Disentangled representation for sequential treatment effect estimation.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Treatment effect estimation, as a fundamental problem in causal inference, focuses on estimating the outcome difference between different treatments. However, in clinical observational data, some patient covariates (such as gender, age) not only affect the outcomes but also affect the treatment assignment. Such covariates, named as confounders, produce distribution discrepancies between different treatment groups, thereby introducing the selection bias for the estimation of treatment effects. The situation is even more complicated in longitudinal data, because the confounders are time-varying that are subject to patient history and meanwhile affect the future outcomes and treatment assignments. Existing methods mainly work on cross-sectional data obtained at a specific time point, but cannot process the time-varying confounders hidden in the longitudinal data. METHODS: In this study, we address this problem for the first time by disentangled representation learning, which considers the observational data as consisting of three components, including outcome-specific factors, treatment-specific factors, and time-varying confounders. Based on this, the proposed approach adopts a recurrent neural network-based framework to process sequential information and learn the disentangled representations of the components from longitudinal observational sequences, captures the posterior distributions of latent factors by multi-task learning strategy. Moreover, mutual information-based regularization is adopted to eliminate the time-varying confounders. In this way, the association between patient history and treatment assignment is removed and the estimation can be effectively conducted. RESULTS: We evaluate our model in a realistic set-up using a model of tumor growth. The proposed model achieves the best performance over benchmark models for both one-step ahead prediction (0.70% vs 0.74% for the-state-of-the-art model, when γ = 3. Measured by normalized root mean square error, the lower the better) and five-step ahead prediction (1.47% vs 1.83%) in most cases. By increasing the effect of confounders, our proposed model always shows superiority against the state-of-the-art model. In addition, we adopted T-SNE to visualize the disentangled representations and present the effectiveness of disentanglement explicitly and intuitively. CONCLUSIONS: The experimental results indicate the powerful capacity of our model in learning disentangled representations from longitudinal observational data and dealing with the time-varying confounders, and demonstrate the surpassing performance achieved by our proposed model on dynamic treatment effect estimation.

Leveraging online shopping behaviors as a proxy for personal lifestyle choices: New insights into chronic disease prevention literacy.

Objective: Ubiquitous internet access is reshaping the way we live, but it is accompanied by unprecedented challenges in preventing chronic diseases that are usually planted by long exposure to unhealthy lifestyles. This paper proposes leveraging online shopping behaviors as a proxy for personal lifestyle choices to improve chronic disease prevention literacy, targeted for times when e-commerce user experience has been assimilated into most people's everyday lives. Methods: Longitudinal query logs and purchase records from 15 million online shoppers were accessed, constructing a broad spectrum of lifestyle features covering various product categories and buyer personas. Using the lifestyle-related information preceding online shoppers' first purchases of specific prescription drugs, we could determine associations between their past lifestyle choices and whether they suffered from a particular chronic disease. Results: Novel lifestyle risk factors were discovered in two exemplars-depression and type 2 diabetes, most of which showed reasonable consistency with existing healthcare knowledge. Further, such empirical findings could be adopted to locate online shoppers at higher risk of these chronic diseases with decent accuracy [i.e. (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve) AUC=0.68 for depression and AUC=0.70 for type 2 diabetes], closely matching the performance of screening surveys benchmarked against medical diagnosis. Conclusions: Mining online shopping behaviors can point medical experts to a series of lifestyle issues associated with chronic diseases that are less explored to date. Hopefully, unobtrusive chronic disease surveillance via e-commerce sites can grant consenting individuals a privilege to be connected more readily with the medical profession and sophistication.

