Sinibotia lani, a new species of botiid loach (Teleostei: Botiidae) from Guangxi, China.

Sinibotia lani, a new botiid loach is described from the Zuojiang River, located in Guangxi Autonomous Region, China. The species differs from other members of Sinibotia by a combination of the following morphological characters: body depth 17.5-21.1% SL; snout length shorter than postorbital length of head; eye diameter 10.2-13.2% HL; interorbital width 16.0-18.6% HL; suborbital spine reaching or extending beyond postorbital margin of eye; lower lip with pair of fleshy button-like clusters of papillae; dorsal-fin origin opposite to pelvic-fin origin, pelvic fin not reaching anus; includes six dark vertical bars on the body. A key to the species of Sinibotia is provided.

Cobitis xui, a new species of spined loach (Teleostei: Cobitidae) from the Pearl River drainage in southern China.

A new spined loach of the genus Cobitis Linnaeus is described from the Buquan River, located in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. The species differs from other members of Cobitis in China by a combination of morphological characters, none of them unique: body depth 14.3‒18.4% SL; lamina circularis long and knife-shaped; Gambetta zones present on the dorsolateral sides of the body (L1‒L5); 8‒11 large transverse elongated blotches on L5; 9‒12 large transverse elongated blotches on L1; maxillary barbels longer than eye diameter; 4‒5 narrow rows of dark spots on the caudal fin; caudal fin with 14 branched rays; a rectangular spot slightly smaller than eye diameter on the upper side of caudal fin base; and caudal-peduncle depth 79.5‒93.1% its length.

Upregulation of microRNA-351 exerts protective effects during sepsis by ameliorating skeletal muscle wasting through the Tead-4-mediated blockade of the Hippo signaling pathway.

Sepsis-induced skeletal muscle wasting may lead to various severe clinical consequences. Understanding molecular mechanisms of the regulation of the loss of skeletal muscle mass in septic patients remains a significant clinical challenge. The current study was conducted to establish septic mice models to explore the relationship between microRNA (miR)-351 and the transcription element apical (TEA) domain transcription factor (Tead)-4 gene and to investigate its effects on the skeletal muscle through mediating the Hippo signaling pathway in mice with acute sepsis. A total of 60 mice were collected to establish mouse models of acute sepsis. The positive expression rate of Tead-4 and the apoptotic index (AI) were measured. A dual-luciferase reporter gene assay was conducted to verify the targeting relationship between miR-351 and Tead-4. Furthermore, the muscle fiber diameter (MFD) and area (MFA) and the content of 3-methylhistidine (3-MH) and tyrosine (Tyr) were assessed. The expression levels of miR-351, p38-MAPK, Yes-associated protein, Tead-4, B-cell lymphoma X protein (Bax), and Caspase-3 were determined with quantitative RT-PCR and Western blot analysis. Finally, cell viability, apoptosis, and levels of inflammatory factors, including IL-1ß, IL-6, IGF-1, TNF-α, and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 were detected by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2- yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay, flow cytometry, and ELISA. Initially, Tead-4 protein expression was higher in skeletal muscle tissues of mice with acute sepsis. Tead-4 was identified to negatively regulate miR-351. Upregulation of miR-351 increased MFA and MFD, muscle weight water content, Bcl-2 expression levels, and cell viability. Up-regulation of miR-351 reduced AI; 3-MH and Tyr content; positive expression of Tead-4 protein; the expression levels of p38-MAPK, Yap, Tead-4, Bax, and Caspase-3; apoptosis; and inflammatory responses. The current study demonstrated that up-regulation of miR-351 inhibits the degradation of skeletal muscle protein and the atrophy of skeletal muscle in mice with acute sepsis by targeting Tead-4 through suppression of the Hippo signaling pathway. Thus, miR-351 overexpression may be a future therapeutic strategy for acute sepsis.-Zhang, L.-N., Tian, H., Zhou, X.-L., Tian, S.-C., Zhang, X.-H., Wu, T.-J. Upregulation of microRNA-351 exerts protective effects during sepsis by ameliorating skeletal muscle wasting through the Tead-4-mediated blockade of the Hippo signaling pathway.

Triplophysa anshuiensis, a new species of blind loach from the Xijiang River, China (Teleostei, Nemacheilidae).

