Acupuncture for polycystic ovarian syndrome

© 2017 the Author(s). Background: This systematic review aimed at summarizing and evaluating the evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) using acupuncture to treat polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), specifically focusing on ovulation rate, menstrual rate, and related hormones. Methods: Fifteen databases were searched electronically through February 2016. Our review included RCTs of women with PCOS; these RCTs compared acupuncture with sham acupuncture, medication, or no treatment. Two reviewers independently extracted data. Data were pooled and expressed as mean differences (MDs) for continuous outcomes and risk ratios for dichotomous outcomes, with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) using a random-effects model. Results: We found a low level of evidence that acupuncture is more likely to improve ovulation rate (MD 0.35, 95% CI: 0.14-0.56) and menstruation rate (MD 0.50, 95% CI: 0.32-0.68) compared with no acupuncture. We found statistically significant pooled benefits of acupuncture treatment as an adjunct to medication in luteinizing hormone (LH), LH/follicular stimulating hormone (FSH) ratio, testosterone, fasting insulin, and pregnancy rates, but the level of evidence was low/very low. Conclusion: There is limited evidence to judge the efficacy and safety of acupuncture on key reproductive outcomes in women with PCOS. Large-scale, long-term RCTs with rigorous methodological input are needed

Complete gate control of supercurrent in graphene p-n junctions

In a conventional Josephson junction of graphene, the supercurrent is not turned off even at the charge neutrality point, impeding further development of superconducting quantum information devices based on graphene. Here we fabricate bipolar Josephson junctions of graphene, in which a p-n potential barrier is formed in graphene with two closely spaced superconducting contacts, and realize supercurrent ON/OFF states using electrostatic gating only. The bipolar Josephson junctions of graphene also show fully gate-driven macroscopic quantum tunnelling behaviour of Josephson phase particles in a potential well, where the confinement energy is gate tuneable. We suggest that the supercurrent OFF state is mainly caused by a supercurrent dephasing mechanism due to a random pseudomagnetic field generated by ripples in graphene, in sharp contrast to other nanohybrid Josephson junctions. Our study may pave the way for the development of new gate-tuneable superconducting quantum information devices.open114344sciescopu

Photoluminescent characteristics of Ni-catalyzed GaN nanowires

The authors report on time-integrated and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) of GaN nanowires grown by the Ni-catalyst-assisted vapor-liquid-solid method. From PL spectra of Ni-catalyzed GaN nanowires at 10 K, several PL peaks were observed at 3.472, 3.437, and 3.266 eV, respectively. PL peaks at 3.472 and 3.266 eV are attributed to neutral-donor-bound excitons and donor-acceptor pair, respectively. Furthermore, according to the results from temperature-dependent and time-resolved PL measurements, the origin of the PL peak at 3.437 eV is also discussed. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.X1147sciescopu

Exploiting the promiscuity of imatinib

The protein kinase inhibitor imatinib, also known as Gleevec, has been a notable success in treating chronic myelogenous leukemia. A recent paper in BMC Structural Biology reports a 1.75 Å crystal structure of imatinib bound to the oxidoreductase NQO2 and reveals insights into the binding specificity and the off-target effects of the inhibitor

Summarizing First-Person Videos from Third Persons' Points of Views

Video highlight or summarization is among interesting topics in computer vision, which benefits a variety of applications like viewing, searching, or storage. However, most existing studies rely on training data of third-person videos, which cannot easily generalize to highlight the first-person ones. With the goal of deriving an effective model to summarize first-person videos, we propose a novel deep neural network architecture for describing and discriminating vital spatiotemporal information across videos with different points of view. Our proposed model is realized in a semi-supervised setting, in which fully annotated third-person videos, unlabeled first-person videos, and a small number of annotated first-person ones are presented during training. In our experiments, qualitative and quantitative evaluations on both benchmarks and our collected first-person video datasets are presented.Comment: 16+10 pages, ECCV 201

Controlled selective growth of ZnO nanorod and microrod arrays on Si substrates by a wet chemical method

The use of a wet chemical method to selectively grow ZnO microrod and nanorod arrays on Si substrates is described. To control the size and position of the ZnO microrods and nanorods, polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) submicron patterns were prepared on the Si substrates with an intermediate ZnO layer using e-beam lithography. Selective growth of the ZnO structures was achieved by the absence of ZnO nucleation sites on the PMMA mask, resulting in position-controlled growth of ZnO structures only on patterned holes where the ZnO layer was exposed. In addition, the diameters of the ZnO microrods were determined by the patterned hole size, and the diameters as small as 250 nm were obtained when a hole diameter of 250 nm was employed. The structural and optical characteristics of the ZnO microrods were further investigated using x-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and photoluminescence spectroscopy. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.open11107109sciescopu

Hybrid system for ex vivo hemorheological and hemodynamic analysis: a feasibility study

Precise measurement of biophysical properties is important to understand the relation between these properties and the outbreak of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). However, a systematic measurement for these biophysical parameters under in vivo conditions is nearly impossible because of complex vessel shape and limited practicality. In vitro measurements can provide more biophysical information, but in vitro exposure changes hemorheological properties. In this study, a hybrid system composed of an ultrasound system and microfluidic device is proposed for monitoring hemorheological and hemodynamic properties under more reasonable experimental conditions. Biophysical properties including RBC aggregation, viscosity, velocity, and pressure of blood flows are simultaneously measured under various conditions to demonstrate the feasibility and performance of this measurement system. The proposed technique is applied to a rat extracorporeal loop which connects the aorta and jugular vein directly. As a result, the proposed system is found to measure biophysical parameters reasonably without blood collection from the rat and provided more detailed information. This hybrid system, combining ultrasound imaging and microfluidic techniques to ex vivo animal models, would be useful for monitoring the variations of biophysical properties induced by chemical agents. It can be used to understand the relation between biophysical parameters and CVDs.1196Ysciescopu

Vertically aligned ZnO nanostructures grown on graphene layers

We report the vertical growth of ZnO nanostructures on graphene layers and their photoluminescence (PL) characteristics. ZnO nanostructures were grown vertically on the graphene layers using catalyst-free metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy. The surface morphology of the ZnO nanostructures on the graphene layers depended strongly on the growth temperature. Further, interesting growth behavior leading to the formation of aligned ZnO nanoneedles in a row and vertically aligned nanowalls was also observed and explained in terms of enhanced nucleation on graphene step edges and kinks. Additionally, the optical characteristics and carbon incorporation into ZnO were investigated using variable-temperature PL spectroscopy.open11121134sciescopu