Effect of Acupuncture on Ovary Morphology and Function in DHEA-Induced Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Model Rats.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of acupuncture on ovary morphology and function in dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)-induced polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) model rats. METHODS: A total of 40 adult female Wistar rats were randomly allocated to 4 groups by a random number table, including control, model, metformin and acupuncture groups, 10 rats in each group. PCOS rat model was developed by injecting with DHEA (6 mg/100 g body weight) in 0.2 mL of oil subcutaneously. Electrical stimulation (2 Hz, 3 mA) was applied to Guanyuan (CV 4), Zigong (EX-CA1) and Qihai (CV 6) acupoints for 30 min daily in the acupuncture group, and metformin (200 mg/kg) was given to rats in the metformin group, both once per day for 21 consecutive days, and rats in the normal group was fed with normal saline and fed regularly. After 21 days of administration, the rat blood samples were collected for detecting the reproductive hormonal levels [luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), estradiol (E2), progesterone (P), testosterone (T)] and inflammatory factors (visfatin, IL-6) analysis. Ovary tissue was used for histopathological analysis. RESULTS: Compared with the model group, rats in the acupuncture and metformin groups were significantly lower in weight gain, FSH, LH and T levels, and E2 and P levels significantly increased (alll P<0.05). Meanwhile, LH and FSH levels were significantly decreased, and P, T and E2 levels significantly increased in the acupuncture group, compared with the metformin group (P<0.05). Compared with the model group, IL-6 and visfatin levels were significantly decreased in the acupuncture and metformin groups (P<0.05). There were no significant differences in IL-6 and visfatin levels between the acupuncture and metformin groups (P>0.05). Ovarian diameter in the acupuncture and metformin groups were smaller than the model group (P<0.05). However, there were no significant differences in ovarian diameters between the acupuncture and metformin groups (P>0.05). CONCLUSION: Acupuncture might improve ovary morphology and its function in DHEA-induced PCOS model rats.

[Clinical characteristics and drug sensitivity in children with invasive pneumococcal disease: a multicenter study].

OBJECTIVE: To study the clinical characteristics, drug sensitivity of isolated strains, and risk factors of drug resistance in children with invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD). METHODS: The clinical characteristics and drug sensitivity of the isolated strains of 246 hospitalized children with IPD in nine grade A tertiary children's hospitals from January 2016 to June 2018 were analyzed. RESULTS: Of the 246 children with IPD, there were 122 males and 124 females. Their ages ranged from 1 day to 14 years, and among them, 68 (27.6%) patients were less than 1 year old, 54 (22.0%) patients were 1 to 2 years old, 97 (39.4%) patients were 2 to 5 years old, and 27 (11.0%) patients were 5 to 14 years old. Pneumonia with sepsis was the most common infection type (58.5%, 144/246), followed by bloodstream infection without focus (19.9%, 49/246) and meningitis (15.0%, 37/246). Forty-nine (19.9%) patients had underlying diseases, and 160 (65.0%) had various risk factors for drug resistance. The isolated Streptococcus pneumoniae strains were 100% sensitive to vancomycin, linezolid, moxifloxacin, and levofloxacin, 90% sensitive to ertapenem, ofloxacin, and ceftriaxone, but had a low sensitivity to erythromycin (4.2%), clindamycin (7.9%), and tetracycline (6.3%). CONCLUSIONS: IPD is more common in children under 5 years old, especially in those under 2 years old. Some children with IPD have underlying diseases, and most of the patients have various risk factors for drug resistance. Pneumonia with sepsis is the most common infection type. The isolated Streptococcus pneumoniae strains are highly sensitive to vancomycin, linezolid, moxifloxacin, levofloxacin, ertapenem, and ceftriaxone in children with IPD.

Antibiotic resistance profiles and multidrug resistance patterns of Streptococcus pneumoniae in pediatrics: A multicenter retrospective study in mainland China.

