Categorisation of Tinnitus Severity for the Mandarin Tinnitus Questionnaire

Background: The Tinnitus Questionnaire is commonly used to evaluate the psychological impact of tinnitus and has been translated into Mandarin. The original English version of the Tinnitus Questionnaire was translated into Mandarin (MTQ). The MTQ included not the same items compared with original version. Thus, MTQ should have its own severity categorization. Aims/objectives: The objective of this research was to develop a method to categorize tinnitus patients by clinical severity using scores from the Mandarin Tinnitus Questionnaire (MTQ). Material and Methods: A total of 192 participants with primary complaint of tinnitus were enrolled. Cross-tabulation was used to compare two categorization approaches of tinnitus severity. With the first approach, categories were assigned based purely on quartiles of MTQ scores. In the second approach, severity was determined based on Ordinal logistic regression. The two approaches were verified by comparing the consistency with clinical judgement. Results: Categorization based on quartiles showed low consistency with clinical assessment(kappa=0.33), while categorization based on ordinal logistic regression showed good consistency with clinical assessment(kappa = 0.86).Regression-based MTQ score cut-offs were 47 for severe tinnitus. Conclusions and significance: Tinnitus severity can be categorized accurately using ordinal logistic regression analysis of MTQ scores

Molecular cloning and antibacterial activity of hepcidin from Chinese rare minnow (Gobiocypris rarus)

AbstractBackgroundHepcidins, a kind of cysteine-rich antimicrobial peptides, play important roles in host immunological processes and iron regulation, which have been identified from several fish species. The rare minnow (Gobiocypris rarus), an endemic cyprinid fish in China, has been used extensively as model animal in laboratory. However, little is known about its hepcidin. Here, we report the cloning and characterization of a hepcidin gene from the liver of Chinese rare minnow.ResultsThe full-length cDNA of rare minnow hepcidin is 662bp, which contains an ORF of 273bp encoding a prepropeptide of 90 amino acid residues. The predicted prepropeptide contains three domains: a signal peptide of 24 amino acids, a prodomain of 41 amino acids, and a mature peptide of 25 amino acids. Sequence alignment showed eight conserved cysteine residues in the mature peptide, which formed four disulfide bonds in spatial structure. The deduced structure of mature peptide showed a high degree of homology to the human hepcidin. Phylogenetic analysis showed that it had a close relationship with zebrafish hepcidin, and clustered in a clade with these from Cyprinidae. Synthetic peptide of rare minnow hepcidin could inhibit the growth of Gram positive bacterium Staphylococcus aureus and Gram negative bacteria Escherichia coli and Aeromonas hydrophila.ConclusionThese results suggested that rare minnow hepcidin had typical structure of hepcidins and antibacterial activity. It could participate in innate immune response as an antibacterial agent and be used as antibiotic substance

A generalized public goods game with coupling of individual ability and project benefit

Facing a heavy task, any single person can only make a limited contribution and team cooperation is needed. As one enjoys the benefit of the public goods, the potential benefits of the project are not always maximized and may be partly wasted. By incorporating individual ability and project benefit into the original public goods game, we study the coupling effect of the four parameters, the upper limit of individual contribution, the upper limit of individual benefit, the needed project cost and the upper limit of project benefit on the evolution of cooperation. Coevolving with the individual-level group size preferences, an increase in the upper limit of individual benefit promotes cooperation while an increase in the upper limit of individual contribution inhibits cooperation. The coupling of the upper limit of individual contribution and the needed project cost determines the critical point of the upper limit of project benefit, where the equilibrium frequency of cooperators reaches its highest level. Above the critical point, an increase in the upper limit of project benefit inhibits cooperation. The evolution of cooperation is closely related to the preferred group-size distribution. A functional relation between the frequency of cooperators and the dominant group size is found

Up-regulation of corticotropin releasing hormone is associated with the downregulation of corticotropin releasing hormone binding protein and up-regulation of IL- 33 and IL-8 expression in psoriasis

Purpose: To determine the expression of corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) in psoriasis and normal skin biopsy samples, and to correlate the expression of CRH with the expression of CRHBP and inflammatory cytokines IL-8 and IL-33.Methods: Psoriasis and normal skin biopsy samples were obtained from three psoriatic and three normal healthy patients. The mRNA expression was examined by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Protein expression analysis was carried out by Western blotting and then further validated by immunohistochemistry.Results: The results of the present study revealed that the expression of CRH was highly significant (p < 0.0001) in psoriatic skin, compared to normal skin. Increase of CRH in psoriatic samples ranged from 2.7 to 3.5-fold. Expression of CRH was associated with the concomitant downregulation of CRHBP in all the psoriatic skin biopsy samples, with expression of CRHBP 3.0 to 6.2-fold lower in psoriatic skin than in normal skin. Analysis of mRNA expression of IL-8 and IL-33, revealed that expression of both IL-8 and IL-33 was significantly (p < 0.0001) upregulated in psoriatic skin samples while the expression of IL-8 and IL-33 was approximately 4.1- and 3.2-fold higher in psoriatic skin than in normal skin. The expression of CRHBP, IL-8 and IL-33 was further confirmed by western blotting and immunohistochemistry results.Conclusion: The results confirm that the expression of CRH is associated with the suppression of CRHBP and upregulation of IL-8 and IL-33.Keywords: Psoriasis, Corticotropin releasing hormone, Inflammatory cytokines, Interleukin, Skin biops

Dimensional crossover of thermal conductance in graphene nanoribbons: A first-principles approach

First-principles density-functional calculations are performed to investigate the thermal transport properties in graphene nanoribbons (GNRs). The dimensional crossover of thermal conductance from one to two dimensions (2D) is clearly demonstrated with increasing ribbon width. The thermal conductance of GNRs in a few nanometer width already exhibits an approximate low-temperature dependence of $T^{1.5}$, like that of 2D graphene sheet which is attributed to the quadratic nature of dispersion relation for the out-of-plane acoustic phonon modes. Using a zone-folding method, we heuristically derive the dimensional crossover of thermal conductance with the increase of ribbon width. Combining our calculations with the experimental phonon mean-free path, some typical values of thermal conductivity at room temperature are estimated for GNRs and for 2D graphene sheet, respectively. Our findings clarify the issue of low-temperature dependence of thermal transport in GNRs and suggest a calibration range of thermal conductivity for experimental measurements in graphene-based materials.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure