A Tale of Two Needles

Looking back, I guess the name should have been my first clue. “Alternative” medicine? “Complementary” medicine? What is it about these medical practices, which to me are completely traditional, that places them in a secondary position to other medicinal options in the United States? [excerpt

PO-278 The Mechanism Of LIL combined with AZD8055 On The Glutamine Addiction Of CT26 Cells

Objective The photobiomodulation of low-intensity lasers can activate many pathways and molecules, which involved in tumor growth, invasion, metastasis, and resistance to drugs or radiation therapy, but studies of low-intensity lasers on tumor cell addiction, have not been reported. Numerous studies have shown that changes in plasma and muscle glutamine levels can occur when the body undergoes prolonged exercise (>1 hour) or overtraining. AZD8055 is a dual inhibitor of mammalian rapamycin complex (mTORC)1/mTORC2 that inhibits phosphorylation of mTORC1 (p70S6K and 4E-BP1), mTORC2 (AKT) and downstream proteins. Based on the experimental model of glutamine addiction in laboratory, we chose the worst conditions to cause super-proliferation of CT26 cells and simulate the drug resistance of solid tumors. The purpose is to study tumor deterioration from the perspective of tumor cell function. Under the state, the effect of low-intensity laser combined with AZD8055 on the proliferation of glutamine addiction in CT26 cells is also the development of exercise intervention tumors, and the experimental basis is proposed from the perspective of nutrient metabolism. Methods This experiment used a pre-experimental glutamine addiction model to culture mouse colon cancer CT26 cells after horse serum shock, and used different intensity 640±15 nm low-intensity lasers from light-emitting diode arrays (red light at 640±15 nm from Light emitting diode array, RLED), 15 min/day；different concentrations of AZD8055 (0 ~ 100μM) on different proliferative CT26 cells at different times. Cell proliferation was detected by MTT assay; mRNA levels of proliferation-related genes were detected by RT-PCR; protein levels were detected by western blot. The data were analyzed by SPSS21.0 statistical software and self-similarity index analysis. Among them, the statistical significance level was set at 0.05, P<0.05 was different; P<0.01 was significant difference. In the self-similarity index analysis method, l>0.8 is a significant difference. Results 1.CT26 cells were incubated at Gln7.94 mM until the 8th day, and AZD8055 was added at different concentrations. Compared with no inhibitor , and at 6 h, the cells were significantly increased when the concentration of AZD8055 was 0.001 μM, 1 μM, 10 μM and 100 μM. (P<0.01); at 12h, the cells were significantly inhibition when the of AZD8055>0.5μM (P<0.01). 2.From the growth inhibition rate analysis, at 48 h and 72 h, the inhibition rate exceeded 50%,when the concentration of AZD8055 was 100 μM (61.01% and 87.46%), when< 0.1 μM,  the cells were proliferation occurred at 48 h and 72 h, and it is drug resistance. 3.When AZD8055 combined with low-intensity laser treatment of CT26 cells, CT26 cells had different degrees of proliferative effects at different time points: 12h, 24h, 48h and 72h. Especially at 48h, the light intensity of LIL2 to LIL8 had a significant proliferative effect on CT26 cells (l≥0.8). 4.Compared with the control group (0 hours without inhibitor), the CT26 cells were treatment with AZD8055 1μM , the mRNA level of the gene GLUT1 was significantly down-regulated in all time periods (P<0.01). When the LIL(2.17 mW/cm2) combined AZD8055 (1μM) significantly promoted the proliferation of CT26 cells at 24h and 48h. It is related to up-regulated of protein expression in all time points: at 6h and 12h, the pMEK protein and the pMEK/ MEK were significantly up-regulated(P<0.01). At 24h, the expression of GLUT1 protein was up-regulated(P<0.01), MEK protein, pERK protein and ERK/ pERK were significantly up-regulated (P<0.01).  At 48h, the GLUT1 protein, MEK protein , pERK protein and pERK/ERK were up-regulated (P<0.01). Conclusions 1.The minimum inhibitory concentration of AZD8055 on super-proliferative CT26 cells was 0.5 μM, and the super-proliferative state showed more obvious drug resistance. 2.When low-intensity lasers combined with AZD8055 treated CT26  super-proliferating cells, CT26 cells are not sensitive to AZD8055, while low-intensity lasers promote CT26 cells proliferation by up-regulating MEK/ERK signaling pathways

