The brain in chronic insomnia and anxiety disorder: a combined structural and functional fMRI study.

Background: Chronic insomnia disorder (CID) is usually associated with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), which may change brain structure and function. However, the possible brain markers, imaging characteristics, and pathophysiology are unknown. Objective: To look at the probable brain markers, imaging characteristics, and pathogenesis of CID in combination with GAD. Methods: A total of 57 patients with CID concomitant GAD and 57 healthy controls (HC) were enrolled. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and functional connectivity (FC) were utilized to measure gray matter volume (GMV) and functional changes. Correlation analysis was utilized to identify relationships between brain changes and clinical characteristics. Results: Patients had decreased GMV in the left cerebellum, right cerebellar peduncle, and left insula; increased FC between the left cerebellum and right angular gyrus, as well as between the left insula and anterior left cingulate gyrus; and decreased FC in several areas, including the left cerebellum with the middle left cingulate gyrus and the left insula with the left superior postcentral gyrus. These brain changes related to CID and GAD. These data could be used to identify relevant brain markers, imaging features, and to better understand the etiology. Conclusion: The intensity of insomnia in patients was strongly related to the severity of anxiety. The lower GMV in the cerebellum could be interpreted as an imaging characteristic of CID. Reduced GMV in the insula, as well as aberrant function in the cingulate gyrus and prefrontal lobe, may contribute to the pathophysiology of CID and GAD. Abnormal function in the postcentral gyrus and angular gyrus may be associated with patients' clinical complaints.

Liraglutide Improves PCOS Symptoms in Rats by Targeting FDX1.

BACKGROUND: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a gynecological endocrine disorder characterized by ovulatory disorders, hyperandrogenemia, and polycystic changes in the ovaries. FDX1 is a ferredoxin-reducing protein on human mitochondria that plays an important role in steroid anabolism. Liraglutide, a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA), has recently emerged as a potential therapeutic agent for PCOS. Recent studies have suggested that FDX1 may be associated with the development of PCOS. This study aims to explore the pivotal role of FDX1 in the amelioration of PCOS through liraglutide intervention. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A PCOS rat model was induced via subcutaneous DHEA injections. Following successful model establishment, the rats were treated with liraglutide combined with metformin, or with each drug individually, over a six-week period. After 6 weeks of treatment, we assessed changes in body weight, fasting blood glucose, sex hormone levels, estrous cycle regularity, ovarian morphology, FDX1 expression in ovarian tissue, and ovarian ROS levels. RESULTS: PCOS rats exhibited significant increases in body weight and fasting blood glucose levels, disrupted estrous cycles, and polycystic ovarian morphology. FDX1 expression was notably reduced in the ovarian tissues of PCOS rats. Treatment with liraglutide, both alone and in combination with metformin, led to improvements in body weight, fasting blood glucose, sex hormone balance, estrous cycle regularity, ovarian morphology, and ovarian ROS levels. Notably, FDX1 expression was significantly restored in all treatment groups, with the most substantial increase observed in the liraglutide-treated group. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that FDX1 could serve as a potential biomarker for elucidating the underlying mechanisms of liraglutide's therapeutic effects in PCOS management.

Cerebellum and hippocampus abnormalities in patients with insomnia comorbid depression: a study on cerebral blood perfusion and functional connectivity.

Chronic insomnia disorder and major depressive disorder are highly-occurred mental diseases with extensive social harm. The comorbidity of these two diseases is commonly seen in clinical practice, but the mechanism remains unclear. To observe the characteristics of cerebral blood perfusion and functional connectivity in patients, so as to explore the potential pathogenesis and biological imaging markers, thereby improving the understanding of their comorbidity mechanism. 44 patients with chronic insomnia disorder comorbid major depressive disorder and 43 healthy controls were recruited in this study. The severity of insomnia and depression were assessed by questionnaire. The cerebral blood perfusion and functional connectivity values of participants were obtained to, analyze their correlation with questionnaire scores. The cerebral blood flow in cerebellum, vermis, right hippocampus, left parahippocampal gyrus of patients were reduced, which was negatively related to the severity of insomnia or depression. The connectivities of left cerebellum-right putamen and right hippocampus-left inferior frontal gyrus were increased, showing positive correlations with the severity of insomnia and depression. Decreased connectivities of left cerebellum-left fusiform gyrus, left cerebellum-left occipital lobe, right hippocampus-right paracentral lobule, right hippocampus-right precentral gyrus were partially associated with insomnia or depression. The connectivity of right hippocampus-left inferior frontal gyrus may mediate between insomnia and depression. Insomnia and depression can cause changes in cerebral blood flow and brain function. Changes in the cerebellar and hippocampal regions are the result of insomnia and depression. They reflect abnormalities in sleep and emotion regulation. That may be involved in the pathogenesis of comorbidity.