Characteristics of amino acid metabolism in preterm infants in Guangxi, China / 中国当代儿科杂志

OBJECTIVES@#To study the characteristics of amino acid metabolism in preterm infants in Guangxi, China.@*METHODS@#A retrospective analysis was performed on the medical data of 30 757 neonates who underwent the screening for inherited metabolic diseases and had negative results in Guangxi Neonatal Disease Screening Center from 2018 to 2020. Among these neonates, there were 28 611 normal full-term infants (control group) and 2 146 preterm infants (preterm birth group). According to gestational age, the preterm infants were further divided into four groups: very preterm (n=209), moderately preterm (n=307), and late preterm group (n=1 630). According to birth weight, they were divided into three groups: very low birth weight group (n=161), low birth weight group (n=1 085), and normal birth weight group (n=900). According to blood collection time, they were divided into three groups: 3-7 days group (n=1 664), 8-14 days group (n=314) and 15-28 days group (n=168). Tandem mass spectrometry was performed to measure the levels of 11 amino acids in dried blood spots, which were then compared between groups.@*RESULTS@#After adjustment for confounding factors, there were significant differences in the levels of 11 amino acids among different gestational age groups (P<0.05), and significant differences were observed in the levels of the 11 amino acids between the control group and the various preterm groups (except for citrulline and methionine in the late preterm group). There were significant differences in the levels of 11 amino acids among different birth weight groups (P<0.05). Except for ornithine, there were significant differences in the levels of other amino acids among the different blood collection time groups (P<0.05).@*CONCLUSIONS@#Gestational age, birth weight and blood collection time all affect amino acid metabolism in preterm infants in Guangxi, China. This provides a basis for the laboratory to establish the reference standard and clinical interpretation of blood amino acid levels in preterm infants, and to improve the nutritional metabolism of preterm infants.

Relationship between body mass index and sexual development in Chinese children / 中华儿科杂志

Objective: To investigate the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and sexual development in Chinese children. Methods: A nationwide multicenter and population-based large cross-sectional study was conducted in 13 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities of China from January 2017 to December 2018. Data on sex, age, height, weight were collected, BMI was calculated and sexual characteristics were analyzed. The subjects were divided into four groups based on age, including ages 3-<6 years, 6-<10 years, 10-<15 years and 15-<18 years. Multiple Logistic regression models were used for evaluating the associations of BMI with sexual development in children. Dichotomous Logistic regression was used to compare the differences in the distribution of early and non-early puberty among normal weight, overweight and obese groups. Curves were drawn to analyze the relationship between the percentage of early puberty and BMI distribution in girls and boys at different Tanner stages. Results: A total of 208 179 healthy children (96 471 girls and 111 708 boys) were enrolled in this study. The OR values of B2, B3 and B4+ in overweight girls were 1.72 (95%CI: 1.56-1.89), 3.19 (95%CI: 2.86-3.57), 7.14 (95%CI: 6.33-8.05) and in obese girls were 2.05 (95%CI: 1.88-2.24), 4.98 (95%CI: 4.49-5.53), 11.21 (95%CI: 9.98-12.59), respectively; while the OR values of G2, G3, G4+ in overweight boys were 1.27 (95%CI: 1.17-1.38), 1.52 (95%CI: 1.36-1.70), 1.88 (95%CI: 1.66-2.14) and in obese boys were 1.27 (95%CI: 1.17-1.37), 1.59 (95%CI: 1.43-1.78), and 1.93 (95%CI: 1.70-2.18) (compared with normal weight Tanner 1 group,all P<0.01). Analysis in different age groups found that OR values of obese girls at B2 stage and boys at G2 stage were 2.02 (95%CI: 1.06-3.86) and 2.32 (95%CI:1.05-5.12) in preschool children aged 3-<6 years, respectively (both P<0.05). And in the age group of 6-10 years, overweight girls had a 5.45-fold risk and obese girls had a 12.54-fold risk of B3 stage compared to girls with normal BMI. Compared with normal weight children, the risk of early puberty was 2.67 times higher in overweight girls, 3.63 times higher in obese girls, and 1.22 times higher in overweight boys, 1.35 times higher in obese boys (all P<0.01). Among the children at each Tanner stages, the percentage of early puberty increased with the increase of BMI, from 5.7% (80/1 397), 16.1% (48/299), 13.8% (27/195) to 25.7% (198/769), 65.1% (209/321), 65.4% (157/240) in girls aged 8-<9, 10-<11 and 11-<12 years, and 6.6% (34/513), 18.7% (51/273), 21.6% (57/264) to 13.3% (96/722), 46.4% (140/302), 47.5% (105/221) in boys aged 9-<10, 12-<13 and 13-<14 years, respectively. Conclusions: BMI is positively correlated with sexual development in both Chinese boys and girls, and the correlation is stronger in girls. Obesity is a risk factor for precocious puberty in preschool children aged 3-<6 years, and 6-<10 years of age is a high risk period for early development in obese girls.

