The central engines of two unusual radio-intermediate/quiet active galactic nuclei: III Zw 2 and PG 1407+265

We use the accretion disk/corona+jet model to fit the multi-band spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of two unusual radio-intermediate/quiet quasars. It is found that the optical/UV emission of III Zw 2 is probably dominated by the emission from the accretion disk. The X-ray emission should be dominated by the radiation from the jet, while the contribution of the disk corona is negligible. The optical/UV component in the SED of PG 1407+265 can be well modeled as the emission from the accretion disk, while the IR component is attributed to the thermal radiation from the dust torus with an opening angle ~ 50\circ. If the X-ray continuum emission is dominated by the synchrotron emission of the jet, the source should be a "high peak frequency blazar", which obviously deviates the normal blazar sequence. The observed SED can also be fitted quite well by the accretion disk/corona model with the viscosity parameter ? = 0:5. The spectrum of the accretion disk/corona in PG 1407+265 satisfies the weak line quasar criterion suggested in Laor & Davis.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, Accepted by Ap

A cusp catastrophe model of mid–long-term landslide evolution over low latitude highlands of China

AbstractBased on a model describing a certain landslide case and catastrophe theory, we derived a cusp catastrophe model and corresponding inversion method to study mid–long-term landslide evolution. According to data of landslides, precipitation, and socioeconomic development from 1976 to 2008, the cusp catastrophe model describing this landslide evolution across a low-latitude highland area in China is obtained with the least squares method. Results of the model indicate that human activity determines landslide intensity. Local precipitation also impacts yearly landslide intensity to some extent, and controls the time when a strong and abrupt change in landslides occurs. During the period 1976–2008, there was an abrupt decrease of landslide intensity during 1994–1995, and an abrupt increase during 1995–1996. Since then, there have been frequent landslides in the low-latitude highland, with greater intensity. All these factors provide a scientific basis for formulating a contingency plan regarding landslide disasters

Electronic and Transport Properties of Radially Deformed Double-walled Carbon Nanotube Intramolecular Junction

The electronic and transport property of a radially deformed double-walled carbon nanotube (DWNT) intramolecular junction (IMJ) has been studied by the tight-binding (TB) model combined with the first-principle calculations. The geometrical structures of the DWNT IMJ have been first optimized in energy by the universal force field (UFF) method. It is found that when heavily squashed, the DWNT will become an insulator-coated metallic wire, and the conductance near the Fermi level has been significantly changed by the radial squash. Specially, several resonance conductance peaks appear at some energies in the conduction band of the squashed DWNT IMJ. Finally, we have also investigated the conductance variation due to change of the length of the central semiconductor in the squashed DWNT IMJ. Furthermore, a promising pure carbon nanoscale electronic device is proposed based on the DWNT IMJ.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Lactobacillus reuteri strain 8008 attenuated the aggravation of depressive-like behavior induced by CUMS in high-fat diet-fed mice through regulating the gut microbiota

Objective: Gut microbiota play a key role in the pathogenesis of obesity and depression. Probiotics are a preventive strategy for obesity and a novel treatment for depression symptoms. However, the ameliorative or therapeutic effect of potential probiotic candidate Lactobacillus reuteri (L. reuteri) on obesity and depression comorbidity still remains unclear. We investigated the effects of chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) in high-fat diet-fed mice and the effects of Lactobacillus reuteri strain 8008 on various disease indicators of obesity and depression comorbidity disease.Methods: Forty male C57BL/6 mice were randomized into 2 groups: the normal control (NC) group (n = 10) and the high-fat diet (HFD) group (n = 30), being fed with normal diet (ND) or high-fat diet (HFD) for 8 weeks, respectively. Then the obese mice fed with HFD were randomly allocated into 3 sub-groups: the HFD group (n = 10); the HFD + CUMS group (n = 10); the HFD + CUMS + L.r group (n = 10). The latter 2 subgroups underwent CUMS for 4 weeks to build the obesity and depression comorbidity mice model. During the duration of treatment, mice were gavaged with 0.5 mL PBS solution or L. reuteri (2 × 109 CFU/mL) once a day, respectively. The body weight, food intake, organ weight, behavioral indicators, histology, blood lipids, levels of inflammatory cytokines and tight junction proteins and abundance of colonic contents bacteria were measured.Results: The obesity and depression comorbidity mice model was successfully established after HFD feeding and chronic stress. The comorbid mice demonstrated inflammatory responses increase in liver and adipose tissues, worsened damage to the intestinal barrier as well as gut microbiota disorder. Gavaged with L. reuteri attenuated depressive-like behavior, improved blood lipids and insulin resistance, reduced inflammation in liver and adipose tissues, improved intestinal tight junctions as well as the microbiome dysbiosis in obesity and depression comorbidity mice.Conclusion:Lactobacillus reuteri strain 8008 could alleviate depressive-like behaviors and related indicators of obesity disorders by regulating the gut microbiota in obesity and depression comorbid mice

Meta-Analysis of the Clinical Value of Danshen Injection and Huangqi Injection in Liver Cirrhosis