Emergent resistance to antibiotics among Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates is a severe problem worldwide. Antibiotic resistance profiles for S pneumoniae isolates identified from pediatric patients in mainland China remains to be established.The clinical features, antimicrobial resistance, and multidrug resistance patterns of S pneumoniae were retrospectively analyzed at 10 children's hospitals in mainland China in 2016.Among the collected 6132 S pneumoniae isolates, pneumococcal diseases mainly occurred in children younger than 5 years old (85.1%). The resistance rate of S pneumoniae to clindamycin, erythromycin, tetracycline, and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole was 95.8%, 95.2%, 93.6%, and 66.7%, respectively. The resistance rates of S pneumoniae to penicillin were 86.9% and 1.4% in non-meningitis and meningitis isolates, while the proportions of ceftriaxone resistance were 8.2% and 18.1%, respectively. Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine was administered to only 4.1% of patients. Penicillin and ceftriaxone resistance, underling diseases, antibiotic resistant risk factors, and poor prognosis appeared more frequently in invasive pneumococcal diseases. The incidence of multidrug resistance (MDR) was 46.1% in patients with invasive pneumococcal disease which was more than in patients with non-invasive pneumococcal disease (18.3%). Patients with invasive pneumococcal disease usually have several MDR coexistence.S pneumoniae isolates showed high resistance to common antibiotics in mainland China. Penicillin and ceftriaxone resistance rate of invasive streptococcal pneumonia patients were significantly higher than that of non-invasive S pneumoniae patients. Alarmingly, 46.1% of invasive clinical isolates were multidrug resistant, so it is important to continued monitor the resistance of S pneumoniae when protein conjugate vaccine (PCV13) is coming in mainland China.

[Effect of Yinao Jieyu Recipe on Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor of the Limbic System in Post-Stroke Model Rats].

OBJECTIVE: To observe the evolutionary tendency of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) of the limbic system in post-stroke model rats and the intervention effect of Yinao Jieyu Recipe (YJR). METHODS: Male Wistar rats were randomly divided into the normal control group (n =6), the sham-operation group (n =7), the multiple cerebral infarction (MCI) group (n =10), the post-stroke depression (PSD) group (n =10), the Chinese medicine (CM) treatment group (n =10), and the Western medicine (WM) treatment group (n =10) according to random digit table after open-field testing. Rats in the normal control group were routinely fed. 0. 3 mL normal saline was intravenously pushing from the external carotid artery to rats in the sham-operation group, and distilled water administered to them by gastrogavage. Each dose allogenic microthrombi were in vitro pushed to rats in the rest groups from the external carotid artery. The PSD model was duplicated by 21-day chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) and single cage feeding in the PSD group 7 days after surgery. After preparing models rats in the CM group and the WM group were administered with YJR and Nimodipine respectively for 4 successive weeks. Changes of BDNF and the intervention effect of YJR were observed at week 1, 2, and 4 after intervention. RESULTS: Immunohistochemical results of BDNF showed, compared with the normal control group, expression levels of BDNF in the hippocampus, hypothalamus, and amygdala decreased in the MCI group at week 2 and 4 (P <0. 01 , P <0. 05) ; expression levels of BDNF in each part decreased in the PSD group at week 1-4 (P <0.01). Compared with the MCI group, expression levels of BDNF in each part decreased in the PSD group at week 1-4 (P <0. 01). Compared with the PSD group, expression levels of BDNF in each part increased in the CM group at week 1-4 (P <0. 01). CONCLUSION: BDNF changes existed in post-stroke model rats, and YJR could slow down this progress.