Foam fractionation and electrochemical oxidation for the treatment of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in environmental water samples.

Treatment of waters contaminated by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in large volumes remains a challenge to date. Treatment trains comprising separation and destruction technologies are promising to manage PFAS contamination. Foam fractionation (FF) and electrochemical oxidation (EO) are two cost-effective technologies for PFAS separation and destruction, respectively. This work systematically explored the performance of a treatment train of FF followed by EO (FF-EO) for treating PFAS in environmental water samples. For each treatment step, the dependence of the treatment performance on operational factors and other variables were analyzed statistically. The statistical analysis revealed PFAS enrichment and removal depend significantly on PFAS carbon chain length, solution conductivity, and PFAS concentration. Whether FF-EO treatment costs less energy than direct EO without FF mainly relies upon PFAS carbon chain length and TOC content in the sample. Both correlations were found to be linear. For all environmental water samples in this study, FF-EO is more energy-efficient than EO alone.

Aberrant structural and functional alterations in postpartum depression: a combined voxel-based morphometry and resting-state functional connectivity study.

Objectives: Postpartum depression (PPD) is a severe postpartum psychiatric disorder with unclear pathogenesis. Previous neuroimaging studies have reported structural or functional alterations in areas associated with emotion regulation, cognitive disorder, and parenting behaviors of PPD. The primary goal of this investigation was to explore the presence of brain structural alterations and relevant functional changes in PPD patients. Methods: A total of 28 patients and 30 matched healthy postnatal women (HPW) underwent both three-dimensional T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and resting-state functional MRI. Structural analysis was performed by voxel-based morphometry (VBM), followed by resting-state functional analysis using a seed-based whole-brain functional connectivity (FC) approach with abnormal gray matter volume (GMV) regions as seed. Results: Compared with HPW, the PPD patients showed increased GMV in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC.L), the right precentral gyrus (PrCG.R), and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). In the PPD group, the DLPFC.L showed increased FC with the right anterior cingulate and paracingulate gyri (ACG.R) and the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG.R); the FC between the PrCG.R and the right median cingulate and paracingulate gyri (DCG.R) exhibited enhanced; the OFC showed increased FC with MFG.R and the left inferior occipital gyrus (IOG.L). In PPD, GMV of DLPFC.L was positively correlated with EDPS scores (r = 0.409 p = 0.031), and FC of PrCG.R-DCG.R was positively correlated with EDPS scores (r = 0.483 p = 0.020). Conclusion: Structural and functional damage of the DLPFC.L and OFC is associated with cognitive disorders and parenting behaviors in PPD, while structural abnormalities of the DLPFC.L and PrCG.R are involved in impaired executive function. The increased GMV of DLPFC.L may be a unique structural pathological mechanism of PPD related to the inability of PPD patients to withstand long-term parenting stress. These findings have important implications for understanding neural mechanisms in PPD.

Segment aorta and localize landmarks simultaneously on noncontrast CT using a multitask learning framework for patients without severe vascular disease.

