Physical activity (PA) is known to improve physical functioning and mental health and to reduce the incidence of dementia. However, studies of the effects of non-recreational PA on the incidence of ...dementia, especially in East Asian populations, remain limited. In this study, we evaluate the association of doing housework with the risk of dementia among participants in the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS).
The analysis was conducted with data from 7,237 CLHLS participants age over 65 obtained in 2008/2009, 2011/2012, 2014, and 2018. The frequency of housework performance was classified into four groups. A Cox proportional-hazards model was used to examine the association of the baseline housework frequency with the incidence of dementia, with adjustment for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and lifestyle and health conditions.
The adjusted multivariate model showed that the incidence of dementia was lower among participants who did housework almost every day than among those who rarely or never did housework (hazard ratio = 0.49; 95% confidence interval, 0.39-0.61). The subgroup and sensitivity analyses yielded similar results.
A high frequency of housework performance was associated with a reduced incidence of dementia among older Chinese adults, especially those who did not exercise regularly. The encouragement of engagement in housework would be a cost-effective measure promoting healthy aging in the Chinese population.
In recent years, the accuracy of edge detection on several benchmarks has been significantly improved by deep learning based methods. However, the prediction of deep neural networks is usually blurry ...and needs further post-processing including non-maximum suppression and morphological thinning. In this paper, we demonstrate that the blurry effect arises from the binary cross-entropy loss, and crisp edges could be obtained directly from deep convolutional neural networks. We propose to learn edge maps as the representation of local contrast with a novel local contrast loss. The local contrast is optimized in a stochastic way to focus on specific edge directions. Experiments show that the edge detection network trained with local contrast loss achieves a high accuracy comparable to previous methods and dramatically improves the crispness. We also present several applications of the crisp edges, including image completion, image retrieval, sketch generation, and video stylization.
Destabilization of blood vessels by the activities of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) following intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) has been considered the ...main causes of aggravated secondary brain injury. Here, we show that tumor necrosis factor superfamily-15 (TNFSF15; also known as vascular endothelial growth inhibitor), an inhibitor of VEGF-induced vascular hyper-permeability, when overexpressed in transgenic mice, exhibits a neuroprotective function post-ICH. In this study, we set-up a collagenase-induced ICH model with TNFSF15-transgenic mice and their transgene-negative littermates. We observed less lesion volume and neural function perturbations, together with less severe secondary injuries in the acute phase that are associated with brain edema and inflammation, including vascular permeability, oxidative stress, microglia/macrophage activation and neutrophil infiltration, and neuron degeneration, in the TNFSF15 group compared with the littermate group. Additionally, we show that there is an inhibition of VEGF-induced elevation of MMP-9 in the perihematomal blood vessels of the TNFSF15 mice following ICH, concomitant with enhanced pericyte coverage of the perihematomal blood vessels. These findings are consistent with the view that TNFSF15 may have a potential as a therapeutic agent for the treatment of secondary injuries in the early phase of ICH.
Due to various factors, high-temperature rocks are often affected by different cooling methods. They will lead to changes in rock mechanical properties, which firmly connect with the safety and ...stability of practical projects. At present, there are many studies of the microscopic characteristics of rocks under different cooling methods, but few on the mechanical characteristics of rocks under the same conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out experimental research on the mechanical properties of rock under different cooling methods. The study shows that the deterioration degree of the sample increases gradually with temperature rising and the cooling methods have different effects on the change of the sample in mass, volume and density. The stress–strain curve of the sample is divided into the crack compaction stage, elastic deformation stage, nonlinear deformation stage and failure stage. The peak strength of the naturally cooled sample is higher than that of the water cooled. The peak strength comes with a trend that goes up first, and then down with the temperature increasing. The uniaxial compression failure of the sample under uniaxial action is tensile failure. The failure characteristic of the sample is influenced both by the cooling modes and the temperature.
Background
Epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) show great efficacy in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with EGFR mutations. The efficacy ...and safety of gefitinib following adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with EGFR mutation are unknown.
Methods
In this open-label, phase II study, patients with resected stage IIIA-N2 NSCLC harbouring EGFR mutations (either exon 19 deletion or L858R point mutation) were assigned randomly to receive pemetrexed (500 mg/m
2
) and carboplatin (AUC = 5), administered every 21 days for 4 cycles, followed with or without gefitinib (250 mg/day) for 6 months. The primary end point was disease-free survival (DFS).