[Carriage of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa virulence factors and prognosis after infection].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate drug-resistance and carriage of virulence factors of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Pa) isolated from children. METHOD: Thirty-eight strains of Pa were collected and isolated in pediatric clinic during 2006-2009, and tests were undertaken to identify bacteria and susceptibility test was performed using VITEK-2 COMPACT GNI and AST-GN13 cards. The virulence factors were confirmed by using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and sequencing. RESULT: All the 38 strains of Pa were resistant to ampicillin, ampicillin/sulbactam, cefazolin, nitrofurantoin, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, resistance rates were 100%. Except for ceftriaxone (60.53%), the resistance rates to other antibiotics were all below 16%. PCR test showed that all the 38 strains of Pa carried exotoxin A(toxA) and nitric oxide reductase A (norA), however, detective ratio of the other virulence factors, exoenzyme Y (exoY) was 84.21% (32/38), exoenzyme S (exoS) 57.89% (22/38), pyocyanin (pyp) 42.11% (16/38), exoenzyme U (exoU) 34.21% (13/38), and 38 strains of Pa did not carry exoenzyme T (exoT) and elastase B (lasB) without exception. By analyzing tests, we discovered that 3 pan-drug resistant strains of Pa were all combination of exo U+/pyp+, there were 4 strains of Pa which were moderately-resistant to imipenem, including exoU+/pyp+/exoY+ (2 isolates), exo U+/pyp+ (1 isolate), and exoY+/exoS+ (1 isolates). It indicated that the drug-resistance rate of exoU+/pyp+ is much higher, compared with exoS+ and exoY+. Molecular epidemiological detection revealed that 2 of 3 extensive-resistance strains of Pa were the same clone, but another one had 96.3% of homology with them. CONCLUSION: The above mentioned 34.21% of Pa isolated from children carried virulence factors toxA, norA, exoS, exoY, pyp and exoU. The strains with exoU/pyp had rather high resistance. The strains with pyp had strong toxicity, they easily cause generalized infection, the patients with them had very high mortality.

Psoriasis complicated with venous thromboembolism: report of two cases and a literature review.

Cases of psoriasis complicated with venous thromboembolism are rarely reported. Here, we report two cases and review the current literature on the subject. Two patients with long-standing severe psoriasis presented with chest pain, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. The patients were diagnosed using lung ventilation-perfusion scans or computed tomographic pulmonary angiography. Anticoagulation or thrombolytic therapy was initiated, and long-term continuous anticoagulation with warfarin prevented any recurrences.

Pneumococcal serotype distribution and antimicrobial resistance in Chinese children hospitalized for pneumonia.

A prospective study was performed to determine serotype distribution and antimicrobial resistance in Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae) from Chinese children <5 years old meeting pneumonia criteria. A total of 3865 children were enrolled and 338 S. pneumoniae isolates were obtained. The most frequent serotypes were 19F (55.6%), 19A (13.9%), 23F (10.1%), 6B (4.7%), and 14 (3.6%). The 7-, 10- and 13-valent conjugate vaccines, respectively, covered 76.3%, 76.9%, and 92.3% of isolates. Out of the isolates, six (1.8%) were penicillin resistant. All except 1 of the isolates were resistant to erythromycin. Serotype 19A showed the highest drug resistance. The use of PCV7 has the potential to prevent a substantial number of pneumococcal infections. However, PCV13 is likely to prevent more episodes of pneumococcal disease in China because of the high rates of 19A.

[A method for auto-extraction of spectral lines based on sparse representation].

A new method for auto-extraction of spectral lines based on sparse representation is presented in the present paper. Firstly, the authors proposed a wavelet denoising scheme using a new theory called sparse representation for noise removal. After performing wavelet transform on the spectral signal, this method implements noise removal by solving an optimization problem, which makes the wavelet coefficients at each scale sparsest. The proposed method not only takes the structure properties in the wavelet coefficients into consideration, but also can well maintain the local characteristics of wavelet coefficients. Therefore it can effectively keep the information of featured spectral lines during the process of denoising. Secondly, the authors got satisfying continua by respectively utilizing the wavelet transform method and spline fitting method. The strong spectral lines were firstly removed from the given spectrum with wavelet transform, leading to the result that the obtained continuum approximated the real one very well. Finally, the spectrum was divided point to point by the obtainable continuum and the normalized spectrum was obtained. And then spectral lines were extracted from the normalized spectrum by using adaptive local thresholding scheme. Experimental results show that the proposed method is effective and efficient in the application of auto-extraction of spectral lines. The authors' method will be also helpful for the automatic classification of astronomical spectra.

[Bacterial etiology of pneumonia in hospitalized children: combined detection with culture and polymerase chain reaction].

