Semi-interpenetrating polymer networks prepared from castor oil-based waterborne polyurethanes and carboxymethyl chitosan.

A series of vegetable oil-based waterborne polyurethane composites were prepared through construction of novel semi-interpenetrating polymers network using carboxymethyl chitosan (CA) as the secondary polymer phase. The effects of CA contents on storage stability, and particle size distribution of the composite dispersions and thermal stability, mechanical properties and surface wettability of composite films were investigated and discussed. The results showed that the composite dispersions displayed excellent storage stability and the biomass contents of resulting films were high up to 80 %. A significant increase in crosslinking density and glass transition temperature of the composite films were observed as the CA contents increased, which was attributed to the increasing hard segment of films and strong hydrogen bonding interaction between polyurethanes and CA. This work provided a simple method to tailor the performance of environmentally friendly vegetable oil-based waterborne polyurethane, which could find application in the field of coatings, adhesives, ink and so on.

Sensitive linear optical sampling system with femtosecond precision.

A sensitive linear optical sampling (LOS) system with femtosecond precision was implemented and experimentally optimized for free-space time-frequency transfer. The effect of optical factors and electronic factors on timing jitter and sensitivity of LOS was quantitatively studied separately based on femtosecond optical frequency combs. These factors include the intensity of received signal light, the repetition frequency difference between two combs, the number of bits of the analog-to-digital converter, and the gain of the balanced detector. According to the experimental results, the performance of the LOS system was optimized and the minimum timing jitter of LOS was 2.06 fs when the power of the received signal light was 1 µW. Moreover, the sensitivity reached 3.03 nW when using a balanced detector with 160 K gain.

Association between Allergic Diseases and Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Retrospective Study.

BACKGROUND: The relationship between allergic disease and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is poorly understood. We aimed to investigate the potential association as well as the underlying immunological mechanisms. METHODS: A retrospective case-control study of 108 atopic patients from among outpatients in an allergy clinic (allergic rhinitis [AR], n = 49; chronic urticaria [CU], n = 59) and 74 controls from among ward companions was conducted from November 2016 to March 2017. The detection rates and related gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms of IBS, as well as immunological indices, were calculated. RESULTS: CU patients had a trend of increase in the detection of IBS compared to controls (OR = 4.846; 95% CI 0.967-24.279, p = 0.077). Loose stools (OR = 2.406; 95% CI 1.075-5.386, p < 0.05) and viscous stools (OR = 2.665; 95% CI 1.250-5.682, p < 0.05) were more common in CU patients. Atopic patients positive for serum total immunoglobulin E (IgE) (OR = 3.379; 95% CI 1.088-10.498, p < 0.05) or house dust mite (HDM)-specific IgE (OR = 3.640; 95% CI 1.228-10.790, p < 0.05) were more likely to have abdominal bloating. Besides, a positive association between levels of total IgE and severity of abdominal bloating was observed (p < 0.05). An HDM-specific IgE-positive reaction was independently associated with abdominal bloating in atopic patients (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Allergic disease has a clear clinical association with IBS with more frequent and severe symptoms of IBS. CU patients have a tendency to suffer from IBS, usually with diarrhea. Serum total IgE and HDM-specific IgE are positively correlated with GI symptoms in atopic patients.

Satellite-based entanglement distribution over 1200 kilometers.

Long-distance entanglement distribution is essential for both foundational tests of quantum physics and scalable quantum networks. Owing to channel loss, however, the previously achieved distance was limited to ~100 kilometers. Here we demonstrate satellite-based distribution of entangled photon pairs to two locations separated by 1203 kilometers on Earth, through two satellite-to-ground downlinks with a summed length varying from 1600 to 2400 kilometers. We observed a survival of two-photon entanglement and a violation of Bell inequality by 2.37 ± 0.09 under strict Einstein locality conditions. The obtained effective link efficiency is orders of magnitude higher than that of the direct bidirectional transmission of the two photons through telecommunication fibers.

Chinese physicians' perceptions of fecal microbiota transplantation.

AIM: To explore Chinese physicians' perceptions towards fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) and to provide information and an assessment of FMT development in China. METHODS: A self-administered questionnaire was developed according to the FMT practice guidelines and was distributed to physicians in hospitals via Internet Research Electronic Data Capture (REDcap) software and electronic mails to assess their attitudes toward and knowledge of FMT. The questionnaire included a brief introduction of FMT that was followed by 20 questions. The participants were required to respond voluntarily, under the condition of anonymity and without compensation. Except for the fill-in-the-blank questions, all of the other questions were required in the REDcap data collection systems, and the emailed questionnaires were completed based on eligibility. RESULTS: Up to December 9, 2014, 844 eligible questionnaires were received out of the 980 distributed questionnaires, with a response rate of 86.1%. Among the participants, 87.3% were from tertiary hospitals, and there were 647 (76.7%) gastroenterologists and 197 (23.3%) physicians in other departments (non-gastroenterologists). Gastroenterologists' awareness of FMT prior to the survey was much higher than non-gastroenterologists' (54.3 vs 16.5%, P < 0.001); however, acceptance of FMT was not statistically different (92.4 vs 87.1%, P = 0.1603). Major concerns of FMT included the following: acceptability to patients (79.2%), absence of guidelines (56.9%), and administration and ethics (46.5%). On the basis of understanding, the FMT indications preferred by physicians were recurrent Clostridium difficile infection (86.7%), inflammatory bowel disease combined with Clostridium difficile infection (78.6%), refractory ulcerative colitis (70.9%), ulcerative colitis (65.4%), Crohn's disease (59.4%), chronic constipation (43.7%), irritable bowel syndrome (39.1%), obesity (28.1%) and type 2 diabetes (23.9%). For donor selection, the majority of physicians preferred individuals with a similar gut flora environment to the recipients. 76.6% of physicians chose lower gastrointestinal tract as the administration approach. 69.2% of physicians considered FMT a safe treatment. CONCLUSION: Chinese physicians have awareness and a high acceptance of FMT, especially gastroenterologists, which provides the grounds and conditions for the development of this novel treatment in China. Physicians' greatest concerns were patient acceptability and absence of guidelines.

Damage spreading in spatial and small-world random Boolean networks.

The study of the response of complex dynamical social, biological, or technological networks to external perturbations has numerous applications. Random Boolean networks (RBNs) are commonly used as a simple generic model for certain dynamics of complex systems. Traditionally, RBNs are interconnected randomly and without considering any spatial extension and arrangement of the links and nodes. However, most real-world networks are spatially extended and arranged with regular, power-law, small-world, or other nonrandom connections. Here we explore the RBN network topology between extreme local connections, random small-world, and pure random networks, and study the damage spreading with small perturbations. We find that spatially local connections change the scaling of the Hamming distance at very low connectivities (K ≪ 1) and that the critical connectivity of stability K(s) changes compared to random networks. At higher K, this scaling remains unchanged. We also show that the Hamming distance of spatially local networks scales with a power law as the system size N increases, but with a different exponent for local and small-world networks. The scaling arguments for small-world networks are obtained with respect to the system sizes and strength of spatially local connections. We further investigate the wiring cost of the networks. From an engineering perspective, our new findings provide the key design trade-offs between damage spreading (robustness), the network's wiring cost, and the network's communication characteristics.

SIRT1 counteracted the activation of STAT3 and NF-κB to repress the gastric cancer growth.

Sirtuin-1 (SIRT1) possesses apparently dual roles in regulation of tumor. Previous reports have documented the crosstalk between SIRT1 with signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB) signaling in leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. In this study, the purpose was to survey the regulatory effects of SIRT1 on gastric cancer (GC) cells (AGS and MKN-45) and the relationships between SIRT1 and activation of STAT3 and NF-κB in GC cells. We found the SIRT1 activator (resveratrol RSV) contributed to the repression of viability and increase of senescence, which were rescued by SIRT1 inhibitor (nicotinamide NA) and SIRT1 depletion by CCK-8 assay and SA-ß-gal assay respectively. Further study found SIRT1 activation (RSV supplement) not only inhibited the activation of STAT3 including STAT3 mRNA level, c-myc mRNA level phosphorylated STAT3 (pSTAT3) proteins and acetylizad STAT3 (acSTAT3) proteins, but also repression of pNF-κB p65 and acNF-κB p65. NA reversed the effects of RSV. In addition, either RSV or NA application could not change the cellular viability and senescence in MKN-45 cells with STAT3 knockdown or NF-κB knockdown. Overall, our findings suggested SIRT1 activation could induced the loss of viability and increases of senescence in GC in vitro. Moreover, our observations revealed SIRT1 displayed growth inhibitory activity in GC cells highly associated with causing repression of activation of STAT3 and NF-κB proteins via deacetylation.

Process development of short-chain polyols synthesis from corn stover by combination of enzymatic hydrolysis and catalytic hydrogenolysis.

