The Current Use of Stem Cells in Bladder Tissue Regeneration and Bioengineering.

Many pathological processes including neurogenic bladder and malignancy necessitate bladder reconstruction, which is currently performed using intestinal tissue. The use of intestinal tissue, however, subjects patients to metabolic abnormalities, bladder stones, and other long-term sequelae, raising the need for a source of safe and reliable bladder tissue. Advancements in stem cell biology have catapulted stem cells to the center of many current tissue regeneration and bioengineering strategies. This review presents the recent advancements in the use of stem cells in bladder tissue bioengineering

A Chan Dietary Intervention Enhances Executive Functions and Anterior Cingulate Activity in Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Executive dysfunctions have been found to be related to repetitive/disinhibited behaviors and social deficits in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). This study aims to investigate the potential effect of a Shaolin-medicine-based dietary modification on improving executive functions and behavioral symptoms of ASD and exploring the possible underlying neurophysiological mechanisms. Twenty-four children with ASD were randomly assigned into the experimental (receiving dietary modification for one month) and the control (no modification) groups. Each child was assessed on his/her executive functions, behavioral problems based on parental ratings, and event-related electroencephalography (EEG) activity during a response-monitoring task before and after the one month. The experimental group demonstrated significantly improved mental flexibility and inhibitory control after the diet modification, which continued to have a large effect size within the low-functioning subgroup. Such improvements coincided with positive evaluations by their parents on social communication abilities and flexible inhibitory control of daily behaviors and significantly enhanced event-related EEG activity at the rostral and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex. In contrast, the control group did not show any significant improvements. These positive outcomes of a one-month dietary modification on children with ASD have implicated its potential clinical applicability for patients with executive function deficits

A Chan Dietary Intervention Enhances Executive Functions and Anterior Cingulate Activity in Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Executive dysfunctions have been found to be related to repetitive/disinhibited behaviors and social deficits in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). This study aims to investigate the potential effect of a Shaolin-medicine-based dietary modification on improving executive functions and behavioral symptoms of ASD and exploring the possible underlying neurophysiological mechanisms. Twenty-four children with ASD were randomly assigned into the experimental (receiving dietary modification for one month) and the control (no modification) groups. Each child was assessed on his/her executive functions, behavioral problems based on parental ratings, and event-related electroencephalography (EEG) activity during a response-monitoring task before and after the one month. The experimental group demonstrated significantly improved mental flexibility and inhibitory control after the diet modification, which continued to have a large effect size within the low-functioning subgroup. Such improvements coincided with positive evaluations by their parents on social communication abilities and flexible inhibitory control of daily behaviors and significantly enhanced event-related EEG activity at the rostral and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex. In contrast, the control group did not show any significant improvements. These positive outcomes of a one-month dietary modification on children with ASD have implicated its potential clinical applicability for patients with executive function deficits

OMMA enables population-scale analysis of complex genomic features and phylogenomic relationships from nanochannel-based optical maps.

BackgroundOptical mapping is an emerging technology that complements sequencing-based methods in genome analysis. It is widely used in improving genome assemblies and detecting structural variations by providing information over much longer (up to 1 Mb) reads. Current standards in optical mapping analysis involve assembling optical maps into contigs and aligning them to a reference, which is limited to pairwise comparison and becomes bias-prone when analyzing multiple samples.FindingsWe present a new method, OMMA, that extends optical mapping to the study of complex genomic features by simultaneously interrogating optical maps across many samples in a reference-independent manner. OMMA captures and characterizes complex genomic features, e.g., multiple haplotypes, copy number variations, and subtelomeric structures when applied to 154 human samples across the 26 populations sequenced in the 1000 Genomes Project. For small genomes such as pathogenic bacteria, OMMA accurately reconstructs the phylogenomic relationships and identifies functional elements across 21 Acinetobacter baumannii strains.ConclusionsWith the increasing data throughput of optical mapping system, the use of this technology in comparative genome analysis across many samples will become feasible. OMMA is a timely solution that can address such computational need. The OMMA software is available at https://github.com/TF-Chan-Lab/OMTools

A Chinese Chan-Based Mind-Body Intervention Improves Sleep on Patients with Depression: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Sleep disturbance is a common problem associated with depression, and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a more common behavioral intervention for sleep problems. The present study compares the effect of a newly developed Chinese Chan-based intervention, namely Dejian mind-body intervention (DMBI), with the CBT on improving sleep problems of patients with depression. Seventy-five participants diagnosed with major depressive disorder were randomly assigned to receive 10 weekly sessions of CBT or DMBI, or placed on a waitlist. Measurements included ratings by psychiatrists who were blinded to the experimental design, and a standardized questionnaire on sleep quantity and quality was obtained before and after the 10-week intervention. Results indicated that both the CBT and DMBI groups demonstrated significantly reduced sleep onset latency and wake time after sleep onset (effect size range = 0.46–1.0, P ≤ 0.05) as compared to nonsignificant changes in the waitlist group (P > 0.1). Furthermore, the DMBI group, but not the CBT or waitlist groups, demonstrated significantly reduced psychiatrist ratings on overall sleep problems (effect size = 1.0, P = 0.00) and improved total sleep time (effect size = 0.8, P = 0.05) after treatment. The present findings suggest that a Chinese Chan-based mind-body intervention has positive effects on improving sleep in individuals with depression

Dejian Mind-Body Intervention Improves the Cognitive Functions of a Child with Autism