Effect of Danggui Shaoyaosan on Copper Ion-mediated Aβ Aggregation in AD Cell Model / 中国实验方剂学杂志

Objective:To investigate the effect of copper ion(Cu2+) on the aggregation and neurotoxicity of Aβ, and affirm the role of Danggui Shaoyaosan in vitro,the Neuroblastoma (SH-SY5Y) cells treated with β-amyloid 1-42 (Aβ1-42) and Cu2+ were used as a vitro models of Alzheimer's disease(AD). Method:Aβ 1-42 (20 μmol·L-1) was reacted with different concentrations of copper sulfate (CuSO4,20,40 μmol·L-1), and then the thioflavine T (ThT) staining method was used to detect the Aβ aggregation state. The Aβ aggregation status was also detected by ThT staining in the Aβ1-42-Cu2+ group(20+20 μmol·L-1), and Danggui Shaoyaosan groups(1.6,3.2,6.4 mg·L-1).The SH-SY5Y cells were cultured and incubated with different concentrations of Aβ1-42(1.25,2.5,5,10,20,40 μmol·L-1) and Danggui Shaoyaosan(1.6, 3.2, 6.4,12.8 mg·L-1) for 24 h. Subsequently, SH-SY5Y cells were incubated with Aβ1-42 (20 μmol·L-1) and CuSO4(20 μmol·L-1) in the Aβ1-42-Cu2+ group, and incubated with Aβ1-42 (20 μmol·L-1), Danggui Shaoyaosan (1.6 mg·L-1) and CuSO4 (20 μmol·L-1) in Danggui Shaoyaosan group. Control group was added with the medium. After 24 h of co-action, the cell viability was detected by the methylthiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) assay. The morphology of the cells was photographed by microscopy. The intracellular extracellular Aβ1-42 aggregation was detected by Western blot. Result:Cu2+ and Aβ1-42 bound to more and larger Aβ aggregates compared with the Aβ1-42 group. Compared with the normal group, cell viability was significantly reduced (PPβ1-42 aggregation was increased(PPβ-Cu2+ (PPβ1-42 protein (PPConclusion:Cu2+ can increase the aggregation and toxicity of Aβ; Danggui Shaoyaosan can significantly reduce the damage of SH-SY5Y cells induced by Cu2+-mediated Aβ aggregation, promote Aβ endocytosis, reduce extracellular Aβ aggregation and increase cell viability.

Effects of Diet on Bile Acid Metabolism and Insulin Resistance in Type 2 Diabetic Rats after Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass.

BACKGROUND: Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) is effective for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus; however, the mechanism remains unclear. METHODS: The effects of RYGB on postprandial responses to three different diets (low carbohydrate (CH)-rich diet, high CH-rich diet, and fat-rich diet) of different nutritional composition in a Goto-Kakizaki (GK) diabetic rat model were assessed by measuring glucose tolerance, insulin resistance, incretin responses, and bile acid (BA) metabolism. RESULTS: GK-RYGB group rats lost weight and preferred low CH-rich diet, but there were no significant differences in BW among the different diets. Glucose tolerance and insulin resistance were improved in rats who underwent RYGB, together with higher levels of circulating BAs, plasma GLP-1, and PYY levels. GK-RYGB rats fed high CH-rich or fat-rich diet showed increased glucose level and insulin resistance, together with high plasma BA, GIP, and PYY levels compared to those fed a low CH-rich diet. CONCLUSION: RYGB improves glucose tolerance and insulin resistance which may be related to BA metabolism and hormone levels, and the nutrient composition of the diet affects the treatment effect of RYGB on T2DM.

