Differences in antibiotic use between COPD and non-COPD residents based on the health information system.

OBJECTIVES: To compare the differences in antibiotic use between COPD and non-COPD residents, and to explore the effect of COPD on antibiotic use. METHODS: Participants aged 40 years old or over from the Songjiang Adult Cohort were included. Information on prescription and baseline survey was collected based on the health information system. A logit-negative binomial Hurdle model was used to explore correlations between COPD and percentage of antibiotic use and average rate of antibiotic prescribing of different types of antibiotic. Multinomial logistic regression was used to assess the association between COPD and antimicrobial combination therapy and routes of administration. RESULTS: A total of 34576 individuals were included and 1594 (4.6%) were COPD patients. During the 6 years' follow-up, the percentage of antibiotic use for COPD patients was 98.4%, which was 7.88 (95%CI: 5.24-11.85) times of that for non-COPD patients after adjusting for potential confounders. The prescribing rate was 3220 prescriptions (95%CI: 3063.6-3385.2) per 1000 person-years for COPD patients, which was 1.96 (95%CI: 1.87-2.06) times of that for non-COPD patients. Other beta-lactam antibacterials, Macrolides, lincosamides and streptogramins, and quinolone antibacterials were the most commonly used types of antibiotic. Except for aminoglycoside antibacterials, both percentage of antibiotic use and rate of antibiotic prescription were increased in COPD patients. COPD patients were more likely to be prescribed a maximum of two antibiotics (OR=1.34, 95%CI: 1.20-1.50); and were more likely to use antibiotics intravenously (OR=2.77, 95%CI: 2.47-3.11). CONCLUSION: COPD patients were more likely to have increased antibiotic use in a large-scale population-based adult cohort, suggesting COPD patients are a high-priority group for the management of antibiotic use in communities.

Overexpression of PP2A-C5 that encodes the catalytic subunit 5 of protein phosphatase 2A in Arabidopsis confers better root and shoot development under salt conditions.

Protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) is an enzyme consisting of three subunits: a scaffolding A subunit, a regulatory B subunit and a catalytic C subunit. PP2As were shown to play diverse roles in eukaryotes. In this study, the function of the Arabidopsis PP2A-C5 gene that encodes the catalytic subunit 5 of PP2A was studied using both loss-of-function and gain-of-function analyses. Loss-of-function mutant pp2a-c5-1 displayed more impaired growth during root and shoot development, whereas overexpression of PP2A-C5 conferred better root and shoot growth under different salt treatments, indicating that PP2A-C5 plays an important role in plant growth under salt conditions. Double knockout mutants of pp2a-c5-1 and salt overly sensitive (sos) mutants sos1-1, sos2-2 or sos3-1 showed additive sensitivity to NaCl, indicating that PP2A-C5 functions in a pathway different from the SOS signalling pathway. Using yeast two-hybrid analysis, four vacuolar membrane chloride channel (CLC) proteins, AtCLCa, AtCLCb, AtCLCc and AtCLCg, were found to interact with PP2A-C5. Moreover, overexpression of AtCLCc leads to increased salt tolerance and Cl- accumulation in transgenic Arabidopsis plants. These data indicate that PP2A-C5-mediated better growth under salt conditions might involve up-regulation of CLC activities on vacuolar membranes and that PP2A-C5 could be used for improving salt tolerance in crops.

TAP46 plays a positive role in the ABSCISIC ACID INSENSITIVE5-regulated gene expression in Arabidopsis.

TAP46 is a protein phosphatase2A (PP2A)-associated protein that regulates PP2A activity in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). To study how PP2A is involved in abscisic acid (ABA) signaling in plants, we studied the function of TAP46 in ABA-regulated seed maturation and seedling development. Expression of TAP46 coincides with the action of ABA in developing seeds and during seed germination, and the TAP46 transcript reaches to the highest level in mature seeds. Real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis indicates that external ABA can increase TAP46 transcript level transiently during seed germination. Overexpression of TAP46 increases plant sensitivity to ABA, while tap46 knockdown mutants are less sensitive to ABA during seed germination, suggesting that TAP46 functions positively in ABA signaling. Overexpression of TAP46 also leads to lower PP2A activity, while tap46-1 knockdown mutant displays higher PP2A activity, suggesting that TAP46 negatively regulates PP2A activity in Arabidopsis. Both TAP46 and PP2A interact with the ABA-regulated transcription factor ABA INSENSITIVE5 (ABI5) in vivo, and TAP46's binding to ABI5 can stabilize ABI5. Furthermore, TAP46's binding to the phosphorylated ABI5 may prevent PP2A or PP2A-like protein phosphatases from removing the phosphate from ABI5, thereby maintaining ABI5 in its active form. Overexpression of TAP46 and inhibition of activities of PP2A or PP2A-like protein phosphatases can increase transcript levels of several ABI5-regulated genes, suggesting that TAP46 is a positive factor in the ABA-regulated gene expression in Arabidopsis.

