Tirofiban for Stroke without Large or Medium-Sized Vessel Occlusion

The effects of the glycoprotein IIb/IIIa receptor inhibitor tirofiban in patients with acute ischemic stroke but who have no evidence of complete occlusion of large or medium-sized vessels have not been extensively studied. In a multicenter trial in China, we enrolled patients with ischemic stroke without occlusion of large or medium-sized vessels and with a National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score of 5 or more and at least one moderately to severely weak limb. Eligible patients had any of four clinical presentations: ineligible for thrombolysis or thrombectomy and within 24 hours after the patient was last known to be well; progression of stroke symptoms 24 to 96 hours after onset; early neurologic deterioration after thrombolysis; or thrombolysis with no improvement at 4 to 24 hours. Patients were assigned to receive intravenous tirofiban (plus oral placebo) or oral aspirin (100 mg per day, plus intravenous placebo) for 2 days; all patients then received oral aspirin until day 90. The primary efficacy end point was an excellent outcome, defined as a score of 0 or 1 on the modified Rankin scale (range, 0 [no symptoms] to 6 [death]) at 90 days. Secondary end points included functional independence at 90 days and a quality-of-life score. The primary safety end points were death and symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage. A total of 606 patients were assigned to the tirofiban group and 571 to the aspirin group. Most patients had small infarctions that were presumed to be atherosclerotic. The percentage of patients with a score of 0 or 1 on the modified Rankin scale at 90 days was 29.1% with tirofiban and 22.2% with aspirin (adjusted risk ratio, 1.26; 95% confidence interval, 1.04 to 1.53, P = 0.02). Results for secondary end points were generally not consistent with the results of the primary analysis. Mortality was similar in the two groups. The incidence of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage was 1.0% in the tirofiban group and 0% in the aspirin group. In this trial involving heterogeneous groups of patients with stroke of recent onset or progression of stroke symptoms and nonoccluded large and medium-sized cerebral vessels, intravenous tirofiban was associated with a greater likelihood of an excellent outcome than low-dose aspirin. Incidences of intracranial hemorrhages were low but slightly higher with tirofiban

Effects of cyclical short-term food deprivation and refeeding on compensatory growth and gene expression of SOD, GPX and HSP70 in Schizothorax wangchiachii

The present study evaluated the effects of cyclical short-term food deprivation and refeeding on growth performance, body composition, and gene expression of SOD, GPX and HSP70 in Schizothorax wangchiachii The experimental design included four feeding protocols for eight weeks: feeding every day of the week (control), starvation for one day and refeeding for six days per week (S1F6 treatment), starvation for two days and refeeding for five days per week (S2F5 treatment), and starvation for three days and refeeding for four days per week (S3F4 treatment). The results showed that no significant difference in final body weight, specific growth rate and feed conversion efficiency were observed among the treatments (P > 0.05).The feeding rate significantly increased with the duration of food deprivation per week compared to the control (P 0.05), but in the kidney, the expression levels of HSP70 were significantly downregulated in S1F6 and S2F5 compared to the control(P 0.05). In conclusion, full compensatory growth was observed in S.wangchiachii under eight cycles of food deprivation and refeeding. Hyperphagia was the main mechanism of compensatory growth of S.wangchiachii

A Two Fiber Bragg Gratings Sensing System to Monitor the Torque of Rotating Shaft

By fixing two FBGs on the surface of a rotating shaft along the direction of ±45° and using dynamic wavelength demodulation technology, we propose an optical fiber sensing system to monitor the driving torque and torsion angle of the rotating shaft. In theory, the dependence relation of the dynamic difference of central wavelengths on the torque and torsion angle of the rotating shaft has been deduced. To verify an optical fiber sensing system, a series of sensing experiments have been completed and the measured data are approximately consistent with the theoretical analysis. The difference of two central wavelengths can be expressed as the sum of two parts: a “DC” part and a harmonic “AC” part. The driving torque or torsion angle is linear with the “DC” part of the difference of two central wavelengths, the harmonic “AC” part, meaning the torsion angle vibration, illustrates that periodic vibration torque may be caused by inhomogeneous centrifugal forces or inhomogeneous additional torques produced by the driving system and the load

Signal Processing for Time Domain Wavelengths of Ultra-Weak FBGs Array in Perimeter Security Monitoring Based on Spark Streaming

