Small Circle, Entrenched Interest: The Electoral Anomalies of Hong Kong Deputies to the National People's Congress

Theoretically, Hong Kong deputies to the National People's Congress (NPC) represent the interests of Hong Kong people in China's highest organ of state power. The Central Authorities, through the Standing Committee of the NPC, exert a tight control over the electoral process in Hong Kong by making electoral rules, limiting the scope of eligible voters, and by utilising other formal and informal control mechanisms. Yet, a degree of autonomy in the electoral process produces results different from those expected by the Central Authorities. This article argues that the “small circle” election creates opportunities and incentives for developing special interests. Gradually, these special interests become entrenched and develop a life of their own.published_or_final_versio

Exertional heat stroke in a marathon runner with extensive healed deep burns: a case report

Exertional heat illness typically occurs over hours in younger athletic patients or military recruits who exercise at elevated temperatures for a sufficient period of time to cause the rate of heat production to exceed the capacity of the body to dissipate heat. Since the physiological response to exercise includes cutaneous vasodilation and sweating, any limitation of such a response can cause rapid hyperthermia and thus heat stroke. One such condition is extensive burns healed by cicatrisation of the skin where the scar and grafted skin surface do not have functional sweat glands and are unable to lose heat in response to high temperatures. The authors report one unique case of a female marathon runner with exertional heat stroke who had recovered from deep second and third degree burns over approximately 50% of her body a few years ago

Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe

We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000-3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost four hundred thousand polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of western and far eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000-5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ~8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary, and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ~24,000 year old Siberian6 . By ~6,000-5,000 years ago, a resurgence of hunter-gatherer ancestry had occurred throughout much of Europe, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact ~4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ~3/4 of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least ~3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for the theory of a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe

Does training with amplitude modulated tones affect tone-vocoded speech perception?

Temporal-envelope cues are essential for successful speech perception. We asked here whether training on stimuli containing temporal-envelope cues without speech content can improve the perception of spectrally-degraded (vocoded) speech in which the temporal-envelope (but not the temporal fine structure) is mainly preserved. Two groups of listeners were trained on different amplitude-modulation (AM) based tasks, either AM detection or AM-rate discrimination (21 blocks of 60 trials during two days, 1260 trials; frequency range: 4Hz, 8Hz, and 16Hz), while an additional control group did not undertake any training. Consonant identification in vocoded vowel-consonant-vowel stimuli was tested before and after training on the AM tasks (or at an equivalent time interval for the control group). Following training, only the trained groups showed a significant improvement in the perception of vocoded speech, but the improvement did not significantly differ from that observed for controls. Thus, we do not find convincing evidence that this amount of training with temporal-envelope cues without speech content provide significant benefit for vocoded speech intelligibility. Alternative training regimens using vocoded speech along the linguistic hierarchy should be explored

HGF Mediates the Anti-inflammatory Effects of PRP on Injured Tendons

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) containing hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and other growth factors are widely used in orthopaedic/sports medicine to repair injured tendons. While PRP treatment is reported to decrease pain in patients with tendon injury, the mechanism of this effect is not clear. Tendon pain is often associated with tendon inflammation, and HGF is known to protect tissues from inflammatory damages. Therefore, we hypothesized that HGF in PRP causes the anti-inflammatory effects. To test this hypothesis, we performed in vitro experiments on rabbit tendon cells and in vivo experiments on a mouse Achilles tendon injury model. We found that addition of PRP or HGF decreased gene expression of COX-1, COX-2, and mPGES-1, induced by the treatment of tendon cells in vitro with IL-1β. Further, the treatment of tendon cell cultures with HGF antibodies reduced the suppressive effects of PRP or HGF on IL-1β-induced COX-1, COX-2, and mPGES-1 gene expressions. Treatment with PRP or HGF almost completely blocked the cellular production of PGE2 and the expression of COX proteins. Finally, injection of PRP or HGF into wounded mouse Achilles tendons in vivo decreased PGE2 production in the tendinous tissues. Injection of platelet-poor plasma (PPP) however, did not reduce PGE2 levels in the wounded tendons, but the injection of HGF antibody inhibited the effects of PRP and HGF. Further, injection of PRP or HGF also decreased COX-1 and COX-2 proteins. These results indicate that PRP exerts anti-inflammatory effects on injured tendons through HGF. This study provides basic scientific evidence to support the use of PRP to treat injured tendons because PRP can reduce inflammation and thereby reduce the associated pain caused by high levels of PGE2. © 2013 Zhang et al

Vitamin D in the general population of young adults with autism in the Faroe Islands

Vitamin D deficiency has been proposed as a possible risk factor for developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD). 25-Hydroxyvitamin D3 (25(OH)D3) levels were examined in a cross-sectional population-based study in the Faroe Islands. The case group consisting of a total population cohort of 40 individuals with ASD (aged 15–24 years) had significantly lower 25(OH)D3 than their 62 typically-developing siblings and their 77 parents, and also significantly lower than 40 healthy age and gender matched comparisons. There was a trend for males having lower 25(OH)D3 than females. Effects of age, month/season of birth, IQ, various subcategories of ASD and Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule score were also investigated, however, no association was found. The very low 25(OH)D3 in the ASD group suggests some underlying pathogenic mechanism

Decitabine impact on the endocytosis regulator RhoA, the folate carriers RFC1 and FOLR1, and the glucose transporter GLUT4 in human tumors.