OBJECTIVE: Bacterial cultures from respiratory aspirate or sputum have been the conventional diagnostic method for pneumonia, but the results of culture was often affected by early extensive use of antibiotics, sample collection and delivery. The objective of this study was to explore application of the combined detection of culture and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay in hospitalized children with pneumonia. METHODS: Totally 187 hospitalized children with pneumonia were enrolled. The age of the patients ranged from 1 month to 10 years, 124 were male, 63 female; 175 of the patients received antibiotics treatment before admission. Deep respiratory aspirate sample from patients was cultured by Streptococcus pneumoniae selective plate, Hemophilus influenzae selective plate and conventional plate. The aspirate samples were also amplified for DNA of 14 bacteria with target enriched multiplex polymerase chain reaction (Tem-PCR) and detected with Luminex xMAP technology platform. RESULTS: The total positive rate by bacterial culture was 40.1% (75/187), of which 17.1% (24/187) were Hemophilus influenzae b, 8.6% (16/187) were Escherichia coli, 6.4% (12/187) were Klebsiella pneumoniae, 4.8% (9/187) were Staphylococcus aureus, 3.7% (7/187) were Streptococcus pneumoniae, 1.6% (3/187) were Pseudomonas aeruginosa, 1.1% (2/187) were Acinetobacter baumannii, and 1.1% (2/187) were Enterobacter cloacae. The total positive rate by combined detection of culture and Tem-PCR assay were 78.6% (147/187), of which 28.9% (54/187) were Hemophilus influenzae b, 19.3% (36/187) were Streptococcus pneumoniae, 8.6% (16/187) were Escherichia coli, 6.4% (12/187) were Klebsiella pneumoniae, 5.9% (11/187) were Staphylococcus aureus, 5.9% (11/187) were Acinetobacter baumannii, 2.7% (5/187) were Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and 1.1% (2/187) were Enterobacter cloacae. CONCLUSION: The Tem-PCR assay may increase the detection rate of Hemophilus influenzae b, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii. The Combined detection may increase the positive rate of bacterial pathogens in hospitalized children with pneumonia, and the results might reflect the real patterns of bacterial etiology. The Tem-PCR needs further improvement for diagnosis of Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae.

[A method for automatic recognition of stellar spectra based on feature matching of spectral lines].

The LAMOST project, the world's largest sky survey project being implemented in China, urgently needs an automatic stars recognition system. The present paper presents a method for automatic recognition of stellar spectra based on feature matching of spectral lines. This method consists of three main steps: First, the features of spectral lines! in the observed spectra are extracted using the wavelet transform. Then, the correlations between the extracted features and the feature templates of the stellar spectral lines are computed. Finally, based on the results of the former step, the stellar spectra can be recognized. The extensive experiments with real observed spectra from the SDSS DR4 show that the method can robustly recognize stellar spectra, and the correct rate of this method is as high as 96.7%. This method is designed to automatically recognize stellar spectra with relative flux and low signal-to-noise ratio, which is applicable to the LAMOST data and helps in the structure study of stars and galaxy etc.

[Surveillance of antibiotic resistance of Streptococcus pneumoniae isolated from hospitalized patients with pneumonia in four children's hospitals in China].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the antimicrobial resistance of Streptococcus pneumoniae (S.pneumoniae) isolated from Chinese children with pneumonia. METHODS: Hypopharyngeal aspirate specimens were collected from hospitalized children with pneumonia who were admitted to the children's hospital located in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou or Shanghai from February 16, 2006 to February 16, 2007. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of S.pneumoniae isolates against penicillin, amoxicillin, cefuroxime (sodium), ceftriaxone, erythromycin, vancomycin, ofloxacin and imipenem was determined by E-test method. RESULTS: A total of 279 S.pneumoniae isolates were obtained. Eighty-six percent of the isolates were not susceptive to penicillin, and 23.3% was resistant to penicillin. The rate of susceptibility of the isolates to amoxicillin was 92.1%, and to cefuroxime and ceftriaxone was 19.0% and 75.3%, respectively. The isolates also showed a high susceptibility to vancomycin (99.6%) and ofloxacin (97.8%). Seventeen point six percent of the isolates were not susceptive to imipenem, and most of those were intermediate. Almost of all isolates were resistant to erythromycin. There were some distinct regional differences in the susceptibility to antimicrobials tested except for erythromycin, vancomycin and ofloxacin. CONCLUSIONS: The S.pneumoniae isolates from Chinese children with pneumonia were susceptive to amoxicillin, vancomycin and ofloxacin, but were not susceptive or resistant to penicillin, cefuroxime and erythromycin. The isolates kept susceptibility to ceftriaxone and imipenem to a certain extent.