BACKGROUND: Non-contrast chest CT is widely used for lung cancer screening, and its images carry potential information of the thoracic aorta. The morphological assessment of the thoracic aorta may have potential value in the presymptomatic detection of thoracic aortic-related diseases and the risk prediction of future adverse events. However, due to low vasculature contrast in such images, visual assessment of aortic morphology is challenging and highly depends on physicians' experience. PURPOSE: The main objective of this study is to propose a novel multi-task framework based on deep learning for simultaneous aortic segmentation and localization of key landmarks on unenhanced chest CT. The secondary objective is to use the algorithm to measure quantitative features of thoracic aorta morphology. METHODS: The proposed network is composed of two subnets to carry out segmentation and landmark detection, respectively. The segmentation subnet aims to demarcate the aortic sinuses of the Valsalva, aortic trunk and aortic branches, whereas the detection subnet is devised to locate five landmarks on the aorta to facilitate morphology measures. The networks share a common encoder and run decoders in parallel, taking full advantage of the synergy of the segmentation and landmark detection tasks. Furthermore, the volume of interest (VOI) module and the squeeze-and-excitation (SE) block with attention mechanisms are incorporated to further boost the capability of feature learning. RESULTS: Benefiting from the multitask framework, we achieved a mean Dice score of 0.95, average symmetric surface distance of 0.53 mm, Hausdorff distance of 2.13 mm for aortic segmentation, and mean square error (MSE) of 3.23 mm for landmark localization in 40 testing cases. CONCLUSION: We proposed a multitask learning framework which can perform segmentation of the thoracic aorta and localization of landmarks simultaneously and achieved good results. It can support quantitative measurement of aortic morphology for further analysis of aortic diseases, such as hypertension.

Removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in water by foam fractionation.

Treatment of large volumes of waters contaminated by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) remains a challenge. This work presented a systematic study on PFAS removal by foam fractionation (FF). Experiments were conducted on both laboratory-spiked and environmental water samples containing PFASs. It is found that higher air flow, greater ionic strength, and addition of thickener boosted PFAS removal in the defoamed bottom solutions and intensified enrichment in the collected foam. FF treatments of a landfill leachate, a groundwater contaminated by aqueous film-forming foams, and a wastewater treatment plant effluent sample were evaluated. The removal reached above 70% for most monitored PFASs, except the ones of short alkyl chains. PFAS concentrations in the final collected foams were up to over 30 × than that in the original samples. Analysis using high-resolution mass spectrometry revealed enrichment of non-target PFASs by FF. The results of this study demonstrate great effectiveness of FF in removing most PFASs from waters, producing low-volume, highly concentrated solutions of PFASs in all tested environmental samples.

An Environmentally Sustainable Software-Defined Networking Data Dissemination Method for Mixed Traffic Flows in RSU Clouds with Energy Restriction.

The connected multi road side unit (RSU) environment can be envisioned as the RSU cloud. In this paper, the Software-Defined Networking (SDN) framework is utilized to dynamically reconfigure the RSU clouds for the mixed traffic flows with energy restrictions, which are composed of five categories of vehicles with distinctive communication demands. An environmentally sustainable SDN data dissemination method for safer and greener transportation solutions is thus proposed, aiming to achieve the lowest overall SDN cloud delay with the least working hosts and minimum energy consumption, which is a mixed integer linear programming problem (MILP). To solve the problem, Joint optimization algorithms with Finite resources (JF) in three hyperparameters versions, JF (DW = 0.3, HW = 0.7), JF (DW = 0.5, HW = 0.5) and JF (DW = 0.7, HW = 0.3), were proposed, which are in contrast with single-objective optimization algorithms, the Host Optimization (H) algorithm, and the Delay optimization (D) algorithm. Results show that JF (DW = 0.3, HW = 0.7) and JF (DW = 0.5, HW = 0.5), when compared with the D algorithm, usually had slightly larger cloud delays, but fewer working hosts and energy consumptions, which has vital significance for enhancing energy efficiency and environmental protection, and shows the superiority of JFs over the D algorithm. Meanwhile, the H algorithm had the least working hosts and fewest energy consumptions under the same conditions, but completely ignored the explosive surge of delay, which is not desirable for most cases of the SDN RSU cloud. Further analysis showed that the larger the network topology of the SDN cloud, the harder it was to find a feasible network configuration. Therefore, when designing an environmentally sustainable SDN RSU cloud for the greener future mobility of intelligent transportation systems, its size should be limited or partitioned into a relatively small topology.

Infrared Sensation-Based Salient Targets Enhancement Methods in Low-Visibility Scenes.

