1,327 research outputs found
Relationship between adiponectin and testosterone in patients with type 2 diabetes
Introduction: This study was designed to investigate the relationship between serum adiponectin and testosterone in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Materials and methods: Serum level of adiponectin and testosterone were prospectively measured in 65 patients with type 2 diabetes and in 20 healthy subjects. Testosterone was determined by the radio-immunoassay, whereas adiponectin levels were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).
Results: The average serum testosterone did not differ between the diabetes and the control group, but the average adiponectin in the diabetes group was lower (14.6 (14.2-15.0) vs. 24.3 (24.05-24.55) ng/mL, P = 0.001). In the diabetes group, the serum adiponectin level in patients with renal dysfunction (22.3 (21.5-23.1) ng/mL) was higher than in patients with no complications (12.1 (11.45-12.75) ng/mL) and than in patients with coronary artery disease (11.2 (10.25-12.15) ng/mL) (P = 0.009). Univariate correlation analysis showed an inverse weak correlation between adiponectin and testosterone concentrations in male diabetic patients (r = -0.27, P = 0.009). There was no significant correlation between adiponectin and testosterone in female patients (r = -0.05, P = 0.167).
Conclusions: We conclude that patients with type 2 diabetes have lower serum adiponectin concen-tration than healthy individuals, and that there is a weak inverse correlation between adiponectin and testosterone serum concentrations in male diabetics
Nesiritide protects endothelial function after ballooninduced trauma in the iliac artery in rabbits
To assess the effect of nesiritide on the endothelial function of iliac arteries following endothelia trauma. Right iliac artery trauma was created with a balloon catheter. Ten rabbits were treated with a 4-week subcutaneous injection of nesiritide at a fixed daily dose of 0.1mg/kg. Ten rabbits received daily normal saline injection. Plasma endothelin 1 (ET-1), nitric oxide (NO), and Von Willebrand Factor (vWF) were measured before and after the therapies. Tissue proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) was measured after the treatment. After the treatment, in the therapeutic group, the area under internal elastic membrane and the residual lumen area were higher than in the normal saline group (P <0.05). The plasma levels of ET-1 (91.6±6.8 vs 114.9±6.3 ng/L, P =0.001), vWF (134.6±10.8% vs 188.8±10.4%, P =0.001) and the ratio of PCNA positive expression (11.7±4.2% vs 36.2±11.4%, P =0.005) in the therapeutic group was lower than in the normal saline group, while the plasma levels of NO was higher (89.7±9.3 vs 43.5±5.3 μmol/L, P =0.001). Nesiritide inhibited remodeling of rabbit iliac artery following endothelial trauma. The inhibition of vascular remodeling may be related to the alleviated endothelial dysfunction and reduced expression of tissue proliferating cell nuclear antigen
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Cognitive-enhancing effects of polygalasaponin hydrolysate in aβ(25-35)-induced amnesic mice.
Polygalasaponins are the major active constituents of Polygala tenuifolia exhibiting antiamnesic activity, but their applications are limited due to their toxicities. Evidence showed that the toxicities can be attenuated by hydrolysis. Herein, effects of a hydrolysate of polygalasaponins (HPS) on cognitive impairment induced by Aβ(25-35) were assessed by Morris water maze and step-through passive avoidance tests. The impaired spatial reference memory was improved by HPS (50 and 100 mg/kg). In the acquisition trial of step-through test, HPS (50 and 100 mg/kg) increased the latency into the dark chamber and decreased the error frequency significantly (P < .05). However, no significant change was observed during the retention trial. Additionally, HPS increased the corresponding SOD activities (62.34%, 22.09%) and decreased MDA levels (28.21%, 32.35%) in both cortex and hippocampus as compared to model animals. These results show that HPS may be a useful treatment against amnesia probably via its antioxidant properties.Peer Reviewe
Cognitive-enhancing effects of polygalasaponin hydrolysate in aβ(25-35)-induced amnesic mice.
