Erratum to Traditional Chinese medicine and new concepts of predictive, preventive and personalised medicine in diagnosis and treatment of sub-optimal health [The EPMA Journal 5, (2014) 12]

The premise of disease-related phenotypes is the definition of the counterpart normality in medical sciences. Contrary to clinical practices that can be carefully planned according to clinical needs, heterogeneity and uncontrollability is the essence of humans in carrying out health studies. Full characterization of consistent phenotypes that define the general population is the basis to individual difference normalization in personalized medicine. Self-claimed normal status may not represent health because asymptomatic subjects may carry chronic diseases at their early stage, such as cancer, diabetes mellitus and atherosclerosis. Currently, treatments for non-communicable chronic diseases (NCD) are implemented after disease onset, which is a very much delayed approach from the perspective of predictive, preventive and personalized medicine (PPPM). A NCD pandemic will develop and be accompanied by increased global economic burden for healthcare systems throughout both developed and developing countries. This paper examples the characterization of the suboptimal health status (SHS) which represents a new PPPM challenge in a population with ambiguous health complaints such as general weakness, unexplained medical syndrome (UMS), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), post-viral fatigue syndrome (PVFS) and chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS). Methods: We applied clinical informatic approaches and developed a questionnaire-suboptimal health status questionnaire-25 (SHSQ-25) for measuring SHS. The validity and reliability of this approach were evaluated in a small pilot study and then in a cross-sectional study of 3,405 participants in China. Results: We found a correlation between SHS and systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, plasma glucose, total cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol among men, and a correlation between SHS and systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglycerides and HDL cholesterol among women. Conclusions: The SHSQ-25 is a self-rated questionnaire of perceived health complaints, which can be used as a new instrument for PPPM. An ongoing longitudinal SHS cohort survey (China Sub-optimal Health Cohort Study, COACS) consisting of 50,000 participants will provide a powerful health trial to use SHSQ-25 for its application to PPPM through patient stratification and therapy monitoring using innovative technologies of predictive diagnostics and prognosis: an effort of paradigm shift from reactive to predictive medicine

Traditional Chinese Medicine And New Concepts Of Predictive, Preventive And Personalized Medicine In Diagnosis And Treatment Of Suboptimal Health

The premise of disease-related phenotypes is the definition of the counterpart normality in medical sciences. Contrary to clinical practices that can be carefully planned according to clinical needs, heterogeneity and uncontrollability is the essence of humans in carrying out health studies. Full characterization of consistent phenotypes that define the general population is the basis to individual difference normalization in personalized medicine. Self-claimed normal status may not represent health because asymptomatic subjects may carry chronic diseases at their early stage, such as cancer, diabetes mellitus and atherosclerosis. Currently, treatments for non-communicable chronic diseases (NCD) are implemented after disease onset, which is a very much delayed approach from the perspective of predictive, preventive and personalized medicine (PPPM). A NCD pandemic will develop and be accompanied by increased global economic burden for healthcare systems throughout both developed and developing countries. This paper examples the characterization of the suboptimal health status (SHS) which represents a new PPPM challenge in a population with ambiguous health complaints such as general weakness, unexplained medical syndrome (UMS), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), post-viral fatigue syndrome (PVFS) and chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS). Methods: We applied clinical informatic approaches and developed a questionnaire-suboptimal health status questionnaire-25 (SHSQ-25) for measuring SHS. The validity and reliability of this approach were evaluated in a small pilot study and then in a cross-sectional study of 3,405 participants in China. Results: We found a correlation between SHS and systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, plasma glucose, total cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol among men, and a correlation between SHS and systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglycerides and HDL cholesterol among women. Conclusions: The SHSQ-25 is a self-rated questionnaire of perceived health complaints, which can be used as a new instrument for PPPM. An ongoing longitudinal SHS cohort survey (China Sub-optimal Health Cohort Study, COACS) consisting of 50,000 participants will provide a powerful health trial to use SHSQ-25 for its application to PPPM through patient stratification and therapy monitoring using innovative technologies of predictive diagnostics and prognosis: an effort of paradigm shift from reactive to predictive medicine

Expanding CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing Capacity in Zebrafish Using SaCas9.