Thermal imaging is an important technology in low-visibility environments, and due to the blurred edges and low contrast of infrared images, enhancement processing is of vital importance. However, to some extent, the existing enhancement algorithms based on pixel-level information ignore the salient feature of targets, the temperature which effectively separates the targets by their color. Therefore, based on the temperature and pixel features of infrared images, first, a threshold denoising model based on wavelet transformation with bilateral filtering (WTBF) was proposed. Second, our group proposed a salient components enhancement method based on a multi-scale retinex algorithm combined with frequency-tuned salient region extraction (MSRFT). Third, the image contrast and noise distribution were improved by using salient features of orientation, color, and illuminance of night or snow targets. Finally, the accuracy of the bounding box of enhanced images was tested by the pre-trained and improved object detector. The results show that the improved method can reach an accuracy of 90% of snow targets, and the average precision of car and people categories improved in four low-visibility scenes, which demonstrates the high accuracy and adaptability of the proposed methods of great significance for target detection, trajectory tracking, and danger warning of automobile driving.

RNA-dependent protein kinase is required for interferon-γ-induced autophagy in MG63 osteosarcoma cells.

Osteosarcoma is a bone tumor that mainly affects children and adolescents. Interferons (IFNs) have been shown to exert antitumor effects in osteosarcoma cells, although the molecular mechanisms have not been fully realized. We investigated IFN-γ actions on osteosarcoma cells. Our results show that IFN-γ induces the accumulation of autophagosomes in osteosarcoma cells. IFN-γ treatment leads to the conversion of autophagy marker light chain 3 (LC3)-I to LC3-II in osteosarcoma cells, and this conversion is accompanied by puncta formation. Also, IFN-γ-mediated induction of autophagosome formation and autophagic flux require RNA-dependent protein kinase (PKR) activity. In addition, our findings show that IFN-γ-mediated osteosarcoma cell death is not dependent on PKR. Our study suggests that IFN-γ has differential effects that lead to induction of cell death and autophagy in osteosarcoma cells. Further evaluation of the IFN-γ-mediated molecular mechanism could lead to improved understanding of and targeted treatment strategies for osteosarcoma.

Effect of long working hours and insomnia on depressive symptoms among employees of Chinese internet companies.

BACKGROUND: In China, long working hours and insomnia are relatively common among internet company employees. Considering that both can affect mental health, we examined their independent and interaction effects on these employees' depressive symptoms (DS). METHODS: We analyzed data from the 2016 occupational health questionnaire survey conducted in 35 large-, medium-, and small-scale internet companies. Overall, 3589 full-time employees were recruited to evaluate the association among working hours, insomnia, and DS. The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) was used to assess DS. The association of DS (PHQ-9 ≥ 10) with working hours (≤40, 41-50, 51-60, and > 60 h/week), insomnia (with or without), and interaction of both was estimated using multivariable logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: Compared with the group working for ≤40 h/week, the adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for DS among participants who worked for 41-50 h/week, 51-60 h/week, and > 60 h/week were 1.32 (1.11-1.56), 1.74 (1.35-2.24), and 2.54 (1.90-3.39), respectively. The ORs for DS among those with insomnia were 2.36 (2.04-2.74) after adjusting for general characteristics. The ORs for DS related to insomnia were similar [1.91 (1.46-2.50), 2.00 (1.61-2.50), respectively] in the participants who worked for < 50 h/week. However, among participants working for 51-60 h or > 60 h/week, the adjusted ORs for DS substantially increased to 4.62 (2.90-7.37) and 5.60 (3.36-9.33), respectively. Moreover, among the participants with insomnia, working overtime showed a greater association with DS. CONCLUSIONS: We showed that long working hours and insomnia are independent factors associated with the prevalence of DS; furthermore, an interaction effect of long working hours and insomnia on DS was observed. For relieving DS in internet company employees, it is important to reduce insomnia.

Use of three-dimensional-printed custom-made prosthesis to treat unicondylar femoral defect secondary to pathological fracture caused by giant cell tumor.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the short-term effectiveness of using a three-dimensional (3D)-printed custom-made prosthesis to repair unicondylar femoral defects. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed 26 patients with a primary pathological fracture of the distal femur caused by a giant cell tumor. All patients had unicondylar defects involving the articular surface. Twelve patients were treated with a 3D-printed custom-made prosthesis to repair the unicondylar defect (3D-printed group). The other 14 patients were treated with total knee replacement (TKR group). The operation time, blood loss, Musculoskeletal Tumor Society score, range of motion, local recurrence, and complications were statistically compared. RESULTS: The operation time was significantly shorter and the blood loss was significantly less in the 3D-printed group than in the TKR group. The Musculoskeletal Tumor Society scores were significantly higher in the 3D-printed group than in the TKR group from 3 to 24 months postoperatively. The range of motion was significantly better in the 3D-printed group than in the TKR group at 6 and 9 months postoperatively. CONCLUSIONS: 3D-printed custom-made prostheses provide better short-term functional results than does TKR.

