Scientometrics as a Powerful Tool in Integrating Isolated Medical Specialties: A Case Study of the Rediscovery of the Luigi Cornaro Diet

Modern medicine is divided into different specialties. While well-trained experts can serve the patients better, each medical specialty is isolated to itself. For example, it is a norm for gastroenterology that fasting can lead to gastrointestinal tract (GIT) mucosa atrophy, and make the patient prone to bacterial translocation and sepsis. Yet, physiologists still think that fasting might be a feasible solution for obesity and related illnesses, as it can trigger autophagy which has multiple physiological functions benefiting the body. In this chapter, using the rediscovery of the Luigi Cornaro diet as an example, we demonstrate that scientometrics methods can be a powerful tool to integrate the isolated medical specialties. The Luigi Cornaro diet is able to maintain the homeostasis of GIT mucosa while keeping a serum starvation to fit for a rare physiological condition of fully developed sustained upregulated autophagy (SUA) in the body. Although fully developed SUA is relatively rare, low-grade upregulated autophagy (UA) is quite common, reflected by the prevalence of obesity in population. UA is the main component of our self-healing capacity, and the connector between infection and obesity. Such discovery of scientometrics could be the next generation medical practice

Sirt3 Ameliorates Oxidative Stress and Mitochondrial Dysfunction After Intracerebral Hemorrhage in Diabetic Rats

Aim: Sirtuin3 (sirt3) plays a pivotal role in improving oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction which directly induced neuronal apoptosis after intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Reactive oxygen species (ROS) is also a critical activator in triggering NACHT, LRR, and PYD domains-containing protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasomes activation which can regulate inflammatory responses in brain. Moreover, hyperglycemia can aggravate the ICH-induced damage. Hence, this study was designed to investigate the mechanisms of neuroprotection of sirt3 in hyperglycemic ICH.Methods: ICH model was established by autologous blood injection. Hyperglycemia was induced by intraperitoneal injection with streptozotocin. Honokiol (HKL, a pharmacological agonist of sirt3) was injected intraperitoneally at doses of 2.5, 5, or 10 mg/kg. Sirt3 small interfering RNA transfection was implemented through intracerebroventricular injection. The expression of sirt3 and its downstream signaling molecules were detected using Western blotting or immunofluorescence staining. Morphological changes of mitochondria were detected by electron microscopy. SH-SY5Y cells were incubated with 10 μM oxyhemoglobin for 48 h to establish an in vitro ICH model, and then JC-1 staining was used to determine mitochondrial membrane potential (Δψm).Results: Hyperglycemia could suppress sirt3 expression after ICH when compared with non-diabetic rats. Sirt3 protein expression was decreased to the minimum at 24 h in perihematoma tissues. Electron microscope analysis indicated that hyperglycemic ICH induced extensive mitochondrial vacuolization. HKL attenuated ROS accumulation, adenosine triphosphate reduction, and Δψm through Sirt3–superoxide dismutase 2 (SOD2) and Sirt3–NRF1–TFAM pathway. Sirt3 knockdown could exacerbate the neuronal apoptosis and reverse the positive effects of HKL. Sirt3 activation could decrease NLRP3 and interleukin-1β levels through deacetylating SOD2 and scavenging ROS.Conclusion: HKL protects against hyperglycemic ICH-induced neuronal injury via a sirt3-dependent manner

Cell self-destruction (programmed cell death), immunonutrition and metabolism

Immunologists have long been puzzled by the self-destructive nature of the inflammatory response. Inflammation can be elicited by various harmful stimuli, such as microbial/viral infections, allergic reactions, chemical insults, lipotoxicity, tissue damage, or other types of traumas. Breaking down damaged cells and converting them into various nutrients which are useful for tissue regeneration is among the most important functions of the human immune system in maintaining health. A localized inflammatory response is protective if the human immune system can effectively eliminate the harmful stimuli and initiate the healing process. Cell self-destruction (programmed cell death) includes phenomena of apoptosis, pyroptosis, necroptosis, necrosis and so on. Phagocytosis is employed to remove various cell debris produced by cell self-destruction and for conversion into nutrients. The immune system thus represents a powerful nutrient generator. At these moments, digestion and immunity are interrelated and integrated, playing the essential role of disease prevention and immunonutrition acquisition. In the event of microbial/viral infections, the nutritional flux produced by infected host cell self-destruction (inflammation) may be much greater than those produced by normal apoptosis, and may even be much greater than the nutrition provided by daily food intake. Thus, infection-induced inflammation may induce illness-associated anorexia to avoid overnutrition. When the nutrition generated by the degradation of infection-damaged cells exceeds the nutritional requirements of tissue regeneration, most excess nutrients will be converted into lipid intermediates. Lipid intermediates will invade healthy non-adipose tissue, leading to lipotoxicity and further tissue damage. In such a case, the main product (lipid intermediates) of the inflammatory response is also a strong harming stimulus for tissue/cell damage. This is amplified during the inflammatory response, forming a vicious cycle, making inflammatory response extremely destructive. The state of overnutrition will be exacerbated by the loss of lean body mass, coupled with excess lipid intermediate spillover into healthy tissues and organs, exacerbating the inflammatory response, which is characteristic of critically ill or injured patients and of most autoimmune diseases.Published versio

Commentary : reconciling hygiene and cleanliness : a new perspective from human microbiome