BackgroundIn 31 solid tumor patients treated with the demethylating agent decitabine, we performed tumor biopsies before and after the first cycle of decitabine and used immunohistochemistry (IHC) to assess whether decitabine increased expression of various membrane transporters. Resistance to chemotherapy may arise due to promoter methylation/downregulation of expression of transporters required for drug uptake, and decitabine can reverse resistance in vitro. The endocytosis regulator RhoA, the folate carriers FOLR1 and RFC1, and the glucose transporter GLUT4 were assessed.ResultsPre-decitabine RhoA was higher in patients who had received their last therapy >3 months previously than in patients with more recent prior therapy (P = 0.02), and varied inversely with global DNA methylation as assessed by LINE1 methylation (r = -0.58, P = 0.006). Tumor RhoA scores increased with decitabine (P = 0.03), and RFC1 also increased in patients with pre-decitabine scores ≤150 (P = 0.004). Change in LINE1 methylation with decitabine did not correlate significantly with change in IHC scores for any transporter assessed. We also assessed methylation of the RFC1 gene (alias SLC19A1). SLC19A1 methylation correlated with tumor LINE1 methylation (r = 0.45, P = 0.02). There was a small (statistically insignificant) decrease in SLC19A1 methylation with decitabine, and there was a trend towards change in SLC19A1 methylation with decitabine correlating with change in LINE1 methylation (r = 0.47, P <0.15). While SLC19A1 methylation did not correlate with RFC1 scores, there was a trend towards an inverse correlation between change in SLC19A1 methylation and change in RFC1 expression (r = -0.45, P = 0.19).ConclusionsIn conclusion, after decitabine administration, there was increased expression of some (but not other) transporters that may play a role in chemotherapy uptake. Larger patient numbers will be needed to define the extent to which this increased expression is associated with changes in DNA methylation

Interactions among mitochondrial proteins altered in glioblastoma

Mitochondrial dysfunction is putatively central to glioblastoma (GBM) pathophysiology but there has been no systematic analysis in GBM of the proteins which are integral to mitochondrial function. Alterations in proteins in mitochondrial enriched fractions from patients with GBM were defined with label-free liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. 256 mitochondrially-associated proteins were identified in mitochondrial enriched fractions and 117 of these mitochondrial proteins were markedly (fold-change ≥2) and significantly altered in GBM (p ≤ 0.05). Proteins associated with oxidative damage (including catalase, superoxide dismutase 2, peroxiredoxin 1 and peroxiredoxin 4) were increased in GBM. Protein–protein interaction analysis highlighted a reduction in multiple proteins coupled to energy metabolism (in particular respiratory chain proteins, including 23 complex-I proteins). Qualitative ultrastructural analysis in GBM with electron microscopy showed a notably higher prevalence of mitochondria with cristolysis in GBM. This study highlights the complex mitochondrial proteomic adjustments which occur in GBM pathophysiology

Spatially resolved transcriptomics reveals genes associated with the vulnerability of middle temporal gyrus in Alzheimer’s disease

Human middle temporal gyrus (MTG) is a vulnerable brain region in early Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying this regional vulnerability. Here we utilize the 10 × Visium platform to define the spatial transcriptomic profile in both AD and control (CT) MTG. We identify unique marker genes for cortical layers and the white matter, and layer-specific differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in human AD compared to CT. Deconvolution of the Visium spots showcases the significant difference in particular cell types among cortical layers and the white matter. Gene co-expression analyses reveal eight gene modules, four of which have significantly altered co-expression patterns in the presence of AD pathology. The co-expression patterns of hub genes and enriched pathways in the presence of AD pathology indicate an important role of cell–cell-communications among microglia, oligodendrocytes, astrocytes, and neurons, which may contribute to the cellular and regional vulnerability in early AD. Using single-molecule fluorescent in situ hybridization, we validated the cell-type-specific expression of three novel DEGs (e.g., KIF5A, PAQR6, and SLC1A3) and eleven previously reported DEGs associated with AD pathology (i.e., amyloid beta plaques and intraneuronal neurofibrillary tangles or neuropil threads) at the single cell level. Our results may contribute to the understanding of the complex architecture and neuronal and glial response to AD pathology of this vulnerable brain region

Liquidity Creation and Bank Capital

This paper aims to evaluate the relationship between capital and liquidity following the implementation of the Basel III rules. These regulatory measures target both increased capital ratios and a reduction of banks’ maturity transformation risk , which could result in excessive constraints on bank liquidity creation, thereby negatively affecting economic growth. Using a simultaneous equation model, we find a bi-causal negative relationship, which suggests that banks may reduce liquidity creation as capital increases; and when liquidity creation increases, banks reduce capital ratios. Our results therefore imply a trade-off between financial stability (higher capital, reduced risk) and economic growth (liquidity creation)