PL - 040 A Metabonomic Study on the Urine of Rowing Athletes

Objective To extract information that affect sport performance, the technique of urine metabolism and quantitative difference（QD）analysis were combined in search of the characteristic metabolites of the rowing athletes. Methods Morning urine were collected in three consecutive weeks, main peaks of the 1H NMR spectrum which have significant difference between the medalists and non-medalists were selected from thousands of one dimensional NMR hydrogen spectrum of urine. Pattern recognition method based on metabonomics combined with QD so that the metabolites which could reflect the competitive level of the elite athletes could be selected from the main components. Results 1.The optimal principal component of rowing athletes were principal component 1 and 5（PC1&PC5）. 2. Results of 7-fold cross validation showed that the PLS-DA model were stable, reliable and has good prediction ability. Results of the repeatability experiment showed that sample test accuracy were above 85%. 3. N-methylnicotinamide was obtained by multi-criteria assessment methods as the characteristic metabolite. 4. Substance concentration related to aerobic and anaerobic metabolism were different in urine of the rowing athletes. Conclusions The athletes' urine contains the information of sport performance. Metabonomics combined with QD analysis could be widely applied in the evaluation of rowing athletes' competitive ability. The role of nicotinic acid in regulating energy metabolism and protecting human body might be a necessary condition with which athletes could tolerance high strength training and competition

Effect of Laser Irradiation on sIg A and Mucosa Structure of Upper Respiratory Tract with Six-week Incremental Exercise

[Objective] Mucosal immune suppression, with chronic intensive exercise, can be associated with an increased risk of upper respiratory tract infections, which should be related to the deterioration of the nasal mucosa structure. This study aimed to observe the change of nasal mucosa structure with 6-week incremental exercise, and to explore the effect of low level laser irradiation on nasal mucosa structure and mucosal immune function. [Methods] 40 Sprague–Dawle rats, aged 8 weeks, were divided into 4 groups : Control, Exercise, Low power (4mw, 12.23 J/cm2) and High power laser (6mw, 18.34J/cm2) groups. Incremental treadmill exercise protocols: successive 6 weeks, 6 days/week, 30min /day. 10 m/min velocity during wk1, 20 m for wk2, with 5m/min/wk increment following weeks. The treatment of low level laser as following: He-Ne laser (0.19625 cm2 ), two irradiation point of nasal ala, 6-week duration, 6 days/wk, 2 times/day; 5min/time. Samples were taken pre and post 6-week exercise. Structure of mucosa of nose was observed by HE staining and sIgA tested by ELISA. [Results] 1) following changes occurred in Exercise group after 6-wk exercise: nasal mucosa was seriously damaged and cilia layer of free edge fell essentially off. And mucous degeneration, necrosis and inflammatory cell infiltration were observed. 2）compared with exercise group, significant improvement was found with laser treatment. 3) sIgA with different groups saw as Table 1. Table 1 sIgA changes after 6-wk exercise groups Control Exercise Low dose laser High dose laser sIgA(μg/ml) 52.92±6.69 50.20±4.76 70.77±4.24 73.71±3.91* * P\u3c0.05 [Conclusion] The long-term high-intensity exercise training would lead to destruction of nasal mucosa structure, and low energy laser irradiation had a beneficial effect on sIgA and nasal mucosa structure

Bridging the Gap between Pre-Training and Fine-Tuning for End-to-End Speech Translation

