Alendronate versus Raloxifene for Postmenopausal Women: A Meta-Analysis of Seven Head-to-Head Randomized Controlled Trials

Purpose. The aim of this study was to directly compare the efficacy and the safety of the two agents for postmenopausal women. Methods/Principal Findings. Electronic databases were searched for relevant articles that met our predefined inclusion criteria. Seven randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving 4054 women were identified and included. Although Aln was more effective than Rlx in increasing bone mineral density (BMD), no statistical differences were observed in reducing the risk of neither vertebral fractures (P=0.45) nor nonvertebral fractures (P=0.87) up to two-year followup. Aln reduced the risk of vasomotor (P=0.006) but increased the risk of diarrhea compared to Rlx (P=0.01). Our subgroup analysis further indicated the difference between Aln and Rlx in fracture risk and was not materially altered by the administration pattern, the age. The weekly strategy of Aln would further reduce the upper gastrointestinal (GI) disorders and might gain more bone mass increment at lumbar spine compared to its daily treatment. Conclusion. There was no evidence of difference of fracture risk reduction between Aln and Rlx. In addition, age did not obviously influence their relative antifracture efficacy. For Aln the weekly strategy would further reduce the upper GI disorders and gain more bone mass increment compared to the daily treatment. During clinical decision making, the patients’ adherence and the related side-effects associated with both drugs should also be taken into account

Yield potential of world wheat based on ARIMA model under global warming

As the most important food crop across the world, with continuous increase in world population and steady declining farmlands, wheat has been attracting academic attention for improving its yield or potential in the future particularly under global warming. Therefore, analyzing the yield or potential of wheat at global level relevant to greenhouse gas effect is of great significance to direct future production of wheat in the world. However up to now, there are relatively few reports on potential yield of world wheat projected using 'time series' approach like ARIMA (Auto-regressive Integrated Moving Average) model. Thus in this paper, the crop potential yield of world wheat during 2019 to 2028 is projected using ARIMA model based on the yields from 1961 to 2018. Our results show that during 2019 to 2028, the average yields of world wheat are projected to increase from 3569 to 4257 kg ha-1 while top yields of world wheat from 9852 to 11246 kg ha-1. Annual global mean temperatures are projected to increase from 15.05 to 15.31°C. Global warming exerts positive effect on average yield of world wheat while negative effect on the top yield in 1961 to 2018 and 2028. Our study concluded that for world wheat production in 2019 to 2028, the opportunities for improving production should be mainly dependent on the advantage of highyield countries as the yield is still in low place before the turn-point of S-shaped curve in long-term trend affected partly by greenhouse gas effect

Study on the One-Proton Halo Structure in 23^{23}Al

The Glauber theory has been used to investigate the reaction cross section of proton-rich nucleus $^{23}$Al. A core plus a proton structure is assumed for $^{23}$Al. HO-type density distribution is used for the core while the density distribution for the valence proton is calculated by solving the eigenvalue problem of Woods-Saxon potential. The transparency function in an analytical expression is obtained adopting multi-Gaussian expansion for the density distribution. Coulomb correction and finite-range interaction are introduced. This modified Glauber model is apt for halo nuclei. A dominate s-wave is suggested for the last proton in $^{23}$Al from our analysis which is possible in the RMF calculation.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Complete sequence and organization of Antheraea pernyi nucleopolyhedrovirus, a dr-rich baculovirus

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The completion and reporting of baculovirus genomes is extremely important as it advances our understanding of gene function and evolution. Due to the large number of viral genomes now sequenced it is very important that authors present significantly detailed analyses to advance the understanding of the viral genomes. However, there is no report of the <it>Antheraea pernyi </it>nucleopolyhedrovirus (AnpeNPV) genome.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The genome of AnpeNPV, which infects Chinese tussah silkworm (<it>Antheraea pernyi</it>), was sequenced and analyzed. The genome was 126,629 bp in size. The G+C content of the genome, 53.4%, was higher than that of most of the sequenced baculoviruses. 147 open reading frames (ORFs) that putatively encode proteins of 50 or more amino acid residues with minimal overlap were determined. Of the 147 ORFs, 143 appeared to be homologous to other baculovirus genes, and 4 were unique to AnpeNPV. Furthermore, there are still 29 and 33 conserved genes present in all baculoviruses and all lepidopteran baculoviruses respectively. In addition, the total number of genes common to all lepidopteran NPVs is sill 74, however the 74 genes are somewhat different from the 74 genes identified before because of some new sequenced NPVs. Only 6 genes were found exclusively in all lepidopteran NPVs and 12 genes were found exclusively in all Group I NPVs. AnpeNPV encodes <it>v-trex</it>(Anpe115, a 3' to 5' repair exonuclease), which was observed only in CfMNPV and CfDEFNPV in Group I NPVs. This gene potentially originated by horizontal gene transfer from an ancestral host. In addition, AnpeNPV encodes two <it>conotoxin</it>-like gene homologues (<it>ctls</it>), <it>ctl1 </it>and <it>ctl2</it>, which were observed only in HycuNPV, OpMNPV and LdMNPV. Unlike other baculoviruses, only 3 typical homologous regions (<it>hr</it>s) were identified containing 2~9 repeats of a 30 bp-long palindromic core. However, 24 perfect or imperfect direct repeats (<it>dr</it>s) with a high degree of AT content were found within the intergenic spacer regions that may function as non-<it>hr</it>, <it>ori</it>-like regions found in GrleGV, CpGV and AdorGV. 9 <it>dr</it>s were also found in intragenic spacer regions of AnpeNPV.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>AnpeNPV belongs to Group I NPVs and is most similar to HycuNPV, EppoNPV, OpMNPV and CfMNPV based on gene content, genome arrangement, and amino acid identity. In addition, analysis of genes that flank <it>hr</it>s supported the argument that these regions are involved in the transfer of sequences between the virus and host.</p

