Application of emerging technologies in ischemic stroke: from clinical study to basic research.

Stroke is a primary cause of noncommunicable disease-related death and disability worldwide. The most common form, ischemic stroke, is increasing in incidence resulting in a significant burden on patients and society. Urgent action is thus needed to address preventable risk factors and improve treatment methods. This review examines emerging technologies used in the management of ischemic stroke, including neuroimaging, regenerative medicine, biology, and nanomedicine, highlighting their benefits, clinical applications, and limitations. Additionally, we suggest strategies for technological development for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of ischemic stroke.

[Reflections on supervision strategies of new Tibetan drug registration].

Tibetan medicine is an essential part of Chinese medicine and has unique theoretical experience and therapeutic advantages. According to the development principle of inheriting the essence, sticking to the truth, and keeping innovative, the supervision department should give clear and reasonable guidance considering the characteristics of Tibetan medicine, establish a standard system for quality control, clinical verification and evaluation, and accelerate the research and commercialization of new drugs. In view of the needs of drug supply-side reform and the current situation of Tibetan medicine and new pharmaceutical research, we ponder and provide suggestions on the confusion faced by the current supervision of Tibetan drug registration, hoping to contribute to the supervision strategy of Tibetan drug registration and the high-quality development of Tibetan medicine industry.

Does self-medication reduce medical expenditure among the middle-aged and elderly population? A four-wave longitudinal study in China.

Introduction: Self-medication has a high prevalence in the middle-aged and elderly population in China. Despite the published evidence demonstrating the economic benefits of self-medication, limited research has addressed the relationship between self-medication and individual medical expenditures, especially within the Chinese population. This study examined the effect of self-medication on individual medical expenditures in China and analyzed the heterogeneity between outpatient and inpatient cases. Methods: We conducted a panel data analysis using data from four waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). Two-part mixed-effect models were implemented to estimate the effect of self-medication on total outpatient and inpatient expenses and out-of-pocket (OOP) costs, where mixed-effects logit regression was used as the first part, and generalized linear mixed models with log link and gamma distribution was used as the second part. Results: We identified 72,041 responses representing 24,641 individuals, of which 13,185 responses incurred outpatient expenses and 9,003 responses incurred inpatient costs. Controlling for all covariates, we found that self-medication behaviors were significantly associated with a higher probability of outpatient service utilization (OR = 1.250, 95% CI = 0.179 to 0.269; P < 0.001), but displayed no significant association with outpatient expenses. Respondents who had taken self-medication were less likely to use inpatient services (OR = 0.865, 95% CI = -0.201 to -0.089; P < 0.001), and their inpatient expenses were significantly reduced by 9.4% (P < 0.001). Inpatient OOP costs were significantly reduced by 10.7% (P < 0.001), and outpatient OOP costs were significantly increased by 11.3% (P < 0.001) among respondents who had self-medicated. Conclusions: This study allowed us to identify the economic value of self-medication among the middle-aged and elderly population in China. Future work should guide the middle-aged and elderly to take responsible self-medication to reduce their economic burden.

Comprehensive evaluation of water resources carrying capacity and analysis of obstacle factors in Weifang City based on hierarchical cluster analysis-VIKOR method.

This study uses hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) to screen the evaluation indexes and establishes a comprehensive evaluation index system for water resources carrying capacity (WRCC), based on the VIKOR method and the obstacle degree model for the identification of the main factors affecting the WRCC of Weifang City. The results show that the WRCC of Weifang City has steadily increased from 2008 to 2018. The subsystems referred to society and water environment are currently the main obstacles affecting Weifang's WRCC, but there is still space for improvement in the future. The areas with low WRCC was Kuiwen District in 2018, which was in a seriously overloaded state, mostly affected by the water resources subsystem. The implementation of measures such as efficiently improving the level of water resources management and the development of water conservancy projects is prominent in water resource planning in Kuiwen District. This study analyzes the current situation of water resources management in order to consider it in strategic decision-making in promoting the improvement of WRCC, which in turn may ensure the realization of a green and sustainable development strategy in the future for Weifang City.

Affordable automated phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility testing method based on a contactless conductometric sensor.

User-friendly phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) methods are urgently needed in many fields including clinical medicine, epidemiological studies and drug research. Herein, we report a convenient and cost-effective phenotypic AST method based on online monitoring bacterial growth with a developed 8-channel contactless conductometric sensor (CCS). Using E. coli and V. parahaemolyticus as microorganism models, as well as enoxacin, florfenicol, ampicillin, kanamycin and sulfadiazine as antibiotic probes. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) determination was validated in comparison with standard broth microdilution (BMD) assay. The total essential agreements between the CCS AST assays and the reference BMD AST assays are 68.8-92.3%. The CCS has an approximate price of $9,000 (USD). Requiring neither chemical nor biotic auxiliary materials for the assay makes the cost of each sample < $1. The MICs obtained with the automated CCS AST assays are more precise than those obtained with the manual BMD. Moreover, in 72 percent of the counterpart, the MICs obtained with the CCS AST assays are higher than that obtained with the BMD AST assays. The proposed CCS AST method has advantages in affordability, accuracy, sensitivity and user-friendliness.

The chronic hepatotoxicity assessment of the herbal formula Zishen Yutai pill.

Zishen Yutai pill (ZYP) is an oriental herbal formula, while hepatotoxicity assessment of ZYP was rarely evaluated. Therefore, our aim is to re-evaluate its hepatotoxicity in both normal and carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) induced chronic liver injury rats. In the normal model, two doses of ZYP (1.575 and 9.450 g kg-1 d-1; i.e. 1 × , 6 × clinical doses) were given orally to rats for 24 weeks. In the chronic liver injury model, 10% CCl4 was administered to rats abdominally twice a week at a dose of 5 mL kg-1 for 12 consecutive weeks. Administration time started from 4 weeks after the beginning of CCl4 treatment. Toxicological parameters included mortality, body weight, food consumption, clinical signs, biochemical parameters, gross observation, organ weight, necropsy findings and histopathology were monitored. In the normal model, we found no any mortality or abnormality in clinical signs, relative liver weight, biochemical parameters and histopathology in ZYP treatment groups. In the chronic liver injury model, liver damage related parameter such as ALT was elevated at the high dose of ZYP treatment in contrast to the CCl4-treated group (P < 0.01). In histopathological assessment, there were no significant difference between ZYP treatment groups and CCl4-treated group. No observed adverse effect on livers were established for 9.450 g kg-1 d-1 ZYP in the normal rats and 9.450 g kg-1 d-1 ZYP in the injury rats.