Greater Curvature Plication with Duodenal-Jejunal Bypass: a Novel Metabolic Surgery for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

OBJECTIVE: The study investigated the use of great curvature plication with duodenal-jejunal bypass (GCP-DJB) in a type 2 diabetic with obesity rat model. METHODS: Twenty-two Sprague-Dawley rats were given a high fat and sugar diet with subsequent intraperitoneal injection of a small dosage of streptozotocin (30 mg/kg) and randomly assigned to either GCP-DJB (n = 12) or Sham surgery (n = 10). Body weight, peripheral blood glucose, and fasting serum insulin were assayed, and insulin resistance index (IRI) was calculated, before and at 1, 2, 4, and 8 weeks after surgery. RESULTS: No differences were found in the preoperative characteristics of the two groups (P > 0.05). At week 1, the body weights decreased significantly, but there was no significant difference between the two groups (P > 0.05).The fasting blood glucose was significantly lower in the GCP-DJB than in the Sham group (P < 0.05), serum insulin levels were higher (P < 0.05), and IRI began to decline (P < 0.05). From 2 to 8 weeks, the body weight of Sham group gradually recovered and continued to rise, while the GCP-DJB group remained at a relatively lower state. Compared to the Sham group, the body weight, fasting blood glucose as well as IRI of GCP-DJB rats had significantly decreased (P < 0.05). But, the fasting insulin concentrations had significantly increased (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: This novel GCP-DJB procedure established a stable animal model for the study of metabolic surgery to treat type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

The glucocerebrosidase gene and Parkinson's disease / 中华老年医学杂志

Parkinson's disease(PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease afflicting many older individuals.To date,mutations in the GBA gene is considered as a major risk factor for PD,but the underlying mechanism is still unclear.Glucocerebrosidase (GCase) encoded by GBA may work as a biomarker for the early diagnosis of PD associated with GBA mutations (PD-GBA).Increasing GCase enzyme activity or reducing its substrate availability may protect the neuron and slow the progression of PD-GBA.

To assess the effects of parathyroidectomy (TPTX versus TPTX+AT) for Secondary Hyperparathyroidism in chronic renal failure: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Secondary Hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) requiring parathyroidectomy (PTX) occurs more commonly in patients with progressive chronic kidney disease and in those on long-term lithium therapy. Successful PTX often results in a dramatic drop of parathyroid hormone level, relieves the patient from clinical symptoms, and reduces mortality. However, there is an ongoing debate on the optimal surgical treatment of SHPT. Currently, no clinical guidelines or trials have definitely answered the question of whether Total Parathyroidectomy (TPTX) is superior or equal to Total Parathyroidectomy with Autotransplantation (TPTX + AT). OBJECTIVE: The aims of the study were to compare the efficacy of two different surgical procedures and to develop evidence-based practice guidelines for the treatment of SHPT. METHODS: Citations were identified in the Medline, Cochrane, EMBASE, and Chinese Biomedical Literature databases through November 2016. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) score was used to assess the methodological quality of the studies included. All data were analyzed using Review Manager 5.3. RESULTS: A total of nine cohort studies and one Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT), comprising 1283 patients, were identified. The NOS score of all the studies included was 5 or above. Compared with TPTX + AT, patients in the TPTX group had lower rates of "recurrence" (OR = 0.20; 95%CI, 0.11-0.38; P < 0.01), "recurrence or persistence" (OR = 0.18; 95%CI, 0.10-0.33; P < 0.01), "reoperation due to recurrence or persistence" (OR = 0.17; 95%CI, 0.06-0.54; P = 0.002), and shorter "operative time" (WMD = -17.30; 95%CI, -30.53 to -4.06; P < 0.05), except for a higher risk of "hypoparathyroidism" (OR = 2.97; 95%CI, 1.09-8.08; P = 0.01). However, none of the patients had developed permanent hypocalcemia or adynamic bone disease. No significant difference was found for "symptomatic improvement", "complications", "drug requirements", and "hospital stay" (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: The findings indicate that TPTX is superior to TPTX + AT, while referring to the rate of recurrent SHPT. However, this conclusion needs to be tested in large-scale confirmatory trials. TPTX seems to be a feasible alternative therapeutic option for the surgical treatment of refractory SHPT.