Improving the biotransformation of phytosterols to 9α-hydroxy-4-androstene-3,17-dione by deleting embC associated with the assembly of cell envelope in Mycobacterium neoaurum.

The conversion of low value-added phytosterols into 9α-hydroxy-4-androstene-3,17-dione (9-OHAD) by mycobacteria is an important step in the steroid pharmaceutical industry. However, the highly dense cell envelope with extremely low permeability largely affects the overall transformation efficiency. Here, we preliminarily located the key gene embC required for the synthesis of lipoarabinomannan from lipomannan in Mycobacterium neoaurum. The genetic manipulation of embC indicated that it might be the only functional enzyme catalyzing the above synthesis process. The deficiency of lipoarabinomannan led to a significantly increased cell permeability, which in turn caused the enhanced uptake capacity of cells. The sterol substrate conversion efficiency of mycobacterial cells was increased by about 52.4 % after 72-h conversion. Ultimately, the absence of embC increased the productivity from 0.0927 g/L/h to 0.1031 g/L/h, as confirmed by a resting cell system. This study verified the feasibility of improving the efficiency of the microbial conversion system through the cell envelope engineering strategy.

An Online Classification Method for Fault Diagnosis of Railway Turnouts.

Railway turnout system is a key infrastructure to railway safety and efficiency. However, it is prone to failure in the field. Therefore, many railway departments have adopted a monitoring system to monitor the operation status of turnouts. With monitoring data collected, many researchers have proposed different fault-diagnosis methods. However, many of the existing methods cannot realize real-time updating or deal with new fault types. This paper-based on imbalanced data-proposes a Bayes-based online turnout fault-diagnosis method, which realizes incremental learning and scalable fault recognition. First, the basic conceptions of the turnout system are introduced. Next, the feature extraction and processing of the imbalanced monitoring data are introduced. Then, an online diagnosis method based on Bayesian incremental learning and scalable fault recognition is proposed, followed by the experiment with filed data from Guangzhou Railway. The results show that the scalable fault-recognition method can reach an accuracy of 99.11%, and the training time of the Bayesian incremental learning model reduces 29.97% without decreasing the accuracy, which demonstrates the high accuracy, adaptability and efficiency of the proposed model, of great significance for labor-saving, timely maintenance and further, safety and efficiency of railway transportation.

Influence of Prolonged Visual Display Terminal Use and Exercise on Physical and Mental Conditions of Internet Staff in Hangzhou, China.

To examine the effects of prolonged visual display terminal (VDT) working hours and exercise frequency on VDT-related symptoms, we recruited 944 Chinese internet staff for the study. A self-administered questionnaire survey was used to obtain the hours of daily VDT work, exercise frequency, and the physical and mental health of the participants. The daily VDT working time of participants was 8.7 hours. Musculoskeletal pain and eye complaints were prevalent, and the participants had poor mental health status. When daily VDT operation time was more than 11 hours, VDT-related symptoms, including backache (odds ratios (OR) = 3.59), wrist pain (OR = 1.88), hip pain (OR = 2.42), dry eyes (OR = 2.22), and ocular soreness (OR = 2.16) were more likely to occur, and an increased risk of serious occupational stress (OR = 6.75) and job burnout (OR = 2.66) was found in internet workers. Compared with those who never exercised, appropriate exercise frequency (three times per week) was helpful to relieve pain in the shoulders (OR = 0.28), neck (OR = 0.45), back (OR = 0.30), lower back (OR = 0.25), and wrists (OR = 0.38), as well as to prevent vision loss (OR = 0.33) and job burnout (OR = 0.42). Therefore, avoiding excessive VDT exposure and performing moderate exercise could protect the physical and mental health of internet staff from the adverse effects of VDT.

miR-143 inhibits proliferation and metastasis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells via targeting FMNL1 based on clinical and radiologic findings.

