Physicochemical Characterization and Antitumor Activity of Fucoidan and Its Degraded Products from Sargassum hemiphyllum (Turner) C. Agardh.

Fucoidan has many biological functions, including anti-tumor activity. Additionally, it has been suggested that low-molecular-weight fucoidans have greater bioactivities. This study aimed to examine the degradation, purification, physicochemical characterization and in vitro antitumor activity of fucoidan from Sargassum hemiphyllum (Turner) C. Agardh. Fucoidan was isolated using DEAE-cellulose-52 (F1, F2), Vc-H2O2 degration, and Sepharose CL-6B gel (DF1, DF2) from crude Sargassum fucoidans. Physicochemical characteristics of four isolated fucoidans were examined using chemical and monosaccharide composition, average molecular weight (Mw), and FTIR. Furthermore, the anti-proliferative effects of purified fucoidans on human hepatocellular carcinoma cells (HepG2), human Burkitt Lymphoma cells (MCF-7), human uterine carcinoma cells (Hela) and human lung cancer cells (A549) were analyzed by MTT method. The apoptosis of HepG2 cells was detected by flow cytometry. Our data suggest that the contents of polysaccharide, L-fucose and sulfate of DF2 were the highest, which were 73.93%, 23.02% and 29.88%, respectively. DF1 has the smallest molecular weight (14,893 Da) followed by DF2 (21,292 Da). The four fractions are mainly composed of fucose, mannose and rhamnose, and the infrared spectra are similar, all of which contain polysaccharide and sulfate characteristic absorption peaks. The results of MTT assay showed that the four fractions had inhibitory effects on HepG2 and A549 in the range of 0.5-8 mg/mL, and the four fractions had strong cytotoxic effects on HepG2 cells. DF2 had the best inhibitory effect on HepG2 (IC50 = 2.2 mg/mL). In general, the antitumor activity of Sargassum fucoidans is related to the content of L-fucose, sulfate and molecular weight, and Sargassum fucoidan has the best inhibitory effect on HepG2 hepatocellular carcinoma cells. Furthermore, when compared to MCF-7, Hela, and A549 cells, Sargassum fucoidans had the best capacity to reduce the viability of human hepatocellular carcinoma cells (HepG2) and to induce cell apoptosis, proving itself to have a good potential in anti-liver cancer therapy.

Preparation and Characterization of Nano-Selenium Decorated by Chondroitin Sulfate Derived from Shark Cartilage and Investigation on Its Antioxidant Activity.

In the present study, a selenium-chondroitin sulfate (SeCS) was synthesized by the sodium selenite (Na2SeO3) and ascorbic acid (Vc) redox reaction using chondroitin sulfate derived from shark cartilage as a template, and characterized by SEM, SEM-EDS, FTIR and XRD. Meanwhile, its stability was investigated at different conditions of pH and temperatures. Besides, its antioxidant activity was further determined by the DPPH and ABTS assays. The results showed the SeCS with the smallest particle size of 131.3 ± 4.4 nm and selenium content of 33.18% was obtained under the optimal condition (CS concentration of 0.1 mg/mL, mass ratio of Na2SeO3 to Vc of 1:8, the reaction time of 3 h, and the reaction temperature of 25 °C). SEM image showed the SeCS was an individual and spherical nanostructure and its structure was evidenced by FTIR and XRD. Meanwhile, SeCS remained stable at an alkaline pH and possessed good storage stability at 4 °C for 28 days. The results on scavenging free radical levels showed that SeCS exhibited significantly higher antioxidant activity than SeNPs and CS, indicating that SeCS had a potential antioxidant effect.

Ageism among college students: a comparative study between U.S. and China.