Human beings have co-evolved with the microorganisms in our environment for millions of years, and have developed into a symbiosis in a mutually beneficial/defensive way. Human beings have significant multifaceted relationships with the diverse microbial community. Apart from the important protective role of microbial community exposure in development of early immunity, millions of inimitable bacterial genes of the diverse microbial community are the indispensable source of essential nutrients like essential amino acids and essential fatty acids for human body. The essential nutrition from microbiome is harvested through xenophagy. As an immune effector, xenophagy will capture any microorganisms that touch the epithelial cells of our gastrointestinal tract, degrade them and turn them into nutrients for the use of our body

Influence of international co-authorship on the research citation impact of young universities

We investigated the effect of international collaboration (in the form of international co-authorship) on the impact of publications of young universities (< 50 years old), and compared to that of renowned old universities (> 100 years old). The following impact indicators are used in this study, they are: (1) the 5-year citations per paper (CPP) data, (2) the international co-authorship rate, (3) the CPP differential between publications with and without international co-authorships, and (4) the difference between the percentage of international co-authored publications falling in the global top 10 % highly cited publications and the percentage of overall publications falling in the global top 10 % highly cited publications (D%Top10%). The increment of 5-year (2010–2014) field weighted citation impact (FWCI) of internationally co-authored papers over the 5-year overall FWCI of the institutions in SciVal is used as another indicator to eliminate the effect of discipline difference in citation rate. The results show that, for most top institutions, the difference between the citations per paper (CPP) for their publications with and without international co-authorship is positive, with increase of up to 5.0 citations per paper over the period 1996–2003. Yet, for some Asian institutions, by attracting a lot of researchers with international background and making these collaborating ‘‘external’’ authors as internal researchers, these institutions have created a special kind of international collaboration that are not expressed in co-authorship, and the CPP gaps between publications with and without international co-authorship are relatively small (around 0–1 citations per paper increment) for these institutions. The top old institutions have higher CPP than young institutions, and higher annual research expenditures; while young universities have a higher relative CPP increment for the current 5-year period over the previous 5-year period. The D%Top10% for international co-authored publications is generally higher than that for all journal publications of the same institution. With the increase of international co-authorship ratio, the mean geographical collaboration distance (MGCD, an indication of increased international co-authorship) of one institution based on the Leiden Ranking data also increases, and young institutions have relatively higher CPP increment over MGCD increment. International co-authorship has a positive contribution to the FWCI of the institution, yet there are untapped potential to enhance the collaboration among young institutions.Published versio

First-Principles Study of Mo Segregation in MoNi(111): Effects of Chemisorbed Atomic Oxygen

Segregation at metal alloy surfaces is an important issue because many electrochemical and catalytic properties are directly correlated to the surface composition. We have performed density functional theory calculations for Mo segregation in MoNi(111) in the presence of chemisorbed atomic oxygen. In particular, the coverage dependence and possible adsorption-induced segregation phenomena are addressed by investigating segregation energies of the Mo atom in MoNi(111). The theoretical calculated results show that the Mo atom prefers to be embedded in the bulk for the clean MoNi(111), while it segregates to the top-most layer when the oxygen coverage is thicker than 1/9 monolayer (ML). Furthermore, we analyze the densities of states for the clean and oxygen-chemisorbed MoNi(111), and see a strong covalent bonding between Mo d-band states and O p-states. The present study provides valuable insight for exploring practical applications of Ni-based alloys as hydrogen evolution electrodes

Correction: First-Principles Study of Mo Segregation in MoNi(111): Effects of Chemisorbed Atomic Oxygen. Materials 2016, 9, 5

The authors wish to make the following corrections to this manuscript [1].[...

Study on Acoustic Features of Laying Hens’ Vocalization

International audienceIn this paper, vocalizations of laying hens (Hyline Brown) were focused. An experiment was designed to obtain acoustic features of laying hens with different ages: 35days-old, 95days-old and 125days-old. Vocalizations were recorded by the microphone MPA201. Analysis was done by some analytical software in order to gain time-domain features and frequency-domain properties of laying hens’ sound. The duration time, pitch frequency, formant track and spectrums of vocalizations were all included. Results showed that some characteristics of vocalizations of laying hens with different ages were dissimilar when under given state. It was proved that the vocalization of laying hens could be recognized and identified

Quantitative evaluation of the decarburization and microstructure evolution of WC–Co during plasma spraying

The major hurdle that limits extensive application of thermal sprayed WC–Co coatings is the undesirable phase changes from WC to W2C or even W due to loss of carbon. This study investigated quantitatively the decarburization of WC in both in-flight and coating formation stages during atmospheric plasma spraying. The microstructure evolution of WC particles accompanying the decarburization was also investigated. Results showed that decomposition and oxidation of WC to W2C predominantly occurred in the in-flight stage (75.82%), while remnant 24.18% occurred during the coating formation stage. Further carbon loss during the coating formation stage of WC–Co droplets is dependent significantly on the temperature of the substrate/pre-coating. Most of the irregular WC particles turned into rounded morphology with a significant decrease in size. W2C precipitated from the liquid matrix showed either columnar growth or epitaxial growth on WC substrate

MATLAB modelling of double sided photovoltaic cell module

In this paper, the equatorial coordinate system is taken as the celestial coordinates, the double-sided photovoltaic module irradiance model is established by using the MATLAB simulation software, and the double-sided photovoltaic module irradiance model is combined with the photovoltaic module model (Jianhui (2001)) to form the mathematical model of the real-time generation system of double-sided photovoltaic modules. The effectiveness of the simulation model was verified by building an experimental platform, and the output characteristics of the optimal line spacing between the double-sided p-v module and the single-sided p-v module were further tested and compared