[Wavelet NeighShrink method for grid texture removal in image of solar radio bursts].

The data received from solar bursts contain a lot of noise, which makes further processing more difficult. To remove the noise and enhance the image, we studied the properties of the NeighShrink threshold function and analyzed the influence of neighborhood window size on the denoising result, on the basis of which a new wavelet NeighShrink square root method for image denoising is presented. Firstly, each channel of the solar burst image is normalized, which can, to some extent, remove the horizontal grid texture in the image. Secondly, the preprocessed image is decomposed by wavelet transform, and the obtained wavelet coefficients are thresholded by NeighShrink square root method. Finally, the denoised image is reconstructed by inverse wavelet transform. The experimental results show that the presented method is effective in noise removal and image enhancement.

[Identification of a new subtype of blaADC produced by Acinetobacter baumannii isolated in children].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the genotype of blaADC which was a kind of AmpC produced by Acinetobacter baumannii (AB), isolated through the detection of 28 similar strains among children. METHODS: 28 strains of AB were collected and isolated from the Pediatrics clinic during 2006, and were identified through bacteria and susceptibility test using Vitex-32 automicroscan GNI and GNS cards. The genotype of blaADC was confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and them sequenced. RESULTS: 3 of the 28 strains of AB showed multi-drugs resistance, with a positive rate of 10.71%. blaADC was discovered in 17 of the 28 strains and the positive rate was 60.71%. All the 28 strains of AB were resistant to Cefoxitin. blaADC positive strains were all sensitive to Ampicil/Sulbactam, and only one of them was resistant to Piperacillin/Tazobactan. There were no blaADC genes discovered in the strains that were resistant to Ampicil/Sulbactam or Piperacillin/Tazobactan. There were changes of amino acids on the site 4, 242, 342 and 376 in the sequence of blaADC of No.2 strain, comparing to gi /7258342/ emb /CAB77444. 1/ in GenBank. CONCLUSION: Above 60% of the AB isolated in children were carrying blaADC while a strain was collected from them at random. When they were undertaken nucleotide sequence analysis, significant difference was found from the others that landed in GenBank, which identified itself as new subtype.

[An auto-extraction method of spectral line for normal galaxy spectra].

Spectral line extraction for normal galaxy spectra is the most difficult task in spectral line auto-extraction of celestial spectra. The present paper presents a novel technique of spectral line auto-extraction for normal galaxy spectra. Firstly, the Max operator of two spectra is defined, and the operator produces a new spectrum whose intensity at each wavelength is the maximum of intensities of the two spectra; Secondly, the continuum is fitted in an iterative way, where in each iteration, the traditional wavelet method is performed for the spectrum obtained by the Max operation of the original spectrum, and the continuum is fitted in the last iteration; Finally, adaptive local thresholding associated with the universal thresholding is used to extract spectral lines. Experiments show that this method is superior to the traditional wavelet method. It will be helpful to the spectral line based automated spectral classification and parameter measurement.

[A novel method for continuum normalization of astronomical spectrum signals].

A combined method of wavelet transform and spline fitting is presented for continuum fitting with the strong spectral lines taken out beforehand. Some comparisons between normal methods and the method presented are made by the experiments on actual spectra And the experimental results show that our method is superior to others. Besides, an effective continuum revision formula is derived to avoid the appearance of negative continua obtained by some methods such as polynomial fitting and so on.

[Wavelet transform zero-crossing method for auto-extraction of spectral lines].

Wavelet transform method is used in this paper. The authors firstly studied the properties of spectral lines in the wavelet domain. By introducing the items of up-zero-crossings and down-zero-crossings, the authors concluded that absorption lines and emission lines correspond to different kinds of zero-crossings. Therefore the authors presented a new wavelet transform zero-crossing method for the extraction of spectral lines and the normalization of continuum spectra. The useful spectral lines can be obtained together with the continuum spectra. The extraction of spectral lines in this paper is a direct method, which avoids the errors caused during the process of noise reduction. The experiments both on stars and nearby galaxies show that our method can be used to accurately extract the spectral lines, which is helpful to the computation of characteristic parameters and the automatic classification of spectra based on spectral lines.