It is often assumed that Chinese people tend to have a more positive attitude toward aging and old age than Americans, due to the cultural generalization of collectivism versus individualism. This study aimed to critically examine this assumption by using first-hand empirical data collected in a Chinese and an American university (standardized surveys and in-depth focus group interviews). Respectively, 980 college students in China and 332 college students in the U.S. were recruited for the standardized surveys; whereas two focus-group interviews in each country (4 participants per group) were conducted to collect more in-depth information. Contrary to the common assumption, this study revealed that Chinese students actually hold more negative attitudes toward aging and older people compared to their American peers. It was also found that females tend to hold more positive attitudes than male students across both cultures, though American female students hold more positive attitudes than Chinese female students. Chinese students' interactions with seniors are often limited to their grandparents whereas American students tend to reach out to non-grandparent seniors in larger communities. Chinese students' more negative attitudes toward aging and older people may be a result of a combination of educational, social, and economic factors-a higher level of age segregation (geographically, socially, and intellectually) and a lack of gerontological curriculum in Chinese educational system, the caregiving burden faced by the one-child generation compounded with lack of governmental support for caregiving, as well as the rising youth-oriented consumerist culture.

"It's your Liangxin that tells you what to do": Interpreting workplace-induced emotions in a Chinese nursing home.

How Direct Care Workers (DCWs) interpret their work and perform care activities undeniably impacts the well-being of institutionalized older adults. Despite the emotionally charged nature of paid care work, little is known about how Chinese DCWs talk about their work and construct meaning within China's unique social context of a burgeoning institutional care market and changing cultural expectations for long-term care. This study qualitatively explored Chinese DCWs' emotion work as they navigate among institutional pressures and low social recognition in an urban government-sponsored nursing home in central China. Results revealed that DCWs used Liangxin (the good heart/mind) - a ubiquitous Chinese moral notion emphasizing the unity of feeling, thought, and action - as an interpretive framework, including its four dimensions (ceyin, xiue, cirang, and shifei), to inform care practice, manage emotions, and find dignity within what can be personally demeaning and socially devalued work. Our study delineated the processes through which DCWs sympathized with the pain and struggles of the older adults in their care (ceyin xin), shamed unjust attitudes and behaviors embedded in institutional care (xiue xin), delivered family-like relational care (cirang xin), and formed and reinforced principles of good (versus bad) care (shifei xin). We also revealed the nuanced role that the cultural value of xiao (filial piety), working in tandem with liangxin, both shaped the emotional terrain of the institutional care setting and impacted how DCWs engaged in emotion work. While recognizing the effect of liangxin for incentivizing DCWs to provide relational care and renegotiate their role status, we were also alerted to the risks of overburdening and exploiting DCWs who relied solely on their liangxin to meet complex care needs.

Role of the Long Intergenic Non-Protein-Coding RNA 1278/miR-185-5p/Cystatin SN Axis in Laryngeal Cancer Cells.

Laryngeal cancer accounts for 25%-30% of tumors in the head and neck. Cystatin SN (CST1) was revealed to show upregulated expression in this cancer, while its functions and upstream pathway remain unknown and need investigation. The current study was designed to solve this problem. We designed short hairpin RNAs targeting CST1 for the loss-of-function assays to probe the influences of CST1 in laryngeal cancer cell proliferation and motility. The upstream competitive endogenous RNA pattern of CST1 was searched using bioinformatics analysis and confirmed by luciferase reporter assays. The experimental results demonstrated that CST1 is a tumor facilitator in laryngeal cancer by stimulating cellular proliferative, migrative, and invasive abilities. CST1 is regulated by the long intergenic non-protein-coding RNA 1278 (LINC01278)/miR-185-5p axis. LINC01278 knockdown and miR-185-5p overexpression exert the same functions as CST1 knockdown to repress cancer cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. In conclusion, LINC01278 plays an oncogenic role in laryngeal cancer by suppressing miR-185-5p to enhance CST1 expression, which enriches the molecular mechanism for the carcinogenesis of laryngeal cancer.

Analysis of Bone Mineral Density and Bithermal Caloric Test Results in Unilateral Idiopathic Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo Patients.