Polygalasaponins are the major active constituents of Polygala tenuifolia exhibiting antiamnesic activity, but their applications are limited due to their toxicities. Evidence showed that the toxicities can be attenuated by hydrolysis. Herein, effects of a hydrolysate of polygalasaponins (HPS) on cognitive impairment induced by Aβ25−35 were assessed by Morris water maze and step-through passive avoidance tests. The impaired spatial reference memory was improved by HPS (50 and 100mg/kg). In the acquisition trial of step-through test, HPS (50 and 100mg/kg) increased the latency into the dark chamber and decreased the error frequency significantly (P < .05). However, no significant change was observed during the retention trial. Additionally, HPS increased the corresponding SOD activities (62.34%, 22.09%) and decreased MDA levels (28.21%, 32.35%) in both cortex and hippocampus as compared to model animals. These results show that HPS may be a useful treatment against amnesia probably via its antioxidant properties
Characteristics and management of Enterobacteriaceae harboring IMP-4 or IMP-8 carbapenemase in a tertiary hospital
Background: The emergence of Enterobacteriaceae harboring IMP-4 or IMP-8 carbapenemases is rare. We report an occurrence of Enterobacteriaceae harboring IMP-4 or IMP-8 carbapenemases in a Chinese tertiary care hospital from November 2010 to December 2012.Methods: The clinical characteristics of 30 patients were described. The genetic relationship of isolates was determined by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Carbapenemases were detected by modified Hodge test (MHT) and polymerase chain reactions (PCRs). Amplicons were sequenced and blasted to determine the genotype.Results: Most infected patients were from intensive care unit and had complex and serious underlying illnesses requiring mechanical ventilation. PFGE revealed that Klebsiella pneumoniae showed two major PFGE types. Two Klebsiella oxytoca had an indistinguishable PFGE pattern, while four Enterobacter cloacae were different strains. The sequencing studies showed Enterobacteriaceae harboring IMP-4 or IMP-8 carbapenemase in the 23 infected patients. The majority of patients had infections with the carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) strain, most were successfully treated with a range of antibiotics and discharged.Conclusion: It is important to maintain a high index of suspicion to screen for carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae strains. Rapid identification of these strains and implementation of stringent procedures are the key to prevent major outbreaks in a hospital setting.Keywords: Carbapenemase, Enterobacteriaceae, IMP-4, IMP-8, clinical outcom
PlanarTrack: A Large-scale Challenging Benchmark for Planar Object Tracking
Planar object tracking is a critical computer vision problem and has drawn
increasing interest owing to its key roles in robotics, augmented reality, etc.
Despite rapid progress, its further development, especially in the deep
learning era, is largely hindered due to the lack of large-scale challenging
benchmarks. Addressing this, we introduce PlanarTrack, a large-scale
challenging planar tracking benchmark. Specifically, PlanarTrack consists of
1,000 videos with more than 490K images. All these videos are collected in
complex unconstrained scenarios from the wild, which makes PlanarTrack,
compared with existing benchmarks, more challenging but realistic for
real-world applications. To ensure the high-quality annotation, each frame in
PlanarTrack is manually labeled using four corners with multiple-round careful
inspection and refinement. To our best knowledge, PlanarTrack, to date, is the
largest and most challenging dataset dedicated to planar object tracking. In
order to analyze the proposed PlanarTrack, we evaluate 10 planar trackers and
conduct comprehensive comparisons and in-depth analysis. Our results, not
surprisingly, demonstrate that current top-performing planar trackers
degenerate significantly on the challenging PlanarTrack and more efforts are
needed to improve planar tracking in the future. In addition, we further derive
a variant named PlanarTrack for generic object tracking from
PlanarTrack. Our evaluation of 10 excellent generic trackers on
PlanarTrack manifests that, surprisingly,
PlanarTrack is even more challenging than several popular
generic tracking benchmarks and more attention should be paid to handle such
planar objects, though they are rigid. All benchmarks and evaluations will be
released at the project webpage.Comment: Tech. Repor
FSD-C10: A more promising novel ROCK inhibitor than Fasudil for treatment of CNS autoimmunity.