Clearance of Free Silica in Rat Lungs by Spraying with Chinese Herbal Kombucha

The effects of spraying with kombucha and Chinese herbal kombucha were compared with treatments with tetrandrine in a rat silicosis model. Silica dust (50 mg) was injected into the lungs of rats, which were then treated with one of the experimental treatments for a month. The rats were then killed, and the effects of the treatments were evaluated by examining the extent and severity of the histopathological lesions in the animals’ lungs, measuring their organ coefficients and lung collagen contents, determining the dry and wet weights of their lungs, and measuring the free silica content of the dried lungs. In addition, lavage was performed on whole lungs taken from selected rats, and the numbers and types of cells in the lavage fluid were counted. The most effective treatment in terms of the ability to reduce lung collagen content and minimize the formation of pulmonary histopathological lesions was tetrandrine treatment, followed by Chinese herbal kombucha and non‐Chinese herbal kombucha. However, the lavage fluid cell counts indicated that tetrandrine treatment had severe adverse effects on macrophage viability. This effect was much less pronounced for the kombucha and Chinese herbal kombucha treatments. Moreover, the free silica levels in the lungs of animals treated with Chinese herbal kombucha were significantly lower than those for any other silica‐exposed group. These preliminary results indicate that spraying with Chinese herbal kombucha preparations can effectively promote the discharge of silica dust from lung tissues. Chinese herbal kombucha inhalation may thus be a useful new treatment for silicosis and other pneumoconiosis diseases

Geo-spatial Hotspots of Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome and Genetic Characterization of Seoul Variants in Beijing, China

Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) is caused by Hantaviruses, the enzootic viruses with a worldwide distribution. In China, HFRS is a significant public health problem with more than 10,000 human cases reported annually and the endemic areas of the disease have extended from rural to urban areas and even to central cities in recent years. The HFRS incidence has increased recently and the morbidity seemed to be considerably diverse in different areas in Beijing, the capital of China. With the aim of gaining more information to control this disease, we carried out a spatial analysis of HFRS based on the data from human cases during 2004–2006 and investigated the genetic features of complete S and partial L segment sequences of Seoul virus from natural infected rodent hosts and patients. We found three geo-spatial clusters, i.e., “hotspots” of HFRS in Beijing, where intervention should be enhanced. Our data indicated that the genetic variation and recombination of SEOV might be related to the high risk areas of HFRS in Beijing, which was worthy of further investigation

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Joint analysis of three genome-wide association studies of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma in Chinese populations

We conducted a joint (pooled) analysis of three genome-wide association studies (GWAS) 1-3 of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) in ethnic Chinese (5,337 ESCC cases and 5,787 controls) with 9,654 ESCC cases and 10,058 controls for follow-up. In a logistic regression model adjusted for age, sex, study, and two eigenvectors, two new loci achieved genome-wide significance, marked by rs7447927 at 5q31.2 (per-allele odds ratio (OR) = 0.85, 95% CI 0.82-0.88; P=7.72x10−20) and rs1642764 at 17p13.1 (per-allele OR= 0.88, 95% CI 0.85-0.91; P=3.10x10−13). rs7447927 is a synonymous single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in TMEM173 and rs1642764 is an intronic SNP in ATP1B2, near TP53. Furthermore, a locus in the HLA class II region at 6p21.32 (rs35597309) achieved genome-wide significance in the two populations at highest risk for ESSC (OR=1.33, 95% CI 1.22-1.46; P=1.99x10−10). Our joint analysis identified new ESCC susceptibility loci overall as well as a new locus unique to the ESCC high risk Taihang Mountain region

A Generalized Demodulation and Hilbert Transform Based Signal Decomposition Method

This paper proposes a new signal decomposition method that aims to decompose a multicomponent signal into monocomponent signal. The main procedure is to extract the components with frequencies higher than a given bisecting frequency by three steps: (1) the generalized demodulation is used to project the components with lower frequencies onto negative frequency domain, (2) the Hilbert transform is performed to eliminate the negative frequency components, and (3) the inverse generalized demodulation is used to obtain the signal which contains components with higher frequencies only. By running the procedure recursively, all monocomponent signals can be extracted efficiently. A comprehensive derivation of the decomposition method is provided. The validity of the proposed method has been demonstrated by extensive numerical analysis. The proposed method is also applied to decompose the dynamic strain signal of a cable-stayed bridge and the echolocation signal of a bat