To detect perimeter intrusion accurately and quickly, a stream computing technology was used to improve real-time data processing in perimeter intrusion detection systems. Based on the traditional density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (T-DBSCAN) algorithm, which depends on manual adjustments of neighborhood parameters, an adaptive parameters DBSCAN (AP-DBSCAN) method that can achieve unsupervised calculations was proposed. The proposed AP-DBSCAN method was implemented on a Spark Streaming platform to deal with the problems of data stream collection and real-time analysis, as well as judging and identifying the different types of intrusion. A number of sensing and processing experiments were finished and the experimental data indicated that the proposed AP-DBSCAN method on the Spark Streaming platform exhibited a fine calibration capacity for the adaptive parameters and the same accuracy as the T-DBSCAN method without the artificial setting of neighborhood parameters, in addition to achieving good performances in the perimeter intrusion detection systems

Genome assembly of two diploid and one auto-tetraploid Cyclocarya paliurus genomes

Abstract Cyclocarya paliurus, an endemic species in the genus Juglandaceae with the character of heterodichogamy, is one of triterpene-rich medicinal plants in China. To uncover the genetic mechanisms behind the special characteristics, we sequenced the genomes of two diploid (protandry, PA-dip and protogyny, PG-dip) and one auto-tetraploid (PA-tetra) C. paliurus genomes. Based on 134.9 (~225x), 75.5 (~125x) and 271.8 Gb (~226x) subreads of PacBio platform sequencing data, we assembled 586.62 Mb (contig N50 = 1.9 Mb), 583.45 Mb (contig N50 = 1.4 Mb), and 2.38 Gb (contig N50 = 430.9 kb) for PA-dip, PG-dip and PA-tetra genome, respectively. Furthermore, 543.53, 553.87, and 2168.65 Mb in PA-dip, PG-dip, and PA-tetra, were respectively anchored to 16, 16, and 64 pseudo-chromosomes using over 65.4 Gb (~109x), 68 Gb (~113x), and 264 (~220x) Hi-C sequencing data. Annotation of PA-dip, PG-dip, and PA-tetra genome assembly identified 34,699, 35,221, and 34,633 protein-coding genes (90,752 gene models) or allele-defined genes, respectively. In addition, 45 accessions from nine locations were re-sequenced, and more than 10 × coverage reads were generated

The adhesion and migration of microglia to β-amyloid (Aβ) is decreased with aging and inhibited by Nogo/NgR pathway

Abstract Background Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by progressive accumulation of β-amyloid (Aβ)-containing amyloid plaques, and microglia play a critical role in internalization and degradation of Aβ. Our previous research confirmed that Nogo-66 binding to Nogo receptors (NgR) expressed on microglia inhibits cell adhesion and migration in vitro. Methods The adhesion and migration of microglia isolated from WT and APP/PS1 mice from different ages were measured by adhesion assays and transwells. After NEP1-40 (a competitive antagonist of Nogo/NgR pathway) was intracerebroventricularly administered via mini-osmotic pumps for 2 months in APP/PS1 transgenic mice, microglial recruitment toward Aβ deposits and CD36 expression were determined. Results In this paper, we found that aging led to a reduction of microglia adhesion and migration to fAβ1–42 in WT and APP/PS1 mice. The adhesion and migration of microglia to fAβ1–42 were downregulated by the Nogo, which was mediated by NgR, and the increased inhibitory effects of the Nogo could be observed in aged mice. Moreover, Rho GTPases contributed to the effects of the Nogo on adhesion and migration of microglia to fAβ1–42 by regulating cytoskeleton arrangement. Furthermore, blocking the Nogo/NgR pathway enhanced recruitment of microglia toward Aβ deposits and expression of CD36 in APP/PS1 mice. Conclusion Taken together, Nogo/NgR pathway could take part in Aβ pathology in AD by modulating microglial adhesion and migration to Aβ and the Nogo/NgR pathway might be an important target for treating AD

Additional file 1: Figure S1. of The blockage of the Nogo/NgR signal pathway in microglia alleviates the formation of Aβ plaques and tau phosphorylation in APP/PS1 transgenic mice

The efficiency of the knockdown with NgR siRNA and the cellular ability of BV-2 microglial cells. (A and B) The expression of NgR on BV-2 microglia was determined by western blot after transfected with NgR siRNA or control siRNA. (C) After BV-2 microglia treatment with NgR siRNA or control siRNA, the survival rate of microglia was determined by MTT assay. Values were reported as mean ± SD, as a percentage of values determined in PBS group (control, 100 %). *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001, when compared with PBS, n = 3. (PDF 11 kb