Rho-Rho kinase (Rho-ROCK) triggers an intracellular signalling cascade that regulates cell survival, death, adhesion, migration, neurite outgrowth and retraction and influences the generation and development of several neurological disorders. Although Fasudil, a ROCK inhibitor, effectively suppressed encephalomyelitis (EAE), certain side effects may limit its clinical use. A novel and efficient ROCK inhibitor, FSD-C10, has been explored. In the present study, we present chemical synthesis and structure of FSD-C10, as well as the relationship between compound concentration and ROCK inhibition. We compared the inhibitory efficiency of ROCKI and ROCK II, the cell cytotoxicity, neurite outgrowth and dendritic formation, neurotrophic factors and vasodilation between Fasudil and FSD-C10. The results demonstrated that FSD-C10, like Fasudil, induced neurite outgrowth of neurons and dendritic formation of BV-2 microglia and enhanced the production of neurotrophic factor brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) and neurotrophin-3 (NT-3). However, the cell cytotoxicity and vasodilation of FSD-C10 were relatively small compared with Fasudil. Although Fasudil inhibited both ROCK I and ROCK II, FSD-C10 more selectively suppressed ROCK II, but not ROCK I, which may be related to vasodilation insensitivity and animal mortality. Thus, FSD-C10 may be a safer and more promising novel ROCK inhibitor than Fasudil for the treatment of several neurological disorders
Current research of Assisted Reproductive Technology for women with early endometrial cancer and atypical endometrial hyperplasia after conservative treatment
As the incidence of endometrial cancer (EC) and atypical endometrial hyperplasia (AEH) has been increasing, and has shown young trend. It is crucial to study the fertility-preserving treatment of endometrial lesions and fertility-promoting protocols. Age, obesity, and irregular ovulation are not only high-risk factors for endometrial lesions but also key factors affecting female fertility. Assisted reproductive technology (ART) can significantly improve pregnancy outcomes in patients with AEH and EC after conservative treatment. Based on the existing studies, this article reviews the progress of research on pregnancy outcomes of ART and its influencing factors in such patients. It helps physicians in providing optimal fertility guidance
Evolution of Maximum Bending Strain on Poisson's Ratio Distribution
In recent years, new flexible functional materials have attracted increasing
interest, but there is a lack of the designing mechanisms of flexibility design
with superstructures. In traditional engineering mechanics, the maximum bending
strain (MBS) was considered universal for describing the bendable properties of
a given material, leading to the universal designing method of lowering the
dimension such as thin membranes designed flexible functional materials.In this
work, the MBS was found only applicable for materials with uniformly
distributed Poisson's ratio, while the MBS increases with the thickness of the
given material in case there is a variation Poisson's ratio in different areas.
This means the MBS can be enhanced by certain Poisson's ratio design in the
future to achieve better flexibility of thick materials. Here, the inorganic
freestanding nanofiber membranes, which have a nonconstant Poisson's ratio
response on stress/strain for creating nonuniformly distributed Poisson's ratio
were proven applicable for designing larger MBS and lower Young's modulus for
thicker samples
Tuberculosis prevalence among university freshmen in Zhengzhou, China, during 2004-2013
Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is a major public health concern
worldwide, and spreads more easily in densely populated areas such as
school campuses. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the
prevalence of positive TB skin tests among freshmen, i.e.
newly-enrolled college students, in Zhengzhou City, China. Methods: We
reviewed the data of purified protein derivative (PPD) skin tests in
656,212 freshmen in 2004-2013. Results: A positive test showed a
diameter of swelling 65 5 mm. The PPD positive rate was 40.69 %,
with a prevalence of 146.29 per 100,000. During the 10-year study
period, the rate of students with positive PPD test increased from
34.19 % in 2004 to 40.69 % in 2013. The positive PPD rate was
significantly higher in males than in females (41.68 % vs 39.61 %,
P<0.0001), and in rural compared with urban areas (42.04 % vs 38.03
%, P<0.0001). Conclusion: These findings indicated a high prevalence
of PPD positivity among participants during the study period, with an
increasing trend. Therefore, this population needs to be targeted by TB
prevention and control programs
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