A novel surgical strategy for secondary hyperparathyroidism: Purge parathyroidectomy.

OBJECTIVE: This study was intended to demonstrate the feasibility and efficacy of purge parathyroidectomy (PPTX) for patients with secondary hyperparathyroidism (SHPT). METHODS: The "seed, environment, and soil" medical hypothesis was first raised, following review of the literatures, to demonstrate the possible causes of persistence or recurrence of SHPT after parathyroidectomy. Subsequently, the novel surgical strategy of PPTX was proposed, which involves comprehensive resection of the fibro-fatty tissues, including visible or invisible parathyroid, within the region surrounded by the thyroid cartilage, bilateral carotid artery sheath, and the brachiocephalic artery. The perioperative information and clinical outcomes of patients who underwent PPTX from June 2016 to December 2016 were analyzed. RESULTS: In total, PPTX was performed safely in nine patients with SHPT from June 2016 to December 2016. The operative time for PPTX ranged from 95 to 135 min, and blood loss ranged from 20 to 40 mL. No patients with perioperative death, bleeding, convulsions, or recurrent laryngeal nerve injury were reported. The preoperative concentration of PTH ranged from 1062 to 2879 pg/mL, and from 12.35 to 72.69 pg/mL on the first day after surgery. In total, 37 parathyroid glands were resected. The postoperative pathologic examination showed that supernumerary or ectopic parathyroid tissues were found within the "non-parathyroid" tissues in three patients. No cases encountered persistence or recurrence of SHPT, or severe hypocalcemia during the follow-up period. CONCLUSION: PPTX involves comprehensive resection of supernumerary and ectopic parathyroid tissues, which may provide a more permanent means of reducing PTH levels.

General, Nested, and Constrained Wiberg Minimization.

Wiberg matrix factorization breaks a matrix Y into low-rank factors U and V by solving for V in closed form given U, linearizing V(U) about U, and iteratively minimizing ||Y - UV(U)||2 with respect to U only. This approach factors the matrix while effectively removing V from the minimization. Recently Eriksson and van den Hengel extended this approach to L1 , minimizing ||Y - UV(U)||1 . We generalize their approach beyond factorization to minimize ||Y - f(U, V)||1 for more general functions f(U, V) that are nonlinear in each of two sets of variables. We demonstrate the idea with a practical Wiberg algorithm for L1 bundle adjustment. One Wiberg minimization can be nested inside another, effectively removing two of three sets of variables from a minimization. We demonstrate this idea with a nested Wiberg algorithm for L1 projective bundle adjustment, solving for camera matrices, points, and projective depths. Wiberg minimization also generalizes to handle nonlinear constraints, and we demonstrate this idea with Constrained Wiberg Minimization for Multiple Instance Learning (CWM-MIL), which removes one set of variables from the constrained optimization. Our experiments emphasize isolating the effect of Wiberg by comparing against the algorithm it modifies, successive linear programming.

