Cholesterol 25-hydroxylase (CH25H) catalyses the production of 25-hydroxycholesterol (25HC) from cholesterol by adding a second hydroxyl group at position 25. The aim of this study was to examine the ...antiviral effect of CH25H on pseudorabies virus (PRV), a swine pathogen that can cause devastating disease and economic losses worldwide. The results showed that porcine ch25h was induced by either interferon or PRV infection. PRV infection of porcine alveolar macrophages (3D4/21 cells) was attenuated by CH25H overexpression and enhanced by silencing of CH25H. Furthermore, treatment of 3D4/21 cells with 25HC inhibited the growth of PRV in vitro, suggesting that CH25H may restrict PRV replication by 25HC production. We further identified that the anti-PRV role of CH25H and 25HC was subject to their inhibitory effect on PRV attachment and entry. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that CH25H is an intrinsic host restriction factor in PRV infection of porcine alveolar macrophages.
Background:
Improving patients’ perception of social support is significant not only for their re-adaptation to life but also for alleviating caregivers’ burden.
Aim:
This study aims to examine an ...integrated model regarding social support, psychotic symptoms and caregiver burden.
Methods:
Persons with schizophrenia (N1 = 300) and their family caregivers (N2 = 300) in Xinjin County, Chengdu, China, completed the survey to report their demographics, patients’ perception of social support (Duke Social Support Index), psychotic symptoms (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale) and caregiver burden (Burden Scale for Family Caregivers, Short Version). Structural equation modelling was utilised to test the proposed model.
Results:
The degree of caregiver burden differed significantly within subgroups of patients’ gender and education, as well as caregivers’ gender, education and employment. Caregiver burden was negatively related to patients’ age and household income. Social interaction partially mediated the relationship between instrumental and subjective social support (total effect = 0.451, p < .01). Subjective social support fully mediated the impact of social interaction on psychotic symptoms (total effect = −0.099, p < .05). In the final model, instrumental social support was positively associated with social interaction (p < .001) and increased subjective social support (p < .05). Increased subjective social support showed correlation with a lower degree of psychotic symptoms (p < .01), which was related to a lower level of caregiver burden (p < .001).
Conclusion:
This study shows the associations of patients’ social support with psychotic symptoms and caregiver burden. Culture-specific psychosocial interventions should be provided for both patients and caregivers to enrich external support and reduce psychotic symptoms and caregivers’ burden within the health care environment.
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NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
In the task of person re-identification, the attention mechanism and fine-grained information have been proved to be effective. However, it has been observed that models often focus on the extraction ...of features with strong discrimination, and neglect other valuable features. The extracted fine-grained information may include redundancies. In addition, current methods lack an effective scheme to remove background interference. Therefore, this paper proposes the feature refinement and filter network to solve the above problems from three aspects: first, by weakening the high response features, we aim to identify highly valuable features and extract the complete features of persons, thereby enhancing the robustness of the model; second, by positioning and intercepting the high response areas of persons, we eliminate the interference arising from background information and strengthen the response of the model to the complete features of persons; finally, valuable fine-grained features are selected using a multi-branch attention network for person re-identification to enhance the performance of the model. Our extensive experiments on the benchmark Market-1501, DukeMTMC-reID, CUHK03 and MSMT17 person re-identification datasets demonstrate that the performance of our method is comparable to that of state-of-the-art approaches.
In order to establish a compact all-optical Thomson scattering source, experimental studies were conducted on the 45 TW Ti: sapphire laser facility. By including a steel wafer, mixed gas, and plasma ...mirror into a double-exit jet, several mechanisms, such as shock-assisted ionization injection, ionization injection, and driving laser reflection, were integrated into one source. So, the source of complexity was remarkably reduced. Electron bunches with central energy fluctuating from 90 to 160 MeV can be produced. Plasma mirrors were used to reflect the driving laser. The scattering of the reflected laser on the electron bunches led to the generation of X-ray photons. Through comparing the X-ray spots under different experimental conditions, it is confirmed that the X-ray photons are generated by Thomson scattering. For further application, the energy spectra and source size of the Thomson scattering source were measured. The unfolded spectrum contains a large amount of low-energy photons besides a peak near 67 keV. Through importing the electron energy spectrum into the Monte Carlo simulation code, the different contributions of the photons with small and large emitting angles can be used to explain the origin of the unfolded spectrum. The maximum photon energy extended to about 500 keV. The total photon production was 107/pulse. The FWHM source size was about 12 μm.
The increasingly demand for machining accuracy and product quality excites a great interest in high-resolution non-destructive testing (NDT) methods, but spatial resolution of conventional ...high-energy computed tomography (CT) is limited to sub-millimeter because of large X-ray spot size. Therefore, we propose a novel high-resolution high-energy CT based on laser-driven X-ray source and prove its feasibility to allow high-spatial-resolution tomographic imaging of dense objects. A numerical model is developed with a consideration of realistic factors including parameter fluctuations, statistical noise and detecting efficiency. By using modulation transfer functions, the system performance is quantitatively characterized and optimized in terms of source characteristics, detector pixel size, geometrical configuration and projection parameters. As a result, the simulated tomography for a high-density object (up to 19.35 g/cm3) achieves a basic spatial resolution of 64.9 μm. This concept expands the prospects of laser-based compact X-ray sources and shows a great potential to achieve high-perspectivity micro-CT imaging for various industrial applications.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
A novel method is reported for the detection of avian influenza virus subtype H5 using a biosensor based on high spatial resolution imaging ellipsometry (IE). Monoclonal antibodies specific to H5 ...hemagglutinin protein were immobilized on silicon wafers and used to capture virus particles. Resultant changes on the surface of the wafers were visualized directly in gray-scale on an imaging ellipsometry image. This preliminary study has shown that the assay is rapid and specific for the identification of avian influenza virus subtype H5. Compared with lateral-flow immunoassays, this biosensor not only has better sensitivity, but can also simultaneously perform multiplexed tests. These results suggest that this biosensor might be a valuable diagnostic tool for avian influenza virus detection.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Bisperoxo (1,10-phenanthroline) oxovanadate (BpV) can reportedly block the cell cycle. The present study examined whether BpV alters gene expression by affecting DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs), which ...would impact the cell cycle. Immortalized mouse hippocampal neuronal precursor cells (HT22) were treated with 0.3 or 3 μM BpV. Proliferation, morphology, and viability of HT22 cells were detected with an IncuCyte real-time video imaging system or inverted microscope and 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-5(3-carboxymethonyphenol)-2-(4-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium, respectively. mRNA and protein expression of DNMTs and p21 in HT22 cells was detected by real-time polymerase chain reaction and immunoblotting, respectively. In addition, DNMT activity was measured with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Effects of BpV on the cell cycle were analyzed using flow cytometry. Results demonstrated that treatment with 0.3 μM BpV did not affect cell proliferation, morphology, or viability; however, treatment with 3 μM BpV decreased cell viability, increased expression of both DNMT3B mRNA and protein, and inhibited the proliferation of HT22 cells; and 3 μM BpV also blocked the cell cycle and increased expression of the regulatory factor p21 by increasing DNMT expression in mouse hippocampal neurons.
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