Mounting evidence has reported that microRNA-143 (miR-143) is involved in the development of multiple cancers. To investigate the underlying mechanisms of miR-143 regulating proliferation and metastasis in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) cells, we evaluated the levels of miR-143 and formin-like protein 1 (FMNL1) in NPC tissues. The results of qRT-PCR and Western blot analysis showed that the expression of miR-143 was decreased, while FMNL1 was increased in NPC tissues. The expression of miR-143 was significantly elevated in NPC cells compared with that of human nasopharyngeal epithelial cells. The results of MiRcode prediction, dual-luciferase reporter, and Western blot analysis assays indicated that miR-143 negatively regulated the expression of FMNL1 (r2 = 0.4365P = 0.0001). Overexperssion of miR-143 or FMNL1 knockdown inhibited cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in NPC cells (P < 0.05). Ectopic expression of FMNL1 undermined the inhibition effect of miR-143 on proliferation, migration, and invasion in NPC cells. The findings of this study revealed that miR-143 functioned as a tumor suppressor and inhibited the NPC progression by targeting FMNL1.

The Long Noncoding RNA NEAT1 Targets miR-34a-5p and Drives Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Progression via Wnt/ß-Catenin Signaling.

PURPOSE: Long noncoding RNA nuclear paraspeckle assembly transcript 1 (NEAT1) has been deemed an oncogene in many human cancers. However, the underlying mechanism of NEAT1 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) progression remains largely unclear. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Quantitative real-time PCR assay was performed to assess the expression of NEAT1 and miR-34a-5p in NPC tissues and cells. Western blot analysis was used to observe cell epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and the activation of Wnt/ß-catenin signaling in 5-8F cells. MiRNA directly interacting with NEAT1 were verified by dual-luciferase reporter assay and RNA immunoprecipitation. Cell proliferation ability was determined by CCK-8 assay, and cell migration and invasion capacities were assessed by transwell assays. An animal model was used to investigate the regulatory effect of NEAT1 on tumor growth in vivo. RESULTS: Our data revealed that NEAT1 is upregulated, while miR-34a-5p is downregulated in NPC tissues and cell lines. NEAT1 knockdown repressed tumor growth in vitro and in vivo. Additionally, we discovered that NEAT1 directly binds to miR-34a-5p and suppresses miR-34a-5p expression. Moreover, NEAT1 knockdown exerted suppression effects on cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and EMT by miR-34a-5p. NEAT1 knockdown blocked Wnt/ß-catenin signaling via miR-34a-5p. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrated that NEAT1 targets miR-34a-5p at least partly to drive NPC progression by regulating Wnt/ß-catenin signaling, suggesting a potential therapeutic target for NPC.

Differentiation of nestin­negative human hair follicle outer root sheath cells into neurons in vitro.

A specialized quiescent population of hair follicle stem cells, residing in the hair follicle outer root sheath cells (ORSCs), has previously demonstrated pluripotency for differentiation into neural stem cells (NSCs). A previous study indicated that nestin­positive hair follicle ORSCs are able to differentiate into neurons. However, little has been reported on the isolation of nestin­negative human ORSCs and whether they can successfully differentiate into neurons in vitro. In the present study, nestin­positive ORSCs were significantly reduced with a prolonged incubation time in vitro. Following 9 days of primary culture, nestin­expressing ORSCs disappeared entirely, and ORSCs remained nestin­negative following 5 days of subculture. Notably, nestin was identified in ORSCs following a three­step process of neuro­induction. In addition, neruodevelopmental markers were detected in the ORSC­derived nestin­positive spherical cell mass, including the induction of the neuronal specific markers growth associated protein­43, neurotensin receptor­3 and p75 neurotrophin receptor, and also the gliocyte markers, glial fibrillary acidic protein and S100. These sphere­forming cells did not express the mature neuron­associated markers neurofilament medium, neuronal nuclei and neuron­specific enolase, which suggested that sphere­forming cells may preferentially differentiate into neural stem cell­like cells as opposed to mature neurons or neurogliocyte. In conclusion, ORSC­driven neural differentiation may be a suitable treatment strategy for neurodegenerative diseases and may possess an important value in regenerative medicine.