Currently short-chain polyols such as ethanediol, propanediol, and butanediol are produced either from the petroleum feedstock or from the starch-based food crop feedstock. In this study, a combinational process of enzymatic hydrolysis with catalytic hydrogenolysis for short-chain polyols production using corn stover as feedstock was developed. The enzymatic hydrolysis of the pretreated corn stover was optimized to produce stover sugars at the minimum cost. Then the stover sugars were purified and hydrogenolyzed into polyols products catalyzed by Raney nickel catalyst. The results show that the yield of short-chain polyols from the stover sugars was comparable to that of the corn-based glucose. The present study provided an important prototype for polyols production from lignocellulose to replace the petroleum- or corn-based polyols for future industrial applications.

[Expression of vascular growth factors in intestinal tissues in colorectal carcinoma patients with schistosomiasis japonica].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the differences of mRNA quantitation and protein expression of vascular growth factors including platelet-derived endothelial cell growth factor (PD-ECGF) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in intestinal tissues in colorectal carcinoma patients with and without schistosomiasis. METHODS: Thirty colorectal carcinoma patients with schistosomiasis and 30 colorectal carcinoma patients without schistosomiasis were included in this study. The mRNA quantitation and protein expression of PD-ECGF and VEGF in the normal tissue, peri-carcinoma tissue as well as carcinoma tissue obtained from surgical specimens were detected by qRT-PCR and Western blot. RESULTS: The mRNA relative quantitations of PD-ECGF in normal tissue, peri-carcinoma tissue and carcinoma tissue in the colorectal carcinoma patients with schistosomiasis were 1.726, 1.766 and 2.729 times to those in the colorectal carcinoma patients without schistosomiasis, respectively. The corresponding ones of VEGF were 2.138, 1.831 and 3.376 times, respectively. The protein expression levels of PD-ECGF and VEGF in normal tissue, peri-carcinoma tissue and carcinoma tissue were higher in the colorectal carcinoma patients with schistosomiasis than in the colorectal carcinoma patients without schistosomiasis. CONCLUSIONS: The expressions of vascular growth factors including PD-ECGF and VEGF are higher in the colorectal carcinoma patients with schistosomiasis than in the colorectal carcinoma patients without schistosomiasis. Therefore, schistosomiasis may be one of the risk factors of colorectal cancer.

[Clinical investigation on schistosomiasis after a 16-year-interruption program regarding its transmission, in Jiaxing region of Zhejiang province].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the epidemic pattern, diagnosis and treatment of schistosomiasis after the 16-years intervention program on its transmission in Jiaxing region of Zhejiang province. METHODS: Clinical data of schistosomiasis patients during the last 10 years and pathological specimens with deposited schistosomal eggs during the last 8 years were retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS: The total numbers of schistosomiasis patients admitted to hospital increased from 194 in 2001 to 960 in 2010, and from 78 to 266 with complications. Number of the ones with accompanied diseases increased from 116 to 694. All the numbers of the above said three groups showed an yearly increase. The hardest hit age of the patients was between 60 and 74. The number of specimens with deposited schistosomal eggs increased from 192 in 2003 to 298 in 2010. While the ratio of specimens with deposited schistosomal eggs to the total number of pathological specimens became slightly decreasing, the average age of patients increased. Eggs were mainly deposited on appendix, colon, rectum, stomach, liver, gallbladder and small intestine. CONCLUSION: Schistosomiasis still hit the Jiaxing region, with the average age of patients increased.

[Qianlie Jiedu capsule combined with rufloxacin for chronic prostatitis: a randomized double-blind controlled clinical trial].

OBJECTIVE: Few double-blind controlled trials have been reported on Chinese patent medicines for the treatment of chronic prostatitis. The purpose of this study was to investigate the therapeutic efficacy of Qianlie Jiedu Capsule for chronic prostatitis (CP) by the randomized double-blind controlled method. METHODS: Eighty CP patients were equally randomized into an experimental and a control group, the former treated with Qianlie Jiedu Capsule + Rufloxacin, and the latter given placebo + Rufloxacin, both for 4 weeks. All the patients were evaluated by NIH-CPSI and EPS examination before and after the medication. RESULTS: After 4-week treatment, the total score of NIH-CPSI and the scores of pain, voiding symptoms and quality of life were significantly decreased in both groups compared with the baseline (P < 0.05), so did the leukocyte count in EPS (P < 0.05). And the experimental group showed significant drops in the above scores as compared with the control (P < 0.05), except in the leukocyte count in EPS (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Qianlie Jiedu Capsule combined with Rufloxacin is highly effective for CP by relieving pain and voiding symptoms,decreasing the leukocyte count in EPS and improving the life quality of the patients.

Naming games in two-dimensional and small-world-connected random geometric networks.