A new cave-dwelling fish, Triplophysa anshuiensis, is described here based on specimens collected from a karst cave in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China, interconnected with the Hongshui River system, a tributary of the Xijiang River in the Pearl River (Zhu Jiang) Drainage. The species can be distinguished from its congeners by a combination of morphological characters. A key to the cave-dwelling species of Triplophysa in the Xijiang River is provided.

Effect of probiotics on the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia in critically ill patients: a randomized controlled multicenter trial.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the potential preventive effect of probiotics on ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). METHODS: This was an open-label, randomized, controlled multicenter trial involving 235 critically ill adult patients who were expected to receive mechanical ventilation for ≥48 h. The patients were randomized to receive (1) a probiotics capsule containing live Bacillus subtilis and Enterococcus faecalis (Medilac-S) 0.5 g three times daily through a nasogastric feeding tube plus standard preventive strategies or (2) standard preventive strategies alone, for a maximum of 14 days. The development of VAP was evaluated daily, and throat swabs and gastric aspirate were cultured at baseline and once or twice weekly thereafter. RESULTS: The incidence of microbiologically confirmed VAP in the probiotics group was significantly lower than that in the control patients (36.4 vs. 50.4 %, respectively; P = 0.031). The mean time to develop VAP was significantly longer in the probiotics group than in the control group (10.4 vs. 7.5 days, respectively; P = 0.022). The proportion of patients with acquisition of gastric colonization of potentially pathogenic microorganisms (PPMOs) was lower in the probiotics group (24 %) than the control group (44 %) (P = 0.004). However, the proportion of patients with eradication PPMO colonization on both sites of the oropharynx and stomach were not significantly different between the two groups. The administration of probiotics did not result in any improvement in the incidence of clinically suspected VAP, antimicrobial consumption, duration of mechanical ventilation, mortality and length of hospital stay. CONCLUSION: Therapy with the probiotic bacteria B. Subtilis and E. faecalis are an effective and safe means for preventing VAP and the acquisition of PPMO colonization in the stomach.

A new species of Bibarba (Teleostei: Cypriniformes: Cobitidae) from Guangxi, China.

A new loach species of the genus Bibarba is described from a cave (Hongshuihe River basin) in Guangxi, China. The new species, Bibarba parvoculus, can be distinguished from its only congener Bibarba bibarba by pigmentation patterns on fins and side of the body, shape of snout, counts of fin rays, eye diameter, caudal-peduncle length, and preanal length. 

Effects of chinese formula jueyin granules on psoriasis in an animal model.

Although Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is known to be effective for psoriasis patients, the responsible mechanisms still remain poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effect of one formula, named Jueyin granules (JYG) in the mouse model of the vaginal epithelium and tail epidermis. Additionally, we also determined the anti-inflammatory effects of JYG in an imiquimod- (IMQ-) induced psoriasis-like skin mouse model. Our results show that JYG can attenuate the IMQ-induced psoriasis-like inflammation, accompanied with increased epidermal hyperplasia. We also measured estrogenic stage mitosis of vaginal epithelial cells and the formation of granular cell layers in male mouse tails per 100 scales, as well as the tissue nitric oxide (NO) and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels using the ELISA method. The results suggest that JYG significantly inhibited mitosis in mouse vaginal epithelial cells, promoted the formation of the squamous epidermal granular layer in mice tails, and reduced the levels of NO and MDA in an imiquimod-induced psoriasis-like skin mouse model after 14 d (P < 0.05). These results demonstrate that JYG might be an effective clinical treatment for psoriasis and the effects may be related to inhibited keratinocytes proliferation, improved parakeratotic epidermal cells, and reduced expression of NO and MDA.

[A new blind barbine species, Sinocyclocheilus anshuiensis sp. nov.(Cypriniformes: Cyprinidae)from Guangxi, China].

This study describes a new blind barbine fish species, Sinocyclocheilus anshuiensis sp. nov. discovered based on five specimens collected from a cave in Luolou town, Lingyun County, Guangxi, China, in June and July 2012. Sinocyclocheilus anshuiensis is distinguished from other species of Sinocyclocheilus by having the following combination of characteristics: dorsal fin with 7 branched rays, last unbranched dorsal-fin ray weak with serrations on posterior edge of its lower part; pelvic-fin origin anterior to dorsal-fin origin; dorsal profile of head sharply uplift, a forward flesh tuber present on frontal; body covered with scales, and lateral line with 34-38 scales, lateral line scales are as big as their neighbor scales; caudal peduncle with developed fresh crests.