OBJECTIVE: Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is the most frequently diagnosed type of peripheral vestibular vertigo. Studies have reported a possible association between BPPV and osteoporosis; however, there is still a lack of evidence. This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of bone mineral density (BMD) and bithermal caloric test results in patients with unilateral posterior canal idiopathic benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (pc-iBPPV). METHODS: BMD was measured in 65pc-iBPPV menopausal female patients and 65 healthy controls using dual-energy xray absorptiometry and then compared the T-score of BMD between the two groups. The bithermal caloric test was also performed with video nystagmography and the relationship between canal paresis, directional preponderance, T-score, and recurrence were analyzed. RESULTS: Lower T-scores were observed in pc-iBPPV patients compared with the normal subjects. Among 65 pc-iBPPV patients, free recurrence was observed in 38 (58.5%), single recurrence was noted in 14 (21.5%), and multiple recurrences were seen in 13 (20%) patients. The proportion of positive T-score and CP value increased with the pc-BPPV recurrence frequency. Statistically, a significant difference was found only in T-score, indicating that recurrence was raised with a decrement of T-score. The proportion of positive CP values tended to increase as BMD decreased. CONCLUSION: The decrement of BMD might be one of the pathogeneses in patients with unilateral pc-iBPPV and associated with multiple recurrences. Moreover, positive CP value cannot be regarded as a predictive factor for recurrence; however, there is a clear association between CP and BMD.

Neoliberal Long-Term Care: From Community to Corporate Control.

Publicly (mainly Medicaid) funded long-term care (LTC) services have evolved from a nursing home dominated system of service to a much more balanced system including home- and community-based services (HCBS) programs over the last 30 years. The HCBS programs have been largely administered by the state and local level nonprofit aging networks (ANs) consisting of Area Agencies on Aging and thousands of service providers. Over the last decade, however, for-profit HMOs administered primarily by large insurance companies have begun to displace AN organizations. State policymakers have embraced for-profit privatizations under the rationale that this approach will generate greater savings, efficiencies, and higher quality outcomes than the traditional public or private nonprofit models of program administration. As we show here, there is very little evidence for this rationale; yet, this lack of evidence has not prevented the continuing growth of for-profit managed LTC programs supported more by an ideology of market fundamentalism than empirical evidence. We also describe six possible consequences of the trend toward corporate control of public LTC services in the years ahead.

It was all planned now what? Claiming agency in later life in reforming China.

This study explores the social construction of agency and wellbeing among 20 Chinese urban retirees aged between 50 and 82 years old (averaging 67), with a special focus on the impact of earlier life experiences in shaping later-life pathways. Today's retirees in urban China have experienced the communist collectivist ideology during the Mao era as well as the changes to everyday life brought about by the economic transformation from centrally planned socialism to a market-orientated economy. Thereby, life in retirement for Chinese elders becomes more than just an issue of dealing with increases in discretionary time after exit from full-time work, but also one of making sense of their earlier life experiences in the midst of dramatic social changes. A grounded theory approach with semi-structured, in-depth, face-to-face interviews was used for data collection and analysis. Three interrelated themes emerged: (a) reminiscence as a mechanism of meaning-making, (b) discovery and exercise of agency in later life in contrast to a rigidly structured earlier life, and (c) varying pathways to constructing the life-stage of retirement. The findings have refuted gerontological literature and public discourse that often portray Chinese elders as passive care recipients or helpless dependants. Further, the present study has practical implications for developing policies, designing programmes and providing services to improve the quality of life for today's older Chinese people.

Botulinum toxin treatment for essential palatal tremors presenting with nasal clicks instead of pulsatile tinnitus: a case report.

