Benzyl­aminium perchlorate–18-crown-6 (1/1)

In the title compound, C7H10N+·ClO4 −·C20H24O6, the proton­ated benzyl­amine cation forms a rotator–stator complex with the 18-crown-6 (1,4,7,10,13,16-hexa­oxacyclo­octa­deca­ne) mol­ecule via N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds. The cations are associated via weak C—H⋯π inter­actions, forming chains parallel to [011], while the perclorate anions are located between these chains

Evidence for self-organized criticality phenomena in prompt phase of short gamma-ray bursts

The prompt phase of gamma-ray burst (GRB) contains essential information regarding the physical nature and central engine, which are as yet unknown. In this paper, we investigate the self-organized criticality (SOC) phenomena in GRB prompt phase as done in X-ray flares of GRBs. We obtain the differential and cumulative distributions of 243 short GRB pulses, such as peak flux, FWHM, rise time, decay time, and peak time in the fourth BATSE TTE Catalog with the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique. It is found that these distributions can be well described by power-law models. In particular, comparisons are made in 182 short GRB pulses in the third Swift GRB Catalog from 2004 December to 2019 July. The results are essentially consistent with those in BATSE ones. We notice that there is no obvious power-law index evolution across different energy bands for either BATSE or Swift sGRBs. The joint analysis suggests that GRB prompt phase can be explained by a Fractal-Diffusive, Self-Organized Criticality (FD-SOC) system with the spatial dimension S = 3 and the classical diffusion ? = 1. Our findings show that GRB prompt phases and X-ray flares possess the very same magnetically dominated stochastic process and mechanism.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Statistical Properties of X-Ray Bursts from SGR J1935+2154 Detected by Insight-HXMT

As one class of the most important objects in the universe, magnetars can produce a lot of different frequency bursts including X-ray bursts. In \cite{2022ApJS..260...24C}, 75 X-ray bursts produced by magnetar SGR J1935+2154 during an active period in 2020 are published, including the duration and net photon counts of each burst, and waiting time based on the trigger time difference. In this paper, we utilize the power-law model, $dN(x)/dx\propto (x+x_0)^{-\alpha_x}$, to fit the cumulative distributions of these parameters. It can be found that all the cumulative distributions can be well fitted, which can be interpreted by a self-organizing criticality theory. Furthermore, we check whether this phenomenon still exist in different energy bands and find that there is no obvious evolution. These findings further confirm that the X-ray bursts from magnetars are likely to be generated by some self-organizing critical process, which can be explained by a possible magnetic reconnection scenario in magnetars.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure and 3 tables; published in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Clonal status and clinicopathological observation of cervical minimal deviation adenocarcinoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Minimal deviation adenocarcinoma (MDA) of the uterine cervix is defined as an extremely well differentiated variant of cervical adenocarcinoma, with well-formed glands that resemble benign glands but show distinct nuclear anaplasia or evidence of stromal invasion. Thus, MDA is difficult to differentiate from other cervical hyperplastic lesions. Monoclonality is a major characteristic of most tumors, whereas normal tissue and reactive hyperplasia are polyclonal.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The clinicopathological features and clonality of MDA were investigated using laser microdissection and a clonality assay based on the polymorphism of androgen receptor (AR) and X-chromosomal inactivation mosaicism in female somatic tissues. </p> <p>Results</p> <p>The results demonstrated that the glands were positive for CEA, Ki-67, and p53 and negative for estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and high-risk human papilloma virus (HPV) DNA. The index of proliferation for Ki-67 was more than 50%. However, the stromal cells were positive for ER, PR, vimentin, and SM-actin. The clonal assay showed that MDA was monoclonal. Thus, our findings indicate that MDA is a true neoplasm but is not associated with high-risk HPV.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Diagnosis of MDA depends mainly on its clinical manifestations, the pathological feature that MDA glands are located deeper than the lower level of normal endocervical glands, and immunostaining.</p

Invasive reperfusion after 12 hours of the symptom onset remains beneficial in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction: Evidence from a meta-analysis of published data

Background: Early myocardial reperfusion therapy (&lt; 12 h) in patients with acute myocardial infarc­tion (AMI) can significantly improve their prognosis. However, the effect of late reperfusion (&gt; 12 h) remains controversial. In this study, the effects of late reperfusion versus standard drug therapy on the outcomes of patients with AMI were evaluated by systematic review and meta-analysis. Methods: PubMed, Embase, Medline, Cochrane, Wanfang, and CNKI databases were searched for eligible studies for the present study. Meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3.3 software. Rela­tive risk (RR) and the 95% confidence interval (CI) were used to compare the outcomes between the two groups. The main outcome measures were major adverse cardiac events (MACEs), all-cause mortality, recurrent myocardial infarction (MI), and heart failure. Results: Eighteen studies were identified including 14,677 patients, of whom 5157 received late reperfusion with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and 9520 received medication therapy (MT). Compared to MT, late PCI was associated with decreased all-cause mortality (RR 0.60, 95% CI 0.44–0.83; p = 0.002), MACEs (RR 0.67; 95% CI 0.50–0.89; p &lt; 0.001), and heart failure (RR 0.76; 95% CI 0.60–0.97; p = 0.03), while there was also a trend toward decreased recurrent MI (RR 0.70; 95% CI 0.47–1.05; p = 0.08). However, subgroup analysis according to time to PCI showed that the clinical benefit was only from PCI after 12 h but not from 2 to 60 days of the onset of symptoms. Conclusions: The present meta-analysis suggested that PCI performed &gt; 12 h but not 2–60 days after AMI is associated with significant improvement in clinical outcomes. However, these results need further rigorously designed large sample size clinical trials to be validated

