Study on the Simulation and Evolution Model of Unexpected Emergencies’ spreading Network

AbstractThe cycle characteristic of unexpected emergencies’ spreading is quantitatively characterized by Gaussian distribution, and Systemic Science is combined with complex network theory to constructs the evolution model of unexpected emergencies’ spreading from the two dimensions of spreading object and event subject so as to study the evolution of unexpected emergencies’ spreading network. By comparing the resolving results with the simulating results, the feature of unexpected emergencies’ spreading network which is in accordance with scale-free network's characteristics of γ=3 is founded which reflects the objective characteristic of unexpected emergencies’ spreading network, so that it means a lot for the emergency department to make “Scene-In response to” control strategy

Investigation of the antidepressant effects of Shu-Gan-Jie- Yu granule and its mechanism of action

Purpose: To study the antidepressant effects of Shu-Gan-Jie-Yu granule (SJG) and its possible mechanisms in mice.Methods: The anti-depressive effects of SJG were evaluated by three techniques, viz, forced swimming test (FST), tail suspension test (TST) and open field test (OFT). The levels of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine (NE), DA, and 5-HT in the brains of depressive mice were determined using commercially available kits. In addition, the effects of SJG on the BDNF expression in the mice brain were determined by western blot.Results: Administration of SJG significantly reduced the duration time of immobility in the experiments of FST and TST. In addition, relative to the control mice, SJG (800 mg/kg) administration significantly affected the mobility performance (p < 0.05) of mice. The levels of the three  neurotransmitters (DA, NE and 5-HT) and BDNF in the brains of depressive mice were increased by treatment with SJG at the doses of 200, 400 and 800 mg/kg (p < 0.05). The results suggested that SJG exerted a significant antidepressant effect, which could be attributed to increases in the levels of neurotransmitters, and the up-regulation of BDNF expression.Conclusion: The results suggested that SJG exerted a significant antidepressant effect, most probably via regulation of related neurotransmitters (including DA, NE, and 5-HT) and BDNF in the brain. Keywords: Shu-Gan-Jie-Yu granule, Antidepressant, dopamine, norepinephrine, 5-hydroxytryptamine, brain-derived neurotrophic facto

HybrUR: A Hybrid Physical-Neural Solution for Unsupervised Underwater Image Restoration

Robust vision restoration for an underwater image remains a challenging problem. For the lack of aligned underwater-terrestrial image pairs, the unsupervised method is more suited to this task. However, the pure data-driven unsupervised method usually has difficulty in achieving realistic color correction for lack of optical constraint. In this paper, we propose a data- and physics-driven unsupervised architecture that learns underwater vision restoration from unpaired underwater-terrestrial images. For sufficient domain transformation and detail preservation, the underwater degeneration needs to be explicitly constructed based on the optically unambiguous physics law. Thus, we employ the Jaffe-McGlamery degradation theory to design the generation models, and use neural networks to describe the process of underwater degradation. Furthermore, to overcome the problem of invalid gradient when optimizing the hybrid physical-neural model, we fully investigate the intrinsic correlation between the scene depth and the degradation factors for the backscattering estimation, to improve the restoration performance through physical constraints. Our experimental results show that the proposed method is able to perform high-quality restoration for unconstrained underwater images without any supervision. On multiple benchmarks, we outperform several state-of-the-art supervised and unsupervised approaches. We also demonstrate that our methods yield encouraging results on real-world applications

A Robust Gene Expression Prognostic Signature for Overall Survival in High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer.

The objective of this research was to develop a robust gene expression-based prognostic signature and scoring system for predicting overall survival (OS) of patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC). Transcriptomic data of HGSOC patients were obtained from six independent studies in the NCBI GEO database. Genes significantly deregulated and associated with OS in HGSOCs were selected using GEO2R and Kaplan-Meier analysis with log-rank testing, respectively. Enrichment analysis for biological processes and pathways was performed using Gene Ontology analysis. A resampling/cross-validation method with Cox regression analysis was used to identify a novel gene expression-based signature associated with OS, and a prognostic scoring system was developed and further validated in nine independent HGSOC datasets. We first identified 488 significantly deregulated genes in HGSOC patients, of which 232 were found to be significantly associated with their OS. These genes were significantly enriched for cell cycle division, epithelial cell differentiation, p53 signaling pathway, vasculature development, and other processes. A novel 11-gene prognostic signature was identified and a prognostic scoring system was developed, which robustly predicted OS in HGSOC patients in 100 sampling test sets. The scoring system was further validated successfully in nine additional HGSOC public datasets. In conclusion, our integrative bioinformatics study combining transcriptomic and clinical data established an 11-gene prognostic signature for robust and reproducible prediction of OS in HGSOC patients. This signature could be of clinical value for guiding therapeutic selection and individualized treatment

Sesquiterpenes and Dimeric Sesquiterpenoids from Sarcandra glabra

Two new sesquiterpenes, sarcandralactones A (1) and B (2), and five new dimeric sesquiterpenoids, sarcandrolides A-E (3-7), along with 10 known compounds were isolated from the whole plants of Sarcandra glabra. Their structures were elucidated on the basis of spectroscopic analysis. Some of the new isolates exhibit significant cytotoxicities when tested against a small panel of tumor cell lines

Next-generation DNA sequencing-based assay for measuring allelic expression imbalance (AEI) of candidate neuropsychiatric disorder genes in human brain

