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.

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.

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.

[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.

[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.

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.

Country neighborhood network on territory and its geometrical model.

The country neighborhood network, where nodes represent countries and two nodes are considered linked if the corresponding countries are neighbors on territory, is created and its giant component, the Asia, Europe, and Africa (AEA) cluster, is carefully studied in this paper. It is found that, as common, the degree distribution and the clustering function of the AEA cluster are both compatible with scale-free property, besides, the AEA cluster presents a little disassortativity, and its near power-law country area-degree relationship with the exponent close to 1.7 may imply a fractal dimension close to 1.2 of country borderlines in the AEA continent. It is also revealed that the average difference of population density between two countries obeys an approximately increasing function of the shortest path length between them, which may suggest a gradual consensus of population density in the AEA cluster. A simple unity rule is then adopted to model the AEA cluster and such model explains the AEA cluster very well in most aspects, e.g., power-law domain area distribution and fractal domain borderlines, etc., except that the network derived by the model has stronger disassortativity, which may be explained by the fact that, in the evolution history of countries, unbalanced neighbors are more likely to be united as one than balanced neighbors. Additionally, the network evolving process can be divided into three periods, defined as formation period, growth period, and combination period, and there are indications that the AEA cluster is in its third period.

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.

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.

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.

Growth model for complex networks with hierarchical and modular structures.

A hierarchical and modular network model is suggested by adding a growth rule along with the preferential attachment (PA) rule into Motter's modeling procedure. The proposed model has an increasing number of vertices but a fixed number of modules and hierarchical levels. The vertices form lowest-level modules which in turn constitute higher-level modules hierarchically. The creation of connections between two vertices in a single module or in two different modules of the same level obeys the PA rule. The structural characteristics of this model are investigated analytically and numerically. The results show that the degree distribution, the module size distribution, and the clustering function of the model possess a power-law property which is similar to that in many real-world networks. The model is then used to predict the growth trends of real-world networks with modular and hierarchical structures. By comparing this model with those real-world networks, an interesting conclusion is found: that many real-world networks are in their early stages of development, and when the growth time is large enough, the modules and levels of the networks will be ultimately merged.

[Effect of total parenteral nutrition with supplementation of glutamine on the plasma diamine oxidase activity and D-lactate content in patients with multiple organ dysfunction syndrome].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the effect of total parenteral nutrition (TPN) supplemented with glutamine on the activity of plasma diamine oxidase (DAO) and D-lactate content in blood of patients with multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS). METHODS: Forty patients with MODS in the intensive care unit (ICU) from September 2003 to June 2005 were involved in a randomized controlled study, and divided into routine group (group A, n=20), the glutamine +TPN treatment group (group B, n=20). All patients received equivalent nitrogen and caloric values in parenteral nutrition. Group A was given routine TPN, and group B was given extra glutamine 0.27 g.kg(-1).d(-1) (i. e. dipeptiven 0.4 g.kg(-1).d(-1)) for 7 days. The activity of plasma DAO and D-lactate content, the treatment time and the mortality rate of the two groups were determined before TPN, on the 1st, the 3rd and the 7th day after TPN. At the same time, 20 healthy blood donors formed the healthy control group (group C). All the data were analyzed with the SPSS 10.0 software. RESULTS: Before treatment, the activity of plasma DAO and D-lactate content of the two patient groups were significantly higher than those of group C (both P<0.01), and there was no difference between group A and group B (P>0.05). After the treatment of glutamine supplemented TPN, the activity of plasma DAO and D-lactate content of group B were lower than those of group A (both P<0.01). The duration of TPN was (15.8+/-2.3) days for group A and (12.5+/-2.4) days for group B. The former was significantly longer than that of group B (P<0.05). The mortality rate of group A was 25%, the mortality rate of group B was 10%, but there was no significant difference between the two groups (P>0.05). CONCLUSION: The glutamine (dipeptiven) supplementation through vein can help increase the supply of energy substrate to intestinal mucosa epithelium, and decrease the activity of plasma DAO and D-lactate content. It has an important effect on protecting the intestinal mucosa epithelial function. It also helps shorten the TPN treatment course.

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. 