Using the Job Burden-Capital Model of Occupational Stress to Predict Depression and Well-Being among Electronic Manufacturing Service Employees in China.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to identify the association between occupational stress and depression-well-being by proposing a comprehensive and flexible job burden-capital model with its corresponding hypotheses. METHODS: For this research, 1618 valid samples were gathered from the electronic manufacturing service industry in Hunan Province, China; self-rated questionnaires were administered to participants for data collection after obtaining their written consent. The proposed model was fitted and tested through structural equation model analysis. RESULTS: Single-factor correlation analysis results indicated that coefficients between all items and dimensions had statistical significance. The final model demonstrated satisfactory global goodness of fit (CMIN/DF = 5.37, AGFI = 0.915, NNFI = 0.945, IFI = 0.952, RMSEA = 0.052). Both the measurement and structural models showed acceptable path loadings. Job burden and capital were directly associated with depression and well-being or indirectly related to them through personality. Multi-group structural equation model analyses indicated general applicability of the proposed model to basic features of such a population. Gender, marriage and education led to differences in the relation between occupational stress and health outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: The job burden-capital model of occupational stress-depression and well-being was found to be more systematic and comprehensive than previous models.

[Optimization of primary hepatocytes model and study on the cytotoxicity of styrene and styrene oxide].

OBJECTIVE: To establish a model in vitro for primary cultured mouse hepatocytes with high viability and function, and evaluate the acute toxicity of the primary hepatocytes exposed to the chemicals such as styrene and styrene oxide (SO). METHODS: Based on the classical method, the two-step collagenase digestion method was optimized by reverse and intermittent perfusion, restriction of digestion time as well as purification of percoll liquid. Hepatocytes were isolated from BALB/C mouse by an improved isolated method and then cultured in monolayer and sandwich configuration. The primary cultured hepatocytes model was assessed by various indexes including cell morphology, cell viability, intracellular glycogen granules, as well as albumin (ALB), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and blood urine nitrogen (BUN) levels in the supernatant. In addition, the primary cultured hepatocytes were treated with various concentrations from 0.2 to 25 micromol/L of styrene and styrene oxide during different time from 3 to 48 hours. The cytotoxicity induced by the two toxicants was assessed by CCK-8 and LDH assays. RESULTS: On average, the isolation using this improved method resulted in the cell viability of (90.3 +/- 5.2) %, the cell purity of (95.3 +/- 4.2)% and the yield of (2.4 +/- 0.9) x 10(7) viable cells. More than 90% cells showed a typical morphological feature of hepatocytes in sandwich configuration within 7 days, and contained a large number of glycogen granules on the third day. The ALB secretion, ALT and LDH leakage and BUN synthesis as well as cell viability fluctuated during 8 days, and they stayed at stable levels between 3 to 7 days in sandwich configuration. But they fluctuated during 6 days in monolayer configuration. In comparison with the monolayer configuration, the levels of ALB and BUN were distinctly increased and the levels of LDH and ALT were significantly decreased in sandwich configuration. The levels of ALB [ (1.42 +/- 0.20) g/L ] and BUN [(1.97 +/- 0.22) mmol/L] as well as cell viability were the highest, while the levels of LDH [ (7.30 +/- 2.33) U/L] and ALT [ (6.51 +/- 1.86) U/L] were the lowest in sandwich configuration on the third day. The relative low cytotoxicity and high cell survival rate ( more than 90%) were shown in treated hepatocytes with styrene and styrene oxide within 6 hours by CCK-8 and LDH measurements, and there was no distinct difference in the determination of cytotoxicity between the two methods. With the prolonged exposure time, the cell survival rate was lower by CCK-8 assay (less than 85%) than the one by LDH assay. The relative obvious cytotoxicity and low cell survival rate (about 85%) by CCK-8 method were revealed in treated cells with 5 micromol/L of styrene and styrene oxide for 24 hours, but there was no significant difference between CCK-8 and LDH assays. With the increase of the concentrations, the cell survival rate was lower by CCK-8 assay (less than 80%) compared with LDH assay. CONCLUSION: The improved two-step collagenase digestion method combination with sandwich culture method might maintain the morphology and function of primary cultured mouse hepatocytes for seven days. The cytotoxic effects of styrene and styrene oxide might be accurately evaluated by means of primary cultured hepatocyte model from 3 to 7 days. The chemicals might have major adverse effects on the functions of the organelles in hepatocytes such as mitochondria, but little influence to the cell membrane damage.