[The effect of ulinastatin on disbalance of inflammation and immune status in patients with severe sepsis].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of ulinastatin (UTI) on the levels of immune regulatory cells,pro-inflammatory mediators, and the expression of human leukocyte antigen-DR (HLA-DR) in CD14⁺ monocytes. METHODS: A total of sixty patients with severe sepsis who were admitted to intensive care unit (ICU) during October 2011 to October 2012 were enrolled. The patients were randomly divided into two groups: routine treatment group (n=30, received routine bundle treatment) and UTI group (n=30, received 30 kU UTI three times per day in addition to routine bundle treatment). A course of treatment consisted of 5 days in both groups. The peripheral blood was collected, and the expression of CD4⁺CD25⁺⁻ regulatory T cell (Treg), help T cell 17 (Th17), interleukin (IL-17, IL-6, IL-10) and HLA-DR were determined before and 5 days after treatment, in order to observe the effect of UTI. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in all indexes before treatment between two groups. Compared with routine treatment group, UTI could reduce the abnormal expression of Treg and Th17 in patients with severe sepsis [Treg: (9.05 ± 1.27)% vs. (11.83 ± 1.30)%, Th17:(3.20 ± 0.33)% vs. (4.42 ± 0.35)%, both P<0.01], and decrease the ratio of Treg/Th17 (2.22 ± 0.28 vs. 2.82 ± 0.29, P<0.01) more effectively. UTI could also reduce the abnormal expression of IL-17, IL-6 and IL-10 compared with routine treatment group (IL-17: 98.35 ± 12.23 ng/L vs. 118.20 ± 15.97 ng/L, IL-6: 24.17 ± 6.72 ng/L vs. 29.27 ± 8.13 ng/L, IL-10: 33.17 ± 7.24 ng/L vs. 37.34 ± 8.49 ng/L, P<0.05 or P<0.01). In addition UTI could ameliorate the immune status, improve the expression of HLA-DR compared with routine treatment group [(49.34 ± 11.34)% vs. (36.44 ± 8.14)%, P<0.01]. The 28-day mortality in UTI group showed a tendency of lowering compared with routine treatment group, but the difference between two groups was not significant(18.2% vs. 20.1%, P>0.05). CONCLUSIONS: UTI can decrease in the expression of Treg and Th17, inverse the ratio of Treg/Th17, decrease in the expression of IL-17, IL-6 and IL-10, ameliorate the immune status, and improve the expression of HLA-DR. UTI is expected to improve the prognosis of patients with severe sepsis.

Field programmable gate array based parallel strapdown algorithm design for strapdown inertial navigation systems.

A new generalized optimum strapdown algorithm with coning and sculling compensation is presented, in which the position, velocity and attitude updating operations are carried out based on the single-speed structure in which all computations are executed at a single updating rate that is sufficiently high to accurately account for high frequency angular rate and acceleration rectification effects. Different from existing algorithms, the updating rates of the coning and sculling compensations are unrelated with the number of the gyro incremental angle samples and the number of the accelerometer incremental velocity samples. When the output sampling rate of inertial sensors remains constant, this algorithm allows increasing the updating rate of the coning and sculling compensation, yet with more numbers of gyro incremental angle and accelerometer incremental velocity in order to improve the accuracy of system. Then, in order to implement the new strapdown algorithm in a single FPGA chip, the parallelization of the algorithm is designed and its computational complexity is analyzed. The performance of the proposed parallel strapdown algorithm is tested on the Xilinx ISE 12.3 software platform and the FPGA device XC6VLX550T hardware platform on the basis of some fighter data. It is shown that this parallel strapdown algorithm on the FPGA platform can greatly decrease the execution time of algorithm to meet the real-time and high precision requirements of system on the high dynamic environment, relative to the existing implemented on the DSP platform.

A new blind loach species, Triplophysa huanjiangensis (Teleostei: Balitoridae), from Guangxi, China.