An adaptive ant colony system algorithm for continuous-space optimization problems.

Ant colony algorithms comprise a novel category of evolutionary computation methods for optimization problems, especially for sequencing-type combinatorial optimization problems. An adaptive ant colony algorithm is proposed in this paper to tackle continuous-space optimization problems, using a new objective-function-based heuristic pheromone assignment approach for pheromone update to filtrate solution candidates. Global optimal solutions can be reached more rapidly by self-adjusting the path searching behaviors of the ants according to objective values. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with a basic ant colony algorithm and a Square Quadratic Programming approach in solving two benchmark problems with multiple extremes. The results indicated that the efficiency and reliability of the proposed algorithm were greatly improved.

Delay-dependent robust H infinity control for a class of uncertain switched systems with time delay.

For linear switched system with both parameter uncertainties and time delay, a delay-dependent sufficient condition for the existence of a new robust H infinity feedback controller was formulated in nonlinear matrix inequalities solvable by an LMI-based iterative algorithm. Compared with the conventional state-feedback controller, the proposed controller can achieve better robust control performance since the delayed state is utilized as additional feedback information and the parameters of the proposed controllers are changed synchronously with the dynamical characteristic of the system. This design method was also extended to the case where only delayed state is available for the controller. The example of balancing an inverted pendulum on a cart demonstrates the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed design methods.

[Clinical analysis of the factors related to diarrhea in intensive care unit].

OBJECTIVE: To assess the causative factors of diarrhea in intensive care unit(ICU) patients for the purpose of providing a scientific basis for the treatment regime. METHODS: The factors related to diarrhea in patients in the ICU of Liaocheng People's Hospital were studied by analyzing the features of 86 patients who developed diarrhea among 735 patients admitted in 2 years (from January 2001 to December 2002). RESULTS: Among the total of 86 patients(11.70%) who had developed diarrhea, 51 had received enteral nutrition improperly, accounting for 59.30%; 18 patients had suffered from intestinal tract infection, accounting for 20.93%. In 15 patients diarrhea occurred after the administration of broad-spectrum antibiotics, accounting for 17.44%. In 11 patients it was due to the use of drugs which enhanced motility of gastrointestinal tract, and this accounted for 12.79%. Finally, in 5 patients, diarrhea was thought to be related to the mechanical ventilation, and it accounted for 5.81%. The mean age of the patients was (57.71+/-13.40) years, the average acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE II) was (21.51+/-4.90)scores, and the mean length of staying in the ICU was (8.0+/-1.2) days, which was longer than that of patients without the complication of diarrhea ((51.20+/-11.31)years, (12.01+/-1.20) scores, (4.0+/-1.0) days respectively, all P<0.01). The pathogenic factors related to diarrhea complicating ICU patients seemed to be different from that in other patients. CONCLUSION: The causative factors of diarrhea in ICU patients appear to be different from that in other patients, and special attention should be given in order to avoid it.

[Clinical study of cerebral oxygen utilization coefficients in patients with severe head injury].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship in cerebral oxygen utilization coefficients (O.2UCc) in patients with acute severe head injury and illness prognosis. METHODS: Forty patients with acute severe head injury were studied, and 40 patients with light head injury were used as control. Through blood analysis, the changes in oxygen saturation of carotid blood (SaO(2)), oxygen saturation of jugular blood (SjO(2)), cerebral arteriovenous difference of oxygen saturation (S(a-j)O(2)), O.2 UCc were observed. Furthermore, the relationship of these patients' condition and prognosis was analyzed. RESULTS: There was no significant change between the test group and control group in SaO(2). In test group, SjO(2) increased and O.2 UCc decreased, there was an obvious difference between two groups (both P<0.01). In test group, 26 died and 14 lived. There was no significant difference between died and lived patients in SaO(2). SjO(2) significantly increased and O.2 UCc obviously decreased in died patients in comparison with those of the lived patients (both P<0.01). CONCLUSION: Cerebral oxygen metabolism dynamics obstacle frequently was accompanied with acute severe head injury. The high SjO(2) and low O.2 UCc are main symptoms with O.2 UCc<11percent hinting a bad prognosis.