on the average consensus algorithm, a distributed stabilization controller with strong robustness is proposed to enhance stability of the PV-based MG, which does not affect the steady-state performance of the system. Finally, the correctness of all theoretical analysis and the effectiveness of the proposed controller are verified by time domain simulation and hardware-in-loop tests.10.13039/501100001809-National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number: 51907031

Targeting Gpr52 lowers mutant HTT levels and rescues Huntington's disease-associated phenotypes.

See Huang and Gitler (doi:10.1093/brain/awy112) for a scientific commentary on this article.Lowering the levels of disease-causing proteins is an attractive treatment strategy for neurodegenerative disorders, among which Huntington's disease is an appealing disease for testing this strategy because of its monogenetic nature. Huntington's disease is mainly caused by cytotoxicity of the mutant HTT protein with an expanded polyglutamine repeat tract. Lowering the soluble mutant HTT may reduce its downstream toxicity and provide potential treatment for Huntington's disease. This is hard to achieve by small-molecule compound drugs because of a lack of effective targets. Here we demonstrate Gpr52, an orphan G protein-coupled receptor, as a potential Huntington's disease drug target. Knocking-out Gpr52 significantly reduces mutant HTT levels in the striatum and rescues Huntington's disease-associated behavioural phenotypes in a knock-in Huntington's disease mouse model expressing endogenous mutant Htt. Importantly, a novel Gpr52 antagonist E7 reduces mutant HTT levels and rescues Huntington's disease-associated phenotypes in cellular and mouse models. Our study provides an entry point for Huntington's disease drug discovery by targeting Gpr52

Super-resolution imaging of fluorescent dipoles via polarized structured illumination microscopy

© 2019, The Author(s). Fluorescence polarization microscopy images both the intensity and orientation of fluorescent dipoles and plays a vital role in studying molecular structures and dynamics of bio-complexes. However, current techniques remain difficult to resolve the dipole assemblies on subcellular structures and their dynamics in living cells at super-resolution level. Here we report polarized structured illumination microscopy (pSIM), which achieves super-resolution imaging of dipoles by interpreting the dipoles in spatio-angular hyperspace. We demonstrate the application of pSIM on a series of biological filamentous systems, such as cytoskeleton networks and λ-DNA, and report the dynamics of short actin sliding across a myosin-coated surface. Further, pSIM reveals the side-by-side organization of the actin ring structures in the membrane-associated periodic skeleton of hippocampal neurons and images the dipole dynamics of green fluorescent protein-labeled microtubules in live U2OS cells. pSIM applies directly to a large variety of commercial and home-built SIM systems with various imaging modality

Are symbols useful and culturally acceptable in health-state valuation studies? An exploratory study in a multi-ethnic Asian population

10.2147/PPA.S4142Patient Preference and Adherence2271-27

Model Reduction for Grid-Forming Hybrid Renewable Energy Microgrid Clusters Based on Multi-Timescale Characterization

10.13039/501100001809-National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number: 51907031 and 62273104); 10.13039/501100021171-Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province (Grant Number: 2022A1515011163); Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou, China (Grant Number: 2023A04J0273)

Measurement of the branching fractions of psi(2S) -> 3(pi+pi-) and J/psi -> 2(pi+pi-)

Using data samples collected at sqrt(s) = 3.686GeV and 3.650GeV by the BESII detector at the BEPC, the branching fraction of psi(2S) -> 3(pi+pi-) is measured to be [4.83 +- 0.38(stat) +- 0.69(syst)] x 10^-4, and the relative branching fraction of J/psi -> 2(pi+pi-) to that of J/psi -> mu+mu- is measured to be [5.86 +- 0.19(stat) +- 0.39(syst)]% via psi(2S) -> (pi+pi-)J/psi, J/psi -> 2(pi+pi-). The electromagnetic form factor of 3(pi+pi-) is determined to be 0.21 +- 0.02 and 0.20 +- 0.01 at sqrt(s) = 3.686GeV and 3.650GeV, respectively.Comment: 17pages, 7 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.