We investigate a prototypical agent-based model, the naming game, on two-dimensional random geometric networks. The naming game [Baronchelli, J. Stat. Mech.: Theory Exp. (2006) P06014] is a minimal model, employing local communications that captures the emergence of shared communication schemes (languages) in a population of autonomous semiotic agents. Implementing the naming games with local broadcasts on random geometric graphs, serves as a model for agreement dynamics in large-scale, autonomously operating wireless sensor networks. Further, it captures essential features of the scaling properties of the agreement process for spatially embedded autonomous agents. Among the relevant observables capturing the temporal properties of the agreement process, we investigate the cluster-size distribution and the distribution of the agreement times, both exhibiting dynamic scaling. We also present results for the case when a small density of long-range communication links are added on top of the random geometric graph, resulting in a "small-world"-like network and yielding a significantly reduced time to reach global agreement. We construct a finite-size scaling analysis for the agreement times in this case.

Downregulation of survivin by RNAi inhibits growth of human gastric carcinoma cells.

AIM: To investigate the inhibitory effect of a specific small survivin interfering RNA (siRNA) on cell proliferation and the expression of survivin in human gastric carcinoma cell line SGC-7901. METHODS: To knockdown survivin expression, a small interfering RNA targeting against survivin was synthesized and transfected into SGC-7901 cells with lipofectamine 2000. The downregulation of survivin expression at both mRNA and protein levels were detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blot analysis. Cell proliferation inhibition rates were determined by methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) assay. The effect of survivin siRNA on cell cycle distribution and cell apoptosis was determined by flow cytometry (FCM). RESULTS: RNA interference could efficiently suppress the survivin expression in SGC-7901 cells. At 48 h after transfection, the expression inhibition rate was 44.52% at mRNA level detected by RT-PCR and 40.17% at protein level by Western blot analysis. Downregulation of survivin resulted in significant inhibition of tumor cell growth in vitro. The cell proliferation inhibition rates at 24, 48 and 72 h after survivin siRNA and non-silencing siRNA transfection, were 34.06%, 47.61% and 40.36%, respectively. The apoptosis rate was 3.56% and the number of cells was increased in G(0)/G(1) phase from 38.2% to 88.6%, and decreased in S and G(2)/M phase at 48 h after transfection. CONCLUSION: Downregulation of survivin results in significant inhibition of tumor growth in vitro. The inhibition of survivin expression can induce apoptosis of SGC-7901 cells. The use of survivin siRNA deserves further investigation as a novel approach to cancer therapy.

[Mitigation effect of several controlled-release N fertilizers on ammonia volatilization and related affecting factors].

By using static absorption and soil column leaching methods, this paper studied the behaviors of several controlled-release N fertilizers in soil under laboratory conditions. The results showed that under the application rate of 450 mg x kg(-1), total ammonia volatilization from three controlled-release fertilizers decreased by 49.7%, 28.0% and 71.2%, respectively, in comparing with common urea. When the application rate was 600 mg x kg(-1), total ammonia volatilization decreased by 34.6%, 12.3%, 69.9%, respectively. Controlled-release fertilizers could markedly reduce total ammonia volatilization from soil and decrease environment pollution via fertilization. The results also indicated that total ammonia volatilization correlated significantly with soil urease activity, pH value and N leaching rate. The correlation coefficient between total ammonia volatilization and accumulated N leaching rate was 0.9533, and that between total ammonia volatilization and soil urease activity and pH value was 0.9533 and 0.9908, respectively.

[Factors influencing the development of portal hypertensive gastropathy with liver fibrosis in schistosomiasis].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the factors influencing the development of portal hypertensive gastropathy (PHG) with liver fibrosis in schistosomiasis japonica. METHODS: A retrospective study was executed on 196 hospitalized patients with schistosomiasis liver fibrosis (109 of them complicated with PHG) from 1998 to 2002. Endoscopic examinations were carried out for all the cases. The analysis was made with a comparison of the PHG incidence to the degree of esophageal varices and the degree of liver function according to Child Pugh's scores. RESULTS: With slight, moderate and severe degree of esophageal varices, the PHG incidence was 47.7%, 54.8%, and 59.1% respectively (P > 0.05). With the Child pugh's classes of A, B and C, the PHG incidence was 56.0%, 53.3%, and 63.6% respectively (P > 0.05). With no surgical intervention, it was 51.3%, and with splenectomy, only 50.0%. With splenectomy plus an operation of transection and an endoscopic sclerotherapy, it was 70.6% and 85.0%. The PHG incidence was significantly higher in the group of splenectomy plus operation of transection and the group with endoscopic sclerotherapy than the group with no surgical intervention (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The PHG incidence in schistosomiasis liver fibrosis has no relationship with the degree of esophageal varices and Child Pugh classes of liver function. However, splenectomy plus transection and endoscopic sclerotherapy may accelerate the PHG development.