Meta-analysis: the efficacy of nootropic agent Cerebrolysin in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

To determine the therapeutic effect of nootropic agent Cerebrolysin on patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD), we searched the Cochrane Library, Medline, PubMed, and Chinese Biomedical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System for Compact Disc (CBMDISC), and communicated with EBEWE Pharmaceutical Ltd, for randomized trials comparing Cerebrolysin with placebo in AD. Available data on clinical global impression, cognitive performance and activities of daily living were extracted from 6 randomized double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trials and combined with standard meta-analysis methods. An infusion with Cerebrolysin for 4 weeks (30 ml Cerebrolysin daily on five consecutive days of each week) led to a significant improvement of the clinical global impression. Compared with placebo, log(OR) was 1.1799, and 95% confident interval was 0.7463-1.6135 (P < 0.05), indicating that Cerebrolysin could significantly improve the clinical global impression in patients with mild to moderate AD. However, more convincing evidences are needed for the efficacy of Cerebrolysin on the cognitive performance and activities of daily living.

[Immune modulatory and therapeutical effect of shenqi tablet accessory therapy in treating recurrent genital herpes].

OBJECTIVE: To observe the immune modulatory and therapeutical effect of Shenqi tablet (SQT) in treating recurrent genital herpes. METHODS: Sixty-three patients were randomly divided into two groups, the SQT group (34 cases) and the control group (29 cases). The immunologic function of patients was determined before and after treatment and the recurrence rate of two groups was compared. RESULTS: In the SQT group after treatment, CD3, CD4 and CD4/CD8 ratio raised, CD8 percent lowered, serum interleukin 2 (SIL-2) and RBC-C3b raised and serum SIL-2 receptor lowered (all P < 0.05), while in the control group, the above-mentioned parameters were not changed significantly. Follow-up conducted 6 months after treatment showed that the recurrence rate in the SQT group was 26.5% (9 cases), which was lower than that in the control group (72.4%, 21 cases) significantly (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: SQT has immune modulatory effect in patients with recurrent genital herpes, it could reduce the recurrence rate.

Recombinant A17 Lys human insulin: purification and characterization.

Recombinant A17 Lys human insulin precursor expressed in yeast cells was isolated from the culture medium. After purification, the precursor was converted into A17 Lys human insulin. A17 Lys human insulin can be crystallized but has much lower receptor-binding and biological activities than porcine or human insulin where A17 is Glu. It is proposed that the A17 Glu residue may be involved in the receptor-binding or the active site of human insulin.

Fanning noise reduction in photorefractive amplifiers using incoherent erasures.

We propose and demonstrate a new scheme of beam fanning reduction in photorefractive amplifiers by using incoherent erasure. This simple and effective approach employs a pump beam with a mixed polarization state or introduces a third incoherent beam for selective erasure. The approach is analyzed, and the experimental results are presented and discussed.

Compact reflection-grating-based phase conjugator in KNbO(3):Fe crystals.

We present the design and the results of experimental investigations of a self-pumped phase conjugator through a reflection grating in a special-cut photorefractive KNbO(3):Fe crystal. High reflectivity, good phase-conjugate fidelity, and fast response time are obtained.

Shift-invariant photorefractive joint-transform correlator using Fe:LiNbO(3). crystal plates.

We report the results of our experimental investigation on a shift-invariant photorefractive image correlator that uses a thin crystal plate of Fe:LiNbO(3), which operates in the Raman-Nath regime of diffraction.

Analysis of photorefractive Fabry-Perot étalons: a novel device.

We propose and analyze the properties of photorefractive Fabry-Perot étalons that consist of photorefractive crystal plates with high-reflectance coatings. Some new phenomena such as nonreciprocity, bandwidth narrowing, and broadening are presented.

Optical thresholding and maximum operations.

Self-oscillations in nonlinear optical four-wave mixing and resonators are considered. Some unique properties of these oscillations can be employed for implementing parallel optical thresholding, comparing, and maximum operations. Both theoretical and experimental results that are obtained by utilizing the photorefractive nonlinearity are presented and discussed.

Reduced coherence, stability, and temporal overlap requirements for holography.

We demonstrate that the conventional requirements for hologram formation can be substantially relaxed by interfering two independent local reference beam holograms in a photorefractive medium.