The Status and Associated Factors of Successful Aging among Older Adults Residing in Longevity Areas in China / 生物医学与环境科学（英文）

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>This study aims to assess the status of successful aging (SA) in longevity areas in China and explore multiple factors associated with SA among the young-old and oldest-old.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A total of 2296 elderly people aged 65 and older were interviewed in the longevity areas sub-sample of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) in 2012. Baseline assessments included a researcher-administered questionnaire, physical examination, and laboratory testing. A logistic regression model was used to identify factors associated with SA.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The prevalence of SA was 38.81% in the CLHLS in 2012. There were significant differences between ages groups, with SA compromising 56.85% among ⋝65 years group and 20.31% among ⋝100 years group (χ2trend=126.73, P<0.01). The prevalence of SA among females was 33.59%, which was significantly lower than that among males (45.58%) (χ2gender=33.65, P<0.05). In the regression analysis, having anemia (OR=0.744, 95% CI: 0.609-0.910), poor lifestyle (OR=0.697, 95% CI: 0.568-0.854), poor sleep quality (OR=0.558, 95% CI: 0.456-0.682), and central obesity (OR=0.684, 95% CI: 0.556-0.841) were the main factors associated with SA. The promoting SA rate decreased as age increased, and the group of 65-79 years had higher odds than the other age group.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Preventing central obesity, improving sleep quality and promoting healthy lifestyle may contribute to achieve SA among the elderly.</p>

Activation of mGluR5 Attenuates Microglial Activation and Neuronal Apoptosis in Early Brain Injury After Experimental Subarachnoid Hemorrhage in Rats.

Activation of metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5) provided neuroprotection in multiple central nervous system injury, but the roles of mGluR5 in subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) remain unclear. In present study, we aimed to evaluate whether activation of mGluR5 attenuates early brain injury (EBI) after experimental SAH in rats. We found that selective mGluR5 orthosteric agonist CHPG or positive allosteric modulator VU0360172 administration significantly improves neurological function and attenuates brain edema at 24 h after SAH. Furthermore, mGluR5 obviously expresses in activated microglia (ED-1 positive) after SAH. CHPG or VU0360172 administration significantly reduces the numbers of activated microglia and the protein and mRNA levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1ß, IL-6 and TNF-α at 24 h after SAH. Moreover, CHPG or VU0360172 administration obviously reduces the number of TUNEL-positive cells and active caspase-3/NeuN-positive neurons in cortex at 24 h after SAH. CHPG or VU0360172 administration significantly up-regulates the expression of Bcl-2, and down-regulates the expression of Bax and active caspase-3, which in turn increases the ratio of Bcl-2/Bax. Our results indicate that activation of mGluR5 attenuates microglial activation and neuronal apoptosis, and improves neurological function in EBI after SAH.

Prevalence of hypertension and relationship between hypertension and obesity in children and adolescents in Nanning of Guangxi Province / 中国当代儿科杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the prevalence of hypertension and the relationship between hypertension and obesity in children and adolescents aged 6-18 years in Nanning, Guangxi Province, China.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A stratified cluster random sampling method was adopted in Nanning to select 7 893 children and adolescents aged 6-18 years as research subjects. Questionnaire surveys were conducted, and blood pressure, height, weight, and other indicators of growth and development were measured.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>An increasing trend with age for both systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) was observed. Detection rates of hypertension, high SBP (HSBP) and high DBP (HDBP) were 6.58%, 4.02% and 3.81%, respectively. The detection rates of hypertension and HSBP in boys were significantly higher than in girls (P<0.05). The detection rates of hypertension in normal, overweight and obesity groups were 3.87%, 9.84% and 19.23%, respectively. The obesity group showed the highest detection rates for hypertension, HSBP and HDBP, followed by the overweight group and normal group. Compared with that in the normal group, the odds ratios (95% CI) for hypertension in the overweight and obesity groups were 2.71 (1.69-5.96) and 5.91 (3.46-7.63), respectively. Blood pressure showed a positive correlation with age, height, weight and BMI (P<0.01).</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The present study provides with the current information and characteristics of blood pressure of children and adolescents aged 6-18 years in Nanning, Guangxi. Blood pressure is correlated with gender, age, height, weight and BMI. Obesity is positively correlated with the prevalence of hypertension and the risk of hypertension increases with body weight.</p>