The type II CRISPR/Cas9 system has been used widely for genome editing in zebrafish. However, the requirement for the 5'-NGG-3' protospacer-adjacent motif (PAM) of Cas9 from Streptococcus pyogenes (SpCas9) limits its targeting sequences. Here, we report that a Cas9 ortholog from Staphylococcus aureus (SaCas9), and its KKH variant, successfully induced targeted mutagenesis with high frequency in zebrafish. Confirming previous findings, the SpCas9 variant, VQR, can also induce targeted mutations in zebrafish. Bioinformatics analysis of these new Cas targets suggests that the number of available target sites in the zebrafish genome can be greatly expanded. Collectively, the expanded target repertoire of Cas9 in zebrafish should further facilitate the utility of this organism for genetic studies of vertebrate biology

Transport carbon emissions reduction efficiency and economic growth: a perspective from nighttime lights remote sensing

The carbon emissions are essential for climate change and 26% of the world's carbon emissions are related to transport. But focusing only on fewer carbon emissions might be biased at times. In order to keep a balance be-tween economic growth and carbon emissions reduction, this paper evaluated the performance of carbon control by considering the input factors and output factors together, which is more comprehensive and reliable. Firstly, this paper has calculated the transport carbon emissions reduction efficiency (TCERE) based on the model of super SBM with undesirable outputs. The input factors include capital stock, labor force and fossil energy con-sumption. And the output factors include gross domestic product and carbon dioxide emissions. Then the influenc-ing factors of TCERE were analyzed using econometric models. The economic growth, transport structure, tech-nology level and population density were posited as influencing factors. This paper creatively proposed the per capita nighttime lights brightness as a new indicator for economic growth. An empirical study was conducted in East China from 2013 to 2017, and this study has found that the relationship between TCERE and economic growth shows an U-shape. Besides, transport structure and technology level both show a positive impact on TCERE. The implications of our findings are that: (a) The TCERE declines slower in East China, giving us reason to believe that the improvement of TCERE is predictable; (b) When economic growth exceeds the turning point, economic growth is conducive to the improvement of TCERE. We could develop the economy boldly and confident-ly; (c) Increased investment in railway and waterway transportation infrastructure projects is needed to strengthen the structure of the railway and waterway transportation systems. Furthermore, the general public and businesses should be encouraged to prefer rail or river transportation; (d) Investment in scientific and technological innova-tion should be enhanced in order to produce more efficient energy-use methods

Investigation of the relationship between chronic stress and insulin resistance in a Chinese population

Background: Chronic stress may facilitate the development of metabolic diseases. Insulin resistance is present long before the clinical manifestations of individual metabolic abnormalities. To explore whether chronic stress is an independent risk factor of insulin resistance, we investigated the relationship between the stress system, selected parameters of energy homeostasis, and insulin resistance in a Chinese population. Methods: We recruited 766 workers employed at four companies in Beijing. The degree of insulin resistance was determined using the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR). The highest quartile of HOMA-IR among all study subjects was further defined as insulin resistance in our study. The short standard version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ) was used to assess job-related psychosocial stress. Pearson\u27s correlation coefficients were calculated between cortisol level and HOMA-IR and components of metabolic syndrome, with stratification by gender. The relationship between cortisol and HOMA-IR independent of obesity was analyzed using a linear mixed model with company as a cluster unit. Results: The values of the two scales of COPSOQ, including demands at work and insecurity at work , were significantly associated with insulin resistance and cortisol concentration (P \u3c 0.05). Cortisol was significantly positively correlated with glucose, HOMA-IR, and waist circumference in males and females (P \u3c 0.05). After adjusting for potential confounders, cortisol was an independent positive predictor for HOMA-IR (P \u3c 0.05). Conclusions: These findings showed that chronic stress was associated with insulin resistance and may contribute to the development of insulin resistance

PointSSC: A Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Point Cloud Benchmark for Semantic Scene Completion

Semantic Scene Completion (SSC) aims to jointly generate space occupancies and semantic labels for complex 3D scenes. Most existing SSC models focus on volumetric representations, which are memory-inefficient for large outdoor spaces. Point clouds provide a lightweight alternative but existing benchmarks lack outdoor point cloud scenes with semantic labels. To address this, we introduce PointSSC, the first cooperative vehicle-infrastructure point cloud benchmark for semantic scene completion. These scenes exhibit long-range perception and minimal occlusion. We develop an automated annotation pipeline leveraging Segment Anything to efficiently assign semantics. To benchmark progress, we propose a LiDAR-based model with a Spatial-Aware Transformer for global and local feature extraction and a Completion and Segmentation Cooperative Module for joint completion and segmentation. PointSSC provides a challenging testbed to drive advances in semantic point cloud completion for real-world navigation.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, submitted to ICRA202