Objective. To evaluate the clinical value of Danshen injection and Huangqi injection for the treatment of liver cirrhosis. Methods. The Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), Chinese Scientific Journals Full-Text Database (VIP), Wanfang Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), PubMed, and EMBASE database were searched to collect the literatures about the randomized controlled trials involving the treatment of liver cirrhosis with Danshen injection combined with Huangqi injection, and the data analyses were performed using RevMan 4.2 software. Results. A total of 11 studies involving 1086 patients (trials group: 554 cases, control group: 532 cases) were included in this study. Compared with those in control group, the meta-analysis showed-that the total effectiveness rate and the level of serum albumin increased, while serum total bilirubin, alanine transmninase, type III procollagen, hyaluronic acid, laminin, and type-IV collagen decreased in trials group. The Jadad score ranged from 1 to 2 and the funnel plot analysis suggests that publication bias may occur. Conclusions. Danshen injection combined with Huangqi injection may promote the curative efficacy of liver cirrhosis, which is a promising novel treatment approach. The exact outcome needs to perform rigorously designed, multicenter, and large randomized controlled trials

Individual-based morphological brain network organization and its association with autistic symptoms in young children with autism spectrum disorder

Individual-based morphological brain networks built from T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reflect synchronous maturation intensities between anatomical regions at the individual level. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a socio-cognitive and neurodevelopmental disorder with high neuroanatomical heterogeneity, but the specific patterns of morphological networks in ASD remain largely unexplored at the individual level. In this study, individual-based morphological networks were constructed by using high-resolution structural MRI data from 40 young children with ASD (age range: 2-8 years) and 38 age-, gender-, and handedness-matched typically developing children (TDC). Measurements were recorded as threefold. Results showed that compared with TDC, young children with ASD exhibited lower values of small-worldness (i.e., sigma) of individual-level morphological brain networks, increased morphological connectivity in cortico-striatum-thalamic-cortical (CSTC) circuitry, and decreased morphological connectivity in the cortico-cortical network. In addition, morphological connectivity abnormalities can predict the severity of social communication deficits in young children with ASD, thus confirming an associational impact at the behavioral level. These findings suggest that the morphological brain network in the autistic developmental brain is inefficient in segregating and distributing information. The results also highlight the crucial role of abnormal morphological connectivity patterns in the socio-cognitive deficits of ASD and support the possible use of the aberrant developmental patterns of morphological brain networks in revealing new clinically-relevant biomarkers for ASD.China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, Grant/Award Number: 2019M660236; National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant/Award Numbers: 61901129, 62036003, 81871432, U1808204; The Basque Foundation for Science and from Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad (Spain) and FEDER, Grant/Award Number: DPI2016-79874-R; the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Grant/Award Numbers: 2672018ZYGX2018J079, ZYGX2019Z017; the Sichuan Science and Technology Program, Grant/Award Number: 2019YJ018

Evaluation of Lethal Giant Larvae as a Schistosomiasis Vaccine Candidate

Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease of humans, and it is considered to be the second most devastating parasitic disease after malaria. Eggs produced by normally developed female worms are important in the transmission of the parasite, and they responsible for the pathogenesis of schistosomiasis. The tumor suppressor gene lethal giant larvae (lgl) has an essential function in establishing apical-basal cell polarity, cell proliferation, differentiation, and tissue organization. In our earlier study, downregulation of the lgl gene induced a significant reduction in the egg hatching rate of Schistosoma japonicum (Sj) eggs. In this study, the Sjlgl gene was used as a vaccine candidate against schistosomiasis, and vaccination achieved and maintained a stable reduction of the egg hatching rate, which is consistent with previous studies, in addition to reducing the worm burden and liver egg burden in some trials

Apoptosis Governs the Elimination of Schistosoma japonicum from the Non-Permissive Host Microtus fortis

The reed vole, Microtus fortis, is the only known mammalian host in which schistosomes of Schistosoma japonicum are unable to mature and cause significant pathogenesis. However, little is known about how Schistosoma japonicum maturation (and, therefore, the development of schistosomiasis) is prevented in M. fortis. In the present study, the ultrastructure of 10 days post infection schistosomula from BALB/c mice and M. fortis were first compared using scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Electron microscopic investigations showed growth retardation and ultrastructural differences in the tegument and sub-tegumental tissues as well as in the parenchymal cells of schistosomula from M. fortis compared with those in BALB/c mice. Then, microarray analysis revealed significant differential expression between the schistosomula from the two rodents, with 3,293 down-regulated (by ≥2-fold) and 71 up-regulated (≥2 fold) genes in schistosomula from the former. The up-regulated genes included a proliferation-related gene encoding granulin (Grn) and tropomyosin. Genes that were down-regulated in schistosomula from M. fortis included apoptosis-inhibited genes encoding a baculoviral IAP repeat-containing protein (SjIAP) and cytokine-induced apoptosis inhibitor (SjCIAP), genes encoding molecules involved in insulin metabolism, long-chain fatty acid metabolism, signal transduction, the transforming growth factor (TGF) pathway, the Wnt pathway and in development. TUNEL (terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling) and PI/Annexin V-FITC assays, caspase 3/7 activity analysis, and flow cytometry revealed that the percentages of early apoptotic and late apoptotic and/or necrotic cells, as well as the level of caspase activity, in schistosomula from M. fortis were all significantly higher than in those from BALB/c mice