Serum γ-glutamyltransferase and uric acid levels are associated with impaired fasting glucose in adults from Inner Mongolia, China

BACKGROUND: Serum γ-glutamyltransferase (GGT) and uric acid (UA) levels are elevated in patients with diabetes or cardiovascular disease. Prediabetes, characterized by impaired glucose tolerance, is an important risk factor for overt diabetes as well as cardiovascular disease. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the relationship between GGT, UA and prediabetes in a Chinese population, and provide a scientific basis for the early prevention and treatment of diabetes. METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional population-based study in a cohort of 2694 subjects (1211 men and 1483 women, aged 35–86 years). Questionnaires and physical examinations were performed using standardized procedures. Fasting blood was collected to measure glucose and other biochemical parameters. The subjects were divided into two groups with either normal fasting glucose (NFG) or impaired fasting glucose (IFG), according to international diagnostic criteria. Logistic regression analysis was performed to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals. RESULTS: Compared with the NFG group, the IFG group had significantly higher blood pressure but lower high-density lipoprotein–cholesterol in women. Body mass index, waist circumference, triglyceride, glucose, GGT, and UA levels were significantly higher in males and females in the IFG group than those in the NFG group. Logistic regression analysis revealed that the OR for prediabetes increased with increasing serum GGT quartiles and UA quartiles. GGT and UA were positively associated with prediabetes in men and women, independent of age, ethnicity, smoking, alcohol consumption, blood pressure, physical labor, and other confounders. CONCLUSIONS: We found that serum GGT and UA levels were positively associated with prediabetes in men and women living in areas inhabited by Chinese ethnic minorities. As elevated GGT and UA levels were associated with significantly increased risk of prediabetes, they may be used as sensitive biological markers of prediabetes

Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Neural Injury

Mitochondria are the double membrane organelles providing most of the energy for cells. In addition, mitochondria also play essential roles in various cellular biological processes such as calcium signaling, apoptosis, ROS generation, cell growth, and cell cycle. Mitochondrial dysfunction is observed in various neurological disorders which harbor acute and chronic neural injury such as neurodegenerative diseases and ischemia, hypoxia-induced brain injury. In this review, we describe how mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to the pathogenesis of neurological disorders which manifest chronic or acute neural injury

Improving Species Identification of Ancient Mammals Based on Next-Generation Sequencing Data

The taxonomical identification merely based on morphology is often difficult for ancient remains. Therefore, universal or specific PCR amplification followed by sequencing and BLAST (basic local alignment search tool) search has become the most frequently used genetic-based method for the species identification of biological samples, including ancient remains. However, it is challenging for these methods to process extremely ancient samples with severe DNA fragmentation and contamination. Here, we applied whole-genome sequencing data from 12 ancient samples with ages ranging from 2.7 to 700 kya to compare different mapping algorithms, and tested different reference databases, mapping similarities and query coverage to explore the best method and mapping parameters that can improve the accuracy of ancient mammal species identification. The selected method and parameters were tested using 152 ancient samples, and 150 of the samples were successfully identified. We further screened the BLAST-based mapping results according to the deamination characteristics of ancient DNA to improve the ability of ancient species identification. Our findings demonstrate a marked improvement to the normal procedures used for ancient species identification, which was achieved through defining the mapping and filtering guidelines to identify true ancient DNA sequences. The guidelines summarized in this study could be valuable in archaeology, paleontology, evolution, and forensic science. For the convenience of the scientific community, we wrote a software script with Perl, called AncSid, which is made available on GitHub

Lower Extremity Peripheral Arterial Disease Is an Independent Predictor of Coronary Heart Disease and Stroke Risks in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in China

We aimed to determine the relationship between lower extremity peripheral arterial disease (PAD), 10-year coronary heart disease (CHD), and stroke risks in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) using the UKPDS risk engine. We enrolled 1178 hospitalized T2DM patients. The patients were divided into a lower extremity PAD group (ankle-brachial index≤0.9 or >1.4; 88 patients, 7.5%) and a non-PAD group (ankle-brachial index>0.9 and ≤1.4; 1090 patients, 92.5%). Age; duration of diabetes; systolic blood pressure; the hypertension rate; the use of hypertension drugs, ACEI /ARB, and statins; CHD risk; fatal CHD risk; stroke risk; and fatal stroke risk were significantly higher in the PAD group than in the non-PAD group (P<0.05 for all). Logistic stepwise regression analysis indicated that ABI was an independent predictor of 10-year CHD and stroke risks in T2DM patients. Compared with those in the T2DM non-PAD group, the odds ratios (ORs) for CHD and stroke risk were 3.6 (95% confidence interval (CI), 2.2–6.0; P<0.001) and 6.9 (95% CI, 4.0–11.8; P<0.001) in those with lower extremity PAD, respectively. In conclusion, lower extremity PAD increased coronary heart disease and stroke risks in T2DM