There has been increasing empirical evidence for the enhancing effects of Dejian Mind-Body Intervention (DMBI), a traditional Chinese Shaolin healing approach, on human frontal brain activity/functions, including patients with autism who are well documented to have frontal lobe problems. This study aims to compare the effects of DMBI with a conventional behavioural/cognitive intervention (CI) on enhancing the executive functions and memory of a nine-year-old boy with low-functioning autism (KY) and to explore possible underlying neural mechanism using EEG theta cordance. At post-one-month DMBI, KY's inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and memory functioning have significantly improved from “severely-to-moderately impaired” to “within-normal” range. This improvement was not observed from previous 12-month CI. Furthermore, KY showed increased cordance gradually extending from the anterior to the posterior brain region, suggesting possible neural mechanism underlying his cognitive improvement. These findings have implicated potential applicability of DMBI as a rehabilitation program for patients with severe frontal lobe and/or memory disorders

A Randomized Controlled Neurophysiological Study of a Chinese Chan

Our previous studies have reported the therapeutic effects of 10-session Chinese Chan-based Dejian mind-body interventions (DMBI) in reducing the intake of antidepressants, improving depressive symptoms, and enhancing the attentional abilities of patients with depression. This study aims to explore the possible neuroelectrophysiological mechanisms underlying the previously reported treatment effects of DMBI in comparison with those of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Seventy-five age-, gender-, and education-matched participants with depression were randomly assigned to receive either CBT or DMBI or placed on a waitlist. Eyes-closed resting EEG data were obtained individually before and after 10 weeks. After intervention, the DMBI group demonstrated significantly enhanced frontal alpha asymmetry (an index of positive mood) and intra- and interhemispheric theta coherence in frontoposterior and posterior brain regions (an index of attention). In contrast, neither the CBT nor the waitlist group showed significant changes in EEG activity patterns. Furthermore, the asymmetry and coherence indices of the DMBI group were correlated with self-reported depression severity levels and performance on an attention test, respectively. The present findings provide support for the effects of a Chinese Chan-based mind-body intervention in fostering human brain states that can facilitate positive mood and an attentive mind

Socio-demographic determinants of Toxoplasma gondii seroprevalence in migrant workers of Peninsular Malaysia

Background The number of migrants working in Malaysia has increased sharply since the 1970’s and there is concern that infectious diseases endemic in other (e.g. neighbouring) countries may be inadvertently imported. Compulsory medical screening prior to entering the workforce does not include parasitic infections such as toxoplasmosis. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the seroprevalence of T. gondii infection among migrant workers in Peninsular Malaysia by means of serosurveys conducted on a voluntary basis among low-skilled and semi-skilled workers from five working sectors, namely, manufacturing, food service, agriculture and plantation, construction and domestic work. Methods A total of 484 migrant workers originating from rural locations in neighbouring countries, namely, Indonesia (n = 247, 51.0%), Nepal (n = 99, 20.5%), Bangladesh (n = 72, 14.9%), India (n = 52, 10.7%) and Myanmar (n = 14, 2.9%) were included in this study. Results The overall seroprevalence of T. gondii was 57.4% (n = 278; 95% CI: 52.7–61.8%) with 52.9% (n = 256; 95% CI: 48.4–57.2%) seropositive for anti-Toxoplasma IgG only, 0.8% (n = 4; 95% CI: 0.2–1.7%) seropositive for anti-Toxoplasma IgM only and 3.7% (n = 18; 95% CI: 2.1–5.4%) seropositive with both IgG and IgM antibodies. All positive samples with both IgG and IgM antibodies showed high avidity (> 40%), suggesting latent infection. Age (being older than 45 years), Nepalese nationality, manufacturing occupation, and being a newcomer in Malaysia (excepting domestic work) were positively and statistically significantly associated with seroprevalence (P < 0.05). Conclusions The results of this study suggest that better promotion of knowledge about parasite transmission is required for both migrant workers and permanent residents in Malaysia. Efforts should be made to encourage improved personal hygiene before consumption of food and fluids, thorough cooking of meat and better disposal of feline excreta from domestic pets

Attribution of the heavy rainfall events leading to severe flooding in Western Europe during July 2021

In July 2021 extreme rainfall across Western Europe caused severe flooding and substantial impacts, including over 200 fatalities and extensive infrastructure damage within Germany and the Benelux countries. After the event, a hydrological assessment and a probabilistic event attribution analysis of rainfall data were initiated and complemented by discussing the vulnerability and exposure context. The global mean surface temperature (GMST) served as a covariate in a generalised extreme value distribution fitted to observational and model data, exploiting the dependence on GMST to estimate how anthropogenic climate change affects the likelihood and severity of extreme events. Rainfall accumulations in Ahr/Erft and the Belgian Meuse catchment vastly exceeded previous observed records. In regions of that limited size the robust estimation of return values and the detection and attribution of rainfall trends are challenging. However, for the larger Western European region it was found that, under current climate conditions, on average one rainfall event of this magnitude can be expected every 400 years at any given location. Consequently, within the entire region, events of similar magnitude are expected to occur more frequently than once in 400 years. Anthropogenic climate change has already increased the intensity of the maximum 1-day rainfall event in the summer season by 3–19 %. The likelihood of such an event to occur today compared to a 1.2 ∘ C cooler climate has increased by a factor of 1.2–9. Models indicate that intensity and frequency of such events will further increase with future global warming. While attribution of small-scale events remains challenging, this study shows that there is a robust increase in the likelihood and severity of rainfall events such as the ones causing extreme impacts in July 2021 when considering a larger region