A new blind loach of the genus Triplophysa was collected in 2007 from a cave in Leyi village, located near Chuanshan Town, Huangjiang County in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of southern China. The new species, Triplophysa huangjiangensis sp. nov, can be distinguished from its congeners by eyes and scales absent; caudal-fin forked; adipose keel present; lips with furrows; distal margin of dorsal-fin truncate, dorsal fin origin much closer to caudal-fin base than snout tip; 8-9 branched dorsal-fin rays; 6-7 branched pelvic-fin rays; 6 branched anal-fin rays; 10-11 branched pectoral-fin rays; 13-14 branched caudal-fin rays; pectoral-fin length 52.3%-70.7% the distance between pectoral-fin origin to pelvic-fin origin; dorsal-fin origin posterior to vertical line of pelvic-fin origin; outer rostral barbel longer than other two pairs of barbels, with 47.0%-73.8% of lateral head length; anterior nostril with elongate barbel-like tip; and posterior chamber of gas-bladder developed, reaching pelvic-fin origin.

[A new loach, Oreonectes luochengensis sp. nov. (Cypriniformes: Balitoridae) from Guangxi, China].

A cave-dwelling loach, Oreonectes luochengensis sp. nov. has been described based on collections from a cave in Tianhe town, Luocheng, Guangxi, China in September 2008. It can be distinguished from all known Oreonectes species by the following combination of characters: dorsal-fin rays 3, 7; anal-fin rays 2, 5; pectoral-fin rays 1, 11-12; pelvic-fin rays 1, 7 and 14-16 branched caudal-fin rays; head compressed; eyes present; surface of lower lip covered with shallow longitudinal groove; dorsal-fin origin posterior to vertical line of pelvic-fin origin; caudal peduncle without caudal-adipose keels; edge of caudal fin truncation; tiny scales present under skin; no cephalic lateral-line system; body pink in living status, without pigments in adult, after fixed in formalin, body yellowish, non-transparent, no markings on body side.

[Development of a multi-spectra based portable water quality analyzer].

A novel portable multi-parameter water quality analyzer was developed based on the multi-spectra information fusion theory. The analysis method, hardware structures, working principles and software functions are described in the present paper. As a small size, rapid testing and outdoor green instrument, this analyzer can be used to measure six water organic pollution indicators, including TOC, COD, etc., through analyzing the spectra of a small amount of water sample without any chemical reagent. The practical water analysis experiments showed that the multi-spectra fusion method used by this analyzer possesses a higher measurement precision than that of the UV spectral analysis method, which is popularly used by the water quality analyzers in the market.

[Water quality analysis by three-dimensional fluorescence spectra based on selective model combination].

A selective model combination method is proposed in this paper to improve the precision of water quality analysis with three dimensional fluorescence spectra. A correlation coefficient criterion was designed to select effective excitation wavelengths for sub-models building, based on which the ridge regression method was adopted to combine the selected sub-models to get the stacked model. Thirty two samples from surface water and urban wastewater were used as research objects with total organic carbon (TOC) index from 3.41 to 125.35 mg x L(-1), and chemical oxygen demand (COD) index from 22.80 to 330.60 mg x L(-1), and 10 excitation wavelengths in the range of 220-400 nm were adopted to generate three dimensional fluorescence spectra. Following the proposed correlation coefficient criterion, the excitation wavelengths of 260, 280 and 400 nm, and the excitation wavelengths of 220, 280 and 400 nm were selected respectively for TOC analysis and COD analysis, based on which two stacked models were built by using partial least square regression method for sub-models building and ridge regression method for sub-models combination. The experimental results show that, compared with the sub-models with the best prediction precision, the root mean square errors of prediction (RMSEP) of the stacked models decreased by 15.4% for TOC analysis, and 17.5% for COD analysis; and compared with the models without sub-models selection, the RMSEP of the stacked models decreased by 6.1% for TOC analysis and 10.9% for COD analysis.

Multiorder boundaries among discrete domains: relative fractal dimension and others.

In nature and society, most of competitions take place on the boundaries among a group of domains where different individuals or colonies share common resources; therefore, it is widely believed that domain boundaries play important roles in the evolution of many complex systems. Here, we first give a definition for multiorder boundaries among discrete domains and then propose a general method to calculate their relative fractal dimension, i.e., the ratio of the fractal dimension of the boundaries versus that of the domains themselves. Through analyzing three types of real-world discrete domains, several interesting results are revealed. For example, the limitation on the number of domains that an individual can join in may produce longer boundaries indicating more cruel competitions among the domains. Besides, the individuals with more social links are always considered more important in social networks, and it is found that these individuals as valuable resources of social domains are always centralized on the boundaries of higher order.