BACKGROUND: In this study, we report a rare case of an adult patient with essential palatal tremors (EPT) presenting as nasal clicks, instead of otic clicks or objective pulsatile tinnitus in common EPT. CASE PRESENTATION: Nasal endoscopic examination and EMG recordings of the soft palate muscles were performed to confirm the source of the clicks. Initial treatment with lidocaine provided symptomatic relief for four hours. The patient was then treated with four simultaneous injections of 12.5 U of botulinum toxin in four different sites of the soft palate. Palatal tremors and clicks completely disappeared within three months of treatment. CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, this is the first case of EPT that presented with nasal clicks. We recommend that otolaryngologists should expect this rare occurrence in the clinical setting, and handle patients presenting with such symptoms with care and compassion in order not to worsen their psychological status.

[The situation of Chinese medicine practitioners in the late Qing Dynasty as viewed from the Dianshizhai Pictorial].

According to the 17 pieces of news pictures closely related to Chinese medicine practitioners appeared in the Dianshizhai Pictorial, it can be seen that Chinese medicine practitioners in the 19th century can be divided into two classes, professional and non-professional practitioners. Of the 10 pieces related to professional practitioners, 8 news pictures creates "Quack doctors" as its theme, reflecting that some Chinese medicine practitioners only had poor medical skill of low quality. The other 7 pieces of news figure related to non-professional practitioners are rather complex. Some of them expresses puerpera, midwives, witch-doctors and charlatans, reflecting that the contemporary non-professional practitioners were complex, and indicating that those professional practitioners still can't meet the requirement of people in that time.

The neoliberal political economy and erosion of retirement security.

The origins and trajectory of the crisis in the United States retirement security system have slowly become part of the discussion about the social, political, and economic impacts of population aging. Private sources of retirement security have weakened significantly since 1980 as employers have converted defined benefits precisions to defined contribution plans. The Center for Retirement Research (CRR) now estimates that over half of boomer generation retirees will not receive 70-80% of their wages while working. This erosion of the private retirement security system will likely increase reliance on the public system, mainly Social Security and Medicare. These programs, however, have increasingly become the targets of critics who claim that they are not financially sustainable in their current form and must be significantly modified. This article will focus on an analysis of these trends in the erosion of the United States retirement security system and their connection to changes in the United States political economy as neoliberal, promarket ideology, and policies (low taxes, reduced spending, and deregulation) have become dominant in the private and public sectors. The neoliberal priority on reducing labor costs and achieving maximum shareholder value has created an environment inimical to maintain the traditional system of pension and health care benefits in both the private and public sectors. This article explores the implications of these neoliberal trends in the United States economy for the future of retirement security.

[Textual research of scabies in the Warring States and Qin-Han Dynasties].

Scabies, a kind of skin disease frequently seen in the period of Warring States and Qin-Han Dynasties. By investigating the epidemic condition, disease title, recognition on the disease and the prevention and its treatment through the textual documents, unearthed texts, and dictionaries of this period, it can be seen that "scabies" refers to the itching and corrugation of skin. It was also called "jia" (scar) and belonged to the "dry itching"disease. At that time, people also knew the seasonal, and geographical rules of its incidence and its pathogenic agent, the scabies parasite (sacoptic mite). Treatments included hot compress, rubbing, bathing, and internal medications, mostly inherited in later generations.

[On the compilation and edition of Guang si xu zhi (Instructions for Improving Fertility)].

During the reign of Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Hu Wenhuan combined, deleted and polished some contents of Cai Longyang's Zhong si ji (Collection for Improving Fertility Like a Katydid) and Yu Qiao's Guang si yao yu (Important Guides for Improving Fertility), to compile a new book, Guang si xu zhi (Instructions for Improving Fertility) included in his two block-printed series, Bai jia ming shu (Famous Books of Hundreds Scholars) and Ge zhi cong shu (Series of Studying Essence of Things). From Zhong si ji to Guang si xu zhi, since both the title and exact contents were all changed, the latter has better to be considered as a new book, and the title of which should be "Compiling by Hu Wenhuan". All extant editions of Guang si xu zhi are derived from his series versions or its hand-written copies from the series.

[Juvenile onset respiratory papillomatosis: risk factors for severity].

OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to explore the risk factors associated with severity of juvenile onset recurrent respiratory papillomatosis. METHOD: A retrospective study was conducted to study determinants of severe forms of juvenile recurrent onset respiratory papillomatosis. The patients were separated into different groups based on the onset age, the first recurrence of age, the first recurrence of period, gender and incision of tracheal respectively. The relationship among the lesion severity score,the involvement of the subregion, operation period and the next operation period were also explored. RESULT: It was observed that some children who recurred before 4 years old required more surgery, shorter operation period(the average, longest or shortest operation period) than those elder children, the differences were statistically (P=0. 029, 0. 003, 0. 010, 0. 039, respectively). The severity score of lesion was correlated positively with the involvement of the subregion and negatively with operation period (r=0. 914, -0. 451, respectively). Some children who diagnosed before 4 years old had to endure more severity score and shorter operation period than those older children, the differences were statistically (P= 0. 036, 0. 000, respectively). 8 cases accepted incision of tracheal, they accepted more surgery too. But the differences in the onset age, the first recurrence of age, and the operation period were not statistically. CONCLUSION: The results showed that the clinical course of juvenile onset recurrent respiratory papillomatosis was closely related to the first recurrence age and period, while the severity of disease was associated to the onset age and the involvement of the subregion.

[Textual research on 5 words of disease in chu jian (bamboo slips of Chu State) of the Warring States Period].

There are not a few words of disease in the unearthed chu jian (bamboo slips of Chu State) of the Warring States Period. The morphology, pronunciation and meaning among these characters are completed. By collecting the diseases in the equivocally deciphered words, this article comprehensively discusses the words among them. It is claimed that in Geling jian (Geling slips), "Xie" is pronounced as xie, and "Xie disease" refers to the pain below the oxter and above the waist; "Bei", pronounced as jian, and "Bei Pi disease" refers to the pain of the shoulder and back;"Jie" reads as jie and refers to scabies; "Du" pronounced as fu, and "Du disease" refers to distending pain of the skin. In Wangshan jian (Wangshan slips), "Du" is equal to "Du", and is the same as "Du" in baoshan jian (baoshan bamboo slips), pronounced as du, refers to exacerbation of disease.

[Study of literature on disease in the Rongchengshi of the Warring States].

Many scholars have studied and disputed over the names of diseases recorded in Rongchengshi, bamboo slips of the Chu kingdon in the Warring States collected in the Shanghai Museum. According to comments of scholars and other literature it could be concluded: JinLong in slip 2 and AnLong in slip 36 means deaf-mutism; MaoFa in slip 2 means blindness; PiBi in slip 2 means lameness; ZhangZhe in slip 2 means persons who are strong and tall; An in slip 3 that it is the variant form of Ying, which means thyroid enlargement; Lou in slip 2 it means kyphosis of the spine; Xia in slip 3 it means pruritus and scabies; Δ in slip 36 means blindness; and Shang in slip 37 means bald head.

[Fibrotic remodeling of nasal mucosa in rat model after radiation injury].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the role of nasal mucosa fibrosis on radiation induced nasal mucosa injury. METHODS: Seventy two male rats were randomly divided into two groups, control group and irradiation injured group (radiation dose were 40 Gy); the rats were killed 1 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, 3 months and 6 months after the finish of radiation. The middle turbinates of the animals were removed. The pathological change of the nasal mucosa were observed with scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope, hematoxylin and eosin (HE), alcian blue-periodic acid-Schif (AB-PAS), and Masson Trichrome (MT). The Hyp content in nasal mucosa was measured with chemo-chromatometry. RESULTS: After radiation, the pathological characteristics in early stage (within 4 weeks) was acute inflammatory reaction. The repair of nasal mucosa started 4 weeks after radiation, lasted to 6 months. The deposition of collagen in nasal mucosa could be found 1 week after irradiation and increased gradually. CONCLUSION: Irradiation could induce a serials of pathological changes on nasal mucosa. The nasal mucosa fibrosis may be one of the reasons of persistent irradiation induced nasal mucosa injury.