Macromolecular Prodrug for the Treatment of Ulcerative Colitis

Ulcerative colitis is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease affecting the colon. More than 1 million Americans are affected, with the annual economic burden up to 14.9 billion in the United States. By far, ulcerative colitis still lacks the cure and the current treatment strategies are limited due to severe side effects and in-sufficient efficacy. The tofacitinib (Xeljanz) is the only approved oral medication by for adults with moderately-to-severely-active ulcerative colitis. But the related side effects and serious infections still have to be resolved. In the previous study in our lab, the researchers have successfully developed and characterized multiple hy-drophilic prodrug formulations (P-Dex-D and P-Tofa). We suppose these prodrugs can be orally administered with reduced systemic exposure according to their in vivo release profiles. In this study, these prodrugs are administered orally to dextran sulfate sodium induced ulcerative colitis murine model. The results demon-strated that these drugs can effectively ameliorate colitis and reduced side effects compared to their parent drugs

State Feedback Stabilization of Discrete Singular Large-scale Control Systems

Abstract: This paper studies the state feedback stabilization of discrete singular large-scale control systems by using Lyapunov matrix equation, generalized Lyapunov function method and matrix theory. There gives some sufficient conditions for determining the asymptotical stability and instability of the corresponding singular closed-loop large-scale systems while the subsystems are regular, causal and R-controllable. At last, an example is given to show the application of main result. Key words: Discrete Singular Large-Scale Control System; Asymptotical Stability; Stabilization; Generalized Lyapunov Function; State Feedbac

Oscillation theorems for certain third order nonlinear delay dynamic equations on time scales

In this paper, we establish some new oscillation criteria for the third order nonlinear delay dynamic equations $$\left(b(t)\left([a(t)(x^\Delta(t))^{\alpha_1}]^\Delta\right)^{\alpha_2}\right)^\Delta+q(t)x^{\alpha_3}(\tau(t))=0$$ on a time scale $\mathbb{T}$, where $\alpha_i$ are ratios of positive odd integers, $i=1,\ 2,\ 3,$ $b,\ a$ and $q$ are positive real-valued rd-continuous functions defined on $\mathbb{T}$, and the so-called delay function $\tau:\mathbb{T}\rightarrow \mathbb{T}$ is a strictly increasing function such that $\tau(t)\leq t$ for $t\in \mathbb{T}$ and $\tau(t)\rightarrow\infty$ as $t\rightarrow\infty.$ By using the Riccati transformation technique and integral averaging technique, some new sufficient conditions which insure that every solution oscillates or tends to zero are established. Our results are new for third order nonlinear delay dynamic equations and complement the results established by Yu and Wang in J. Comput. Appl. Math., 2009, and Erbe, Peterson and Saker in J. Comput. Appl. Math., 2005. Some examples are given here to illustrate our main results

Post-chemotherapy miR-146a expression and its prognostic potential in oral cancer patients

Purpose: To determine miR-146a expression level after chemotherapy in oral cancer patients, and itsprognostic value.Methods: Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used for the determination of miR-146 expression levels. Based on the results, the analysis of the miR-146a expression in oral cancer patients was performed by drawing ROC curve to provide information on the prognostic value of miR-146a. The survival of the patients was monitored over a period of 5 years. The patients were categorized into high- and low-expression groups, and multivariate Cox regression analysis method was adopted to provide a more comprehensive analysis of individual risk factors influencing the prognosis of oral cancer.Results: The miR-146a expression level in patients after chemotherapy was lower than that in patients before they received chemotherapy (p < 0.05). The specificity of using miR-146a to predict oral cancer was 76.83 %, the sensitivity 69.44 %, and the area between the curve and x-axis 0.78. In contrast, the survival level was significantly greater in high-expression patients (p < 0.05).Conclusion: The independent risk parameters for buccal carcinoma are drinking, smoking, chronic leukoplakia, and miR-146a

The Impact of a New App Channel on Physicians’ Performance: Evidence From Online Healthcare Natural Experiment

Besides the web browser, the introduction of the mobile app in online healthcare systems has resulted in an additional touchpoint for users. Drawing on the Media Richness theory, we aim to reveal the effect of the mobile app channel on physicians’ performance in the online health communities (OHCs). We provide direct empirical evidence on a large-scale dataset from one of the largest Chinese OHCs, Haodf, and propose a natural experiment to show the casual effect. Our results demonstrate that the introduction of the app channel to OHCs for patients has a positive impact on physicians’ responses and rating performance on the online platforms, especially for male physicians from high-ranking hospitals