Emergence of heterogeneous structures in chemical reaction-diffusion networks.

This paper suggests that reaction-diffusion processes, rather than pure topological rules, are responsible for the emergence of heterogeneous structures of complex chemical reaction networks. In such a network, chemical substances react in each node and diffuse between connected nodes. At the same time, each node is able to sense the difference between its own state and the environmental conditions and can rearrange its neighbors via a local rewiring process so as to eliminate the sensed difference. Then, the network, even originally homogeneous, will develop a heterogeneous structure under certain environmental conditions. Such a resultant heterogeneous network may be disassortative, highly clustering, and small world as well. This implies that the reaction-diffusion equilibrium can be statistically controlled by slightly changing the structure of the underlying network. This structure-control mechanism may be especially useful in the situations where some other macroscopic measurements, such as temperature and pressure, are not allowed to be changed through the process.

Expression of discoidin domain receptors (DDR2) in alcoholic liver fibrosis in rats.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: We undertook this study to evaluate the expression of discoidin domain receptor 2 (DDR2) and its relationship with alcoholic liver fibrosis. METHODS: Liver fibrosis was induced by intragastric administration of alcohol in 30 rats. Pathological changes and ultrastructure of the liver were studied. The expression of DDR2 mRNA and protein was detected by RT-PCR and Western blot, respectively, at weeks 12, 16 and 20 during the alcohol administration. RESULTS: In the control group (con) (n = 10), DDR2 mRNA expression and DDR2 protein were 1.02 ± 0.13 (con ratio x10⁻³) and 0.32 ± 0.03, respectively. In the study groups there was a progressive increase in DDR2 mRNA expression from weeks 12, 16 and 20 (3.64 ± 1.69, 8.34 ± 2.39, 15.73 ± 4.57 con ratio x10⁻³, p <0.05). There was also a progressive increase in DDR2 protein from weeks 12-20 (0.48 ± 0.05, 0.74 ± 0.06 and 0.99 ± 0.05, p <0.05). The mean DDR2 mRNA and protein in the three study groups was higher than in the control group (p <0.01). The expressions of DDR2 mRNA and protein were positively correlated with collagen type I, III and IV in liver tissues as well as with the serum biomarkers of liver fibrosis, collagen type III, hyaluronic acid, collagen type IV and laminin (p <0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The expression of DDR2 in this alcohol-induced liver fibrosis rat model is enhanced. The expression of DDR2 is closely associated with collagens in the fibrotic liver tissues.

Node matching between complex networks.

Revealing corresponding identities of a dedicated individual in several different complex systems is a common task in many areas, and this task is transferred to a node matching problem among complex networks in this paper. A feasible node matching algorithm based on network structure is proposed. Through solving node matching problems on different types of networks by our algorithm, it is revealed that the structure of the networks under study may significantly influence the final matching results. For example, it is found that higher matching precision can be obtained on random networks with moderate density of links, and the results on small-world networks are always better than those on random or regular networks. Moreover, in scale-free networks, it seems that hub nodes play dominant roles, i.e., better matching results can be expected by selecting nodes with larger degrees as the revealed matched nodes. These findings will help us design more efficient node matching algorithm in the future.

Empirical analysis of Internet telephone network: from user ID to phone.

In order to study the interaction between different communication networks, in this paper, personal computer (PC)-to-phone log data in the year of 2007 are collected from UUCALL database and described as an ID-to-phone bipartite network (ItPBN). The ItPBN contains one giant component (GC) and a large number of satellitic components (SCs), both of which are carefully analyzed. It is found that the ItPBN has power-law incoming/outgoing degree distributions as well as a power-law clustering function (by proposing a new definition of clustering coefficient) indicating a hierarchical and modular structure of the ItPBN. Furthermore, the fact that most of the weak links always surrounding those ID nodes of large degree in the GC suggests that weak links may be more important to keep the structure of the GC than those strong ones. More interestingly, it is also revealed that there is strong correlation between many statistical properties of different SCs and their size, these extra information may be very useful in modeling the ItPBN in the future.