Visual detection of H1 subtype and identification of N1, N2 subtype of avian influenza virus by reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay / 病毒学报

In order to visually detect H1, N1 and N2 subtype of avian influenza virus (AIV), three reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assays were developed. According to the sequences of AIV gene available in GenBank, three degenerate primer sets specific to HA gene of H1 subtype AIV, NA gene of N1 and N2 subtype AIV were designed, and the reaction conditions were optimized. The results showed that all the assays had no cross-reaction with other subtype AIV and other avian respiratory pathogens, and the detection limit was higher than that of conventional RT-PCR. These assays were performed in water bath within 50 minutes. Without opening tube, the amplification result could be directly determined by inspecting the color change of reaction system as long as these assays were fin-ished. Fourteen specimens of H1N1 subtype and eight specimens of H1N2 subtype of AIV were identified from the 120 clinical samples by RT-LAMP assays developed, which was consistent with that of virus isolation. These results suggested that the three newly developed RT-LAMEP assays were simple, specific and sensitive and had potential for visual detection of H1, N1 and N2 subtype of AIV in field.

Development of a GeXP assay for simultaneous differentiation of six chicken respiratory viruses / 病毒学报

A GeXP based multiplex PCR assay was developed to simultaneously detect six different chicken respiratory viruses including H5, H7, H9 subtypes of avian influenza virus(AIV), new castle disease virus (NDV), infectious bronchitis virus(IBV) and infectious laryngotracheitis virus(ILTV). According to the conserved sequences of genes of each pathogen, seven pairs of specific primers were designed, and the reaction conditions were optimized. The specificity and accuracy of GeXP were examined using samples of single and mixed infections of virus. The sensitivity was evaluated by performing the assay on serial 10-fold dilutions of cloned plasmids. To further evaluate the reliability, thirty-four clinical samples were detected by GeXP. The corresponding specific fragments of genes were amplified. The detection limit of GeXP was 10(2) copies/microL when all of 7 pre-mixed plasmids containing target genes of six chicken respiratory viruses were present. In the detection of thirty-four clinical samples, the results of GeXP were accorded with the viral isolation completely. In conclusion, this GeXP assay is a rapid, specific, sensitive and high-throughput method for the detection of chicken respiratory virus infections. It can be applied in rapid differential diagnosis for clinical samples, and also provide an effective tool to prevent and control chicken respiratory diseases with similar clinical symptoms.

Pulmonary surfactant associated gene variants in mixed ethnic population of Han and Zhuang / 中华儿科杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To explore the prevalence of pulmonary surfactant associated pathway genes functional variants in Chinese population.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>Using a cohort of 258 mixed ethnic population of Han and Zhuang, we pooled DNA samples from 146 term male infants and 112 term female infants and then used an Ill umina next generation sequencing platform to perform the complete exonic resequencing in 6 target genes:surfactant protein-B (SFTPB), surfactant protein-C (SFTPC), ATP-binding cassette transporter A3 (ABCA3), lysophospholipid acyltransferase 1 (LPCAT1), choline phosphotransferase 1 (CHPT1), phosphate cytidylyltransferase 1, choline, beta (PCYT1B). Collapsing methods was used to determine the functional allele frequency.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>(1) Altogether, 128 variants were found, including 44 synonymous variants, 66 nonsynonymous variants and 18 insertions-deletions. Of these, 28 variants were predicted to alter protein function. Two of these variants were seen twice, the rest variants were only seen once, for a total of 30 functional alleles; (2) ABCA3 had the most functional variants in both male and female groups with the minor allele frequencies of 0.014 (1.4%) and 0.04 (4%), respectively. The total functional allele frequencies of 6 genes were 0.041 (4.1%) and 0.08 (8%) in the two groups, respectively (P = 0.06).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>(1) Functional variants in pulmonary surfactant associated pathway genes are present in the mixed Han-Zhuang population. (2) ABCA3 contained the most functional variants suggesting that ABCA3 could contribute significantly to neonatal respiratory distress syndrome and other lung disease.</p>

Maximum margin multiple instance clustering with applications to image and text clustering.