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Common genetic variants that regulate gene expression are widely suspected to contribute to the etiology and phenotypic variability of complex diseases. Although high-throughput, microarray-based assays have been developed to measure differences in mRNA expression among independent samples, these assays often lack the sensitivity to detect rare mRNAs and the reproducibility to quantify small changes in mRNA expression. By contrast, PCR-based allelic expression imbalance (AEI) assays, which use a "marker" single nucleotide polymorphism (mSNP) in the mRNA to distinguish expression from pairs of genetic alleles in individual samples, have high sensitivity and accuracy, allowing differences in mRNA expression greater than 1.2-fold to be quantified with high reproducibility. In this paper, we describe the use of an efficient PCR/next-generation DNA sequencing-based assay to analyze allele-specific differences in mRNA expression for candidate neuropsychiatric disorder genes in human brain.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using our assay, we successfully analyzed AEI for 70 candidate neuropsychiatric disorder genes in 52 independent human brain samples. Among these genes, 62/70 (89%) showed AEI ratios greater than 1 ± 0.2 in at least one sample and 8/70 (11%) showed no AEI. Arranging log₂AEI ratios in increasing order from negative-to-positive values revealed highly reproducible distributions of log₂AEI ratios that are distinct for each gene/marker SNP combination. Mathematical modeling suggests that these log₂AEI distributions can provide important clues concerning the number, location and contributions of <it>cis</it>-acting regulatory variants to mRNA expression.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We have developed a highly sensitive and reproducible method for quantifying AEI of mRNA expressed in human brain. Importantly, this assay allowed quantification of differential mRNA expression for many candidate disease genes entirely missed in previously published microarray-based studies of mRNA expression in human brain. Given the ability of next-generation sequencing technology to generate large numbers of independent sequencing reads, our method should be suitable for analyzing from 100- to 200-candidate genes in 100 samples in a single experiment. We believe that this is the appropriate scale for investigating variation in mRNA expression for defined sets candidate disorder genes, allowing, for example, comprehensive coverage of genes that function within biological pathways implicated in specific disorders. The combination of AEI measurements and mathematical modeling described in this study can assist in identifying SNPs that correlate with mRNA expression. Alleles of these SNPs (individually or as sets) that accurately predict high- or low-mRNA expression should be useful as markers in genetic association studies aimed at linking candidate genes to specific neuropsychiatric disorders.</p

Anti-osteoporosis effect of Cistanche deserticola Ma extract in ovariectomized rats

Purpose: To investigate the therapeutic effects of Cistanche deserticola Ma. extract (CDME) on ovariectomy-induced osteoporosis in rats.Methods: Female Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly assigned to a control group and five ovariectomy (OVX) subgroups, that is, OVX with vehicle (OVX), OVX with 17ß-estradiol (E2, 25 μg/kg/day), and OVX with CDME doses (40, 80, or 160 mg/kg/day). Daily oral administration of E2 or CDME started 4 weeks after OVX and lasted for 16 weeks. Bone mineral density (BMD) of L4 vertebrae and right femur of rats was estimated, The length of each femur was measured, and biochemical analysis of serum and urine specimens were performed.Results: CDME dose-dependently inhibited the reduction in BMD of L4 vertebrae (0.23 ± 0.02 g/cm3, p &lt; 0.05) and femurs (0.20 ± 0.03 g/cm3, p &lt; 0.05) caused by OVX and prevented the deterioration of trabecular microarchitecture (p &lt; 0.05), which were accompanied by a significant decrease in skeletal remodeling (p &lt; 0.05) as evidenced by the lower levels of bone turnover markers.Conclusion: This study indicates that CDME prevents OVX-induced osteoporosis in rats, and could be used for treating osteoporosis in elderly women.Keywords: Cistanche deserticola, Osteoporosis, Ovariectomy, Bone mineral density, Femu

Intrathecal Delivery of Ketorolac Loaded In Situ Gels for Prolonged Analgesic and Anti-Inflammatory Activity in Vertebral Fracture

Purpose: To develop biodegradable, polymeric in situ gels based on sodium alginate and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose for intrathecal delivery of ketorolac tromethamine (KT) for effective management of pain and inflammation in vertebral fracture.Method: Ion activated in situ gels were used as implants and were prepared from sodium alginate and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose. The fabricated gels were evaluated for visual appearance, clarity, pH, gelling capacity, drug content, viscosity (using Brookfield viscometer), in vitro drug release (using a fabricated KC cell) and in vivo analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity (by intrathecal administration of in situ gel near the fractured vertebra in a rat model).Results: The physicochemical properties (visual appearance, clarity, pH, gelling capacity, drug content and viscosity) of in situ gels were acceptable for therapeutic use. KT-loaded gels demonstrated high drug encapsulation efficiency (98.3 - 103.3 %). Further, KT-loaded gels exhibited viscosity in the range of 1.11 to 6 cps at 50 rpm and shear thinning property (rheology testing). Additionally, the gels demonstrated 84.43 to 96.98 % drug release at the end of 12 h. In particular, in situ gels prepared from 1.2 % alginate/0.4 % HPMC (G7) exhibited excellent analgesic (54.28 %) and anti-inflammatory activity (51.6 % inhibition of rat paw edema) in the animal model of vertebral fracture.Conclusion: The formulated in situ gels can potentially be used as implants for the treatment of patients with vertebral fracture.Keywords: Ketorolac, Orthopaedic implant, Extended release, Analgesic, Anti inflammation, Vertebral fractur

2,5-Bis(5-methyl­pyrazin-2-yl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole

In the title mol­ecule, C12H10N6O, the dihedral angle between the two pyrazine rings [planar to within 0.009 (3) and 0.018 (3) Å] is 5.62 (15)°. They deviate from the central oxadiazole ring [planar to within 0.005 (3) Å] by 1.52 (16) and 5.55 (17)°, respectively. In the crystal, C—H⋯N inter­actions involving the pyrazine rings connect mol­ecules to form zigzag supramolecular chains propagating in [010]