End-to-end speech translation, a hot topic in recent years, aims to translate a segment of audio into a specific language with an end-to-end model. Conventional approaches employ multi-task learning and pre-training methods for this task, but they suffer from the huge gap between pre-training and fine-tuning. To address these issues, we propose a Tandem Connectionist Encoding Network (TCEN) which bridges the gap by reusing all subnets in fine-tuning, keeping the roles of subnets consistent, and pre-training the attention module. Furthermore, we propose two simple but effective methods to guarantee the speech encoder outputs and the MT encoder inputs are consistent in terms of semantic representation and sequence length. Experimental results show that our model outperforms baselines 2.2 BLEU on a large benchmark dataset.Comment: AAAI202

An impact evaluation of technology adoption by smallholders in Sichuan, China: the case of sweet potato-pig systems

We employ propensity score matching (PSM) framework to examine the impact of sweet potato-based feed technology adoption on household-based pig production in Sichuan, China. An ex post survey in six villages was conducted in 2009, of which five villages were in project intervention sites (exposed area) and one village in the same township but not exposed to project intervention (non-exposed area). We randomly selected 111 households in the exposed areas from the list of households previously interviewed in a baseline survey and 53 households from non-exposed area. Matching estimators such as nearest neighbor matching (NNM), radius matching (RM) and kernel matching (KM) were used to estimate average treatment effects. Results indicate positive net benefit from adoption of sweet potato-based feeding technology, i.e., gross margin estimates of silage adopters are on average higher by 2-4 RMB per kg liveweight of output than non-adopters of similar characteristics. Silage adopters are also likely to produce 3-7 more slaughter pigs per year than non-adopters having similar characteristics, on average. Analysis of factors driving adoption indicates that sweet potato-based feed technology is not suitable in all smallholder context in Sichuan. Where this is suitable is in systems where sweet potato is an important crop, where there is limited access to input markets such as in upland or mountainous areas, where corn is not an important crop, and where households raise no more than 10 pigs given available household labor for pig raising in rural areas (generally either old people who are no longer active in the labor force, or young children who are still in school). Overall, the results show that sweet potato-based feed technology plays an important role in helping household-based pig producers become resilient, by having options in feeding strategies that help them cope with volatility in output prices (e.g., prices of live pigs as a function of retail prices of pork) and input prices (e.g., price of corn vis-à-vis price of pork, price of industrial feed). Exposure to the technology and its benefits through actual demonstration also appears to be more effective in engendering uptake and sustaining adoption.Technology adoption, impact assessment, crop-livestock systems, Livestock Production/Industries, Production Economics, O22, O33, Q16,

Licoflavanone exerts anticancer effects on human nasopharyngeal cancer cells via caspase activation, suppression of cell migration and invasion, and inhibition of m-TOR/PI3K/AKT pathway

Purpose: To study the anticancer effect of licoflavanone against human nasopharyngeal HKI carcinoma, and the mechanism involved. Methods: The 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay was used to determine the effect of licoflavanone on cell viability, while DAPI staining and western blotting were used to study its proapoptotic effect. Morphological examination was performed under phase contrast microscopy. Transwell chamber assays were used to study cell migration and invasion. The expression levels of mTOR/PI3K/AKT signal pathway-related proteins were assayed by Western blotting. Results: Licoflavanone markedly suppressed the proliferation of nasopharyngeal HK1 cancer cells in a concentration-reliant pattern (p < 0.01). The anticancer effects of licoflavanone were mediated via induction of pro-apoptotic effects and blocking of mTOR/PI3K/AKT signal pathway. Licoflavanone enhanced the activities of caspase-3, caspase-8, caspase-9 and cleaved caspase-3, as well as Bax and Bad. Moreover, licoflavanone blocked the migration and invasion of HK1 nasopharyngeal cancer cells. Conclusion: Licoflavanone exerts potent anticancer effects on human nasopharyngeal cancer cells via caspase activation, inhibition of cell migration and cell invasion, and down-regulation of m-TOR/PI3K/AKT signal pathway. Therefore, licoflavanone may be a useful lead drug for the development of a treatment strategy for nasopharyngeal cancer