In multiple instance learning problems, patterns are often given as bags and each bag consists of some instances. Most of existing research in the area focuses on multiple instance classification and multiple instance regression, while very limited work has been conducted for multiple instance clustering (MIC). This paper formulates a novel framework, maximum margin multiple instance clustering (M(3)IC), for MIC. However, it is impractical to directly solve the optimization problem of M(3)IC. Therefore, M(3)IC is relaxed in this paper to enable an efficient optimization solution with a combination of the constrained concave-convex procedure and the cutting plane method. Furthermore, this paper presents some important properties of the proposed method and discusses the relationship between the proposed method and some other related ones. An extensive set of empirical results are shown to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method against existing research for both effectiveness and efficiency.

Epidemiological study on the association between obesity with metabolic syndrome in obese children and adolescents of Nanning city, Guangxi / 中华流行病学杂志

Objective To investigate the association between obesity and prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MS) with its associated risk factors,in children and adolescents.Methods A stratified random sampling method was used to select 7893 students from 6 to 18 years of age from 14 out of 396 primary and secondary schools in Nanning city.All the students had undergone physical examination and blood tests including the following risk factors related to metabolic syndrome:fasting blood glucose (FBG),total cholesterol (TC),triglycerides (TG),high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C),low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C),alanine amino shift enzyme (ALT),aspartic acid amine shift enzyme (AST) and fasting insulin (FINS).The homeostasis model assessment insulin resistance index (HOMA-IR) was also measured.Results (1) The prevalence rate of MS in normal group was 0.57％.In both the overweight and obesity groups,the prevalence rates of MS were 4.53％ and 26.80％,respectively.(2) These indices in obesity group were higher than other two groups (P＜0.05).The result of overweight group was higher than normal group (P＜0.05).(3) Waist circumference(OR=1.087,95％CI:1.033-1.143 ),SBP ( OR=1.073,95％CI:1.032-1.116),FBG (OR=1.394,95％CI:1.568-3.423),TG (OR=3.213,95％CI:1.410-7.319) and HDL-C (OR=0.001,95％CI:0.000-0.012)were detecting indices which had statistically significant with MS in binary logistic regression analysis.Conclusion Metabolic syndrome and obesity were closely related in children and adolescents while its prevalence and risk factors increased with the severity of obesity.

Relationship between alanine aminotransferase and overweight or obesity in children / 中国当代儿科杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To study the association of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) with overweight or obesity in children.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A total of 2889 healthy children and 702 overweight or obese children aged from 7 to 18 years who had received a physical examination were enrolled. Height, body weight, waist circumference, and blood pressure were measured, and the biochemical indicators including blood glucose, blood lipids, ALT, and insulin were detected. The insulin resistance index were calculated.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The ALT level was significantly higher in boys than in girls. Along with the increase of BMI, the ALT level increased in the normal, overweight, and obese groups in both boys and girls. ALT was correlated with BMI, waist circumference, triglyceride, and insulin resistance index. Among the overweight or obese children, the boys with the increased ALT level had higher BMI, waist circumference, blood pressure, triglyceride, low density lipoprotein and insulin resistance index than the boys with normal ALT level (P<0.05); the girls with the increased ALT level had higher waist circumference, blood pressure and insulin resistance index and lower high density lipoprotein than the girls with normal ALT level (P<0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>ALT is correlated with overweight and obesity and metabolic disorders caused by overweight and obesity such as dyslipidemia and insulin resistance.</p>