Arabidopsis PHOSPHOTYROSYL PHOSPHATASE ACTIVATOR is essential for PROTEIN PHOSPHATASE 2A holoenzyme assembly and plays important roles in hormone signaling, salt stress response, and plant development.

PROTEIN PHOSPHATASE 2A (PP2A) is a major group of serine/threonine protein phosphatases in eukaryotes. It is composed of three subunits: scaffolding subunit A, regulatory subunit B, and catalytic subunit C. Assembly of the PP2A holoenzyme in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) depends on Arabidopsis PHOSPHOTYROSYL PHOSPHATASE ACTIVATOR (AtPTPA). Reduced expression of AtPTPA leads to severe defects in plant development, altered responses to abscisic acid, ethylene, and sodium chloride, and decreased PP2A activity. In particular, AtPTPA deficiency leads to decreased methylation in PP2A-C subunits (PP2Ac). Complete loss of PP2Ac methylation in the suppressor of brassinosteroid insensitive1 mutant leads to 30% reduction of PP2A activity, suggesting that PP2A with a methylated C subunit is more active than PP2A with an unmethylated C subunit. Like AtPTPA, PP2A-A subunits are also required for PP2Ac methylation. The interaction between AtPTPA and PP2Ac is A subunit dependent. In addition, AtPTPA deficiency leads to reduced interactions of B subunits with C subunits, resulting in reduced functional PP2A holoenzyme formation. Thus, AtPTPA is a critical factor for committing the subunit A/subunit C dimer toward PP2A heterotrimer formation.

The impact of different clinicopathologic factors and salvage therapies on cervical cancer patients with isolated para-aortic lymph node recurrence.

BACKGROUND: Cervical cancer patients with isolated para-aortic lymph nodes (PALN) recurrence were mainly associated with treatment failure. For these patients, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, surgery ± adjuvant therapy or chemoradiotherapy may be advised, however, no specific therapy has been proposed yet. This study aimed to explore factors influencing the prognosis of cervical cancer cases with isolated PALN recurrence and to find out an effective salvage therapy. METHODS: Cervical cancer cases with isolated PALN recurrence who received therapies in Zhejiang Cancer Hospital between January 2013 and June 2021 were analyzed retrospectively. RESULTS: Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) level > 10 ng/mL and positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) imaging method used to detect the recurrence were found to be associated with the local control rate. PALN (positive), squamous-cell carcinoma-antigen (SCC-Ag) level (> 10 ng/mL) upon initial diagnosis, and CEA level (> 10 ng/mL), number of metastatic lymph nodes (several) at recurrence were associated with worse survival. Compared with surgery ± adjuvant therapy, chemotherapy (CT) alone or sequential chemoradiotherapy (SCRT) was associated with worse PFS or OS. Concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) after PALN recurrence could reduce the risk of the second recurrence. 3-year OS of cases after surgery ± adjuvant therapy was the highest (65%), followed by CCRT (45.7%), SCRT (38.9%), radiotherapy (RT) (33.3%), and CT (20.6%). CONCLUSION: In cervical cancer patients with isolated PALN recurrence, chemoradiotherapy or surgery ± adjuvant therapy may be preferred as the salvage treatment.

[Comparison of the software safety evaluation methods in medical devices].

The article intends to analyze the software safety problems in high-risk medical devices based on the investigation of software R & D Quality control procedures in Shanghai medical device manufacturing enterprises. The idea of improving the software pre-market safety evaluation method in China is also explored through the way of comparing those in U.S. and Europe.

Calibration and Verification of Dynamic Particle Flow Parameters by the Back-Propagation Neural Network Based on the Genetic Algorithm: Recycled Polyurethane Powder.

The discrete element method (DEM) is commonly used to study various powders in motion during transportation, screening, mixing, etc.; this requires several microscopic parameters to characterize the complex mechanical behavior of the particles. Herein, a new discrete element parameter calibration method is proposed to calibrate the ultrafine agglomerated powder (recycled polyurethane powder). Optimal Latin hypercube sampling and virtual simulation experiments were conducted using the commercial DEM software; the microscopic variables included the static friction coefficient between the particles, collision recovery coefficient, Johnson-Kendall-Roberts surface energy, static friction coefficient between the particles and wall, and collision recovery coefficient. A predictive model based on genetic-algorithm-optimized feedforward neural network (back propagation) was developed to calibrate the microscopic DEM simulation parameters. The cycle search algorithm and mean-shift cluster analysis were used to confirm the input parameters' range by comparing the mean value of the dynamic angle of repose measured via the batch accumulation test. These parameters were verified by the baffle lifting method and the rotating drum method. This calibration method, once successfully developed, will be suitable for use in a variety of fine viscous powder dynamic flow conditions.

Overexpression of the PP2A-C5 gene confers increased salt tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) was shown to play important roles in biotic and abiotic stress signaling pathways in plants. PP2A is made of 3 subunits: a scaffolding subunit A, a regulatory subunit B, and a catalytic subunit C. It is believed that the B subunit recognizes specific substrates and the C subunit directly acts on the selected substrates, whereas the A subunit brings a B subunit and a C subunit together to form a specific PP2A holoenzyme. Because there are multiple isoforms for each PP2A subunit, there could be hundreds of novel PP2A holoenzymes in plants. For an example, there are 3 A subunits, 17 B subunits, and 5 C subunits in Arabidopsis, which could form 255 different PP2A holoenzymes. Understanding the roles of these PP2A holoenzymes in various signaling pathways is a challenging task. In a recent study, 1 we discovered that PP2A-C5, the catalytic subunit 5 of PP2A, plays an important role in salt tolerance in Arabidopsis. We found that a knockout mutant of PP2A-C5 (i.e. pp2a-c5-1) was very sensitive to salt treatments, whereas PP2A-C5-overexpressing plants were more tolerant to salt stresses. Genetic analyses between pp2a-c5-1 and Salt-Overly-Sensitive (SOS) mutants indicated that PP2A-C5 does not function in the same pathway as SOS genes. Using yeast 2-hybrid analysis, we found that PP2A-C5 interacts with several vacuolar membrane bound chloride channel proteins. We hypothesize that these vacuolar chloride channel proteins might be PP2A-C5's substrates in vivo, and the action of PP2A-C5 on these channel proteins could increase or activate their activities, thereby result in accumulation of the chloride and sodium contents in vacuoles, leading to increased salt tolerance in plants.

Synthesis and research of epoxy resin toughening agent.

In this paper, a synthesis method of epoxy resin toughening agent was presented, then the chemical composition and molecular number were studied, which include the DSC curves analysis, the fracture surface morphology and bonding strength. In addition, the mechanism of epoxy resin toughening agent and the effect of toughening agent's content to bonding strength were studied. The testing results reveal that this toughening agent can form a micro two-phase structure in epoxy-amine system, which results in the stable chemical properties and excellent physical properties.

[Obtainment of transgenic wheat with the insecticidal lectin from snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis agglutinin; GNA) gene and analysis of resistance to aphid].

Snowdrop lectin (Galanthus nivalis agglutinin; GNA) is toxic to sap sucking injurious insects of Homopteran. A new gna gene has been transferred into common spring wheat Zhong60634 and winter wheat Yumai66 with high yield by using the biolistic transformation method. Transgenic wheat plants have been obtained in both of the two varieties. Two transgenic plants (T0) have been obtained from the bombarded 535 immature embryos of Zhong60634. Bioassay results show that the development of aphid could be slowed down and the survival rate of young aphid could be reduced by gna gene. Seventeen transgenic plants (T0) were obtained from the bombarded 4636 immature embryos of Yumai66. Twenty plantlets with good resistance to Rhopalosiphum padi and Macrosiphum avenae, which are mainly aphid in north wheat area, were identified from the transgenic plants of T1 generation that came from 8 T0 transgenic plants with good resistance to aphid. The anti-aphid bioassay shows that resistance to the different grain aphid is not the same in transgenic wheat plants. To Rhopalosiphum padi, the rate of survival aphid 8 days after exposing transgenic plants to aphids is significantly lower than that of nontransgenic plants. To Macrosiphum avenae, growth speed of aphids is slowed down but not killed. At the same time, the death rate of young aphids is increased. Anyway, feeding of the two kinds of aphids has been controlled in a certain degree by gna gene when aphids can free to move in plants.

[Saline tolerance white clover transformed with the betaine aldehyde dehyrogenase gene by Agrobacterium tumefaciens].

The white clover has been transformed with the Betaine Aldehyde Dehydrogenase (BADH) gene cloned from Atriplex hortensis by Agrobacterium tumefaciens. The relative electronic conductivity of the transgenic plants under 1% NaCl stress for 48 hours was about 20%, less than the control plant's relative electronic conductivity (more than 40%), these showed the cell membrane of the transgenic plants has been less injured than control plants under salt stress. The other experience showed that the transgenic plant could grow well in water culture included 0.5% NaCl for more than two weeks, but the control plants could not.