Results
From August 2008 to September 2011, 60 patients were included in our center. DFS was significantly longer among those who received pemetrexed and carboplatin (PC)-gefitinib than among those who received PC alone hazard ratio (HR), 0.37; 95 % confidence interval (CI) 0.16–0.85;
P
= 0.014; median, 39.8 vs. 27.0 months. The rates of 2-year DFS were 78.9 % in the PC-gefitinib group and 54.2 % in the PC alone group. The rates of 2-year overall survival (OS) were 92.4 % in the PC-gefitinib group and 77.4 % in the PC alone group (HR, 0.37; 95 % CI 0.12–1.11,
P
= 0.076). The most common adverse event was rash (43.3 %, 13/30) in the PC-gefitinib group and the administration of gefitinib following chemotherapy was well tolerated.
Conclusions
The administration of gefitinib following PC adjuvant therapy shows significant improvement in DFS in patients with resected stage IIIA-N2 NSCLC harbouring EGFR mutations.
Magnetic oscillations of Dirac surface states of topological insulators are typically expected to be associated with the formation of Landau levels or the Aharonov-Bohm effect. We instead study the ...conductance of Dirac surface states subjected to an in-plane magnetic field in the presence of a barrier potential. Strikingly, we find that, in the case of large barrier potentials, the surface states exhibit pronounced oscillations in the conductance when varying the magnetic field, in the absence of Landau levels or the Aharonov-Bohm effect. These novel magnetic oscillations are attributed to the emergence of super-resonant transport by tuning the magnetic field, in which many propagating modes cross the barrier with perfect transmission. In the case of small and moderate barrier potentials, we identify a positive magnetoconductance due to the increase of the Fermi surface by tilting the surface Dirac cone. Moreover, we show that for weak magnetic fields, the conductance displays a shifted sinusoidal dependence on the field direction with period π and phase shift determined by the tilting direction with respect to the field direction. Our predictions can be applied to various topological insulators, such as HgTe and Bi2Se3, and provide important insights into exploring and understanding exotic magnetotransport properties of topological surface states.
To study the heavy metal accumulation and its impact on insect exterior and chromosome morphology, and reveal the molecular mechanism of insects adapting to long-term heavy metal compound pollution ...habitats, this study, in the Diaojiang river basin, which has been polluted by heavy metals(HMs) for nearly a thousand years, two Eucriotettix oculatus populations was collected from mining and non-mining areas. It was found that the contents of 7 heavy metals (As, Cd, Pb, Zn, Cu, Sn, Sb) in E. oculatus of the mining area were higher than that in the non-mining 1–11 times. The analysis of morphology shows that the external morphology, the hind wing type and the chromosomal morphology of E. oculatus are significant differences between the two populations. Based on the heavy metal accumulation，morphological change, and stable population density, it is inferred that the mining area population has been affected by heavy metals and has adapted to the environment of heavy metals pollution. Then, by analyzing the transcriptome of the two populations, it was found that the digestion, immunity, excretion, endocrine, nerve, circulation, reproductive and other systems and lysosomes, endoplasmic reticulum and other cell structure-related gene expression were suppressed. This shows that the functions of the above-mentioned related systems of E. oculatus are inhibited by heavy metal stress. However, it has also been found that through the significant up-regulation of genes related to the above system, such as ATP2B, pepsin A, ubiquitin, AQP1, ACOX, ATPeV0A, SEC61A, CANX, ALDH7A1, DLD, aceE, Hsp40, and catalase, etc., and the down-regulation of MAPK signalling pathway genes, can enhanced nutrient absorption, improve energy metabolism, repair damaged cells and degrade abnormal proteins, maintain the stability of cells and systems, and resist heavy metal damage so that E. oculatus can adapt to the environment of heavy metal pollution for a long time.
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•Heavy metal compound pollution can cause changes in the external and chromosome morphology of Eucriotettix oculatus.•Heavy metal stress can lead to inhibition of gene expression related to various life activities in insects.•The increased expression of some key genes may be a strategy for insects to adapt to heavy metal pollution.
Seedlessness in grape (Vitis vinifera) is an important commercial trait for both the fresh and drying markets. However, despite numerous studies, the mechanisms and key genes regulating grape ...seedlessness are mostly unknown. In this study, we sequenced the genomes of the V. vinifera seeded cultivar 'Red Globe', the seedless cultivar 'Centennial Seedless', and the derived hybrids. Nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified by genome sequencing and analyzed using published transcriptome data. Nonsynonymous SNPs occurred in genes related to seed development, which were identified as protein kinases, transcription factors, and cytochrome P450s and showed differential expression during ovule development in both seeded and seedless grapes. These nonsynonymous SNP-associated genes were mainly involved in biological processes such as hormone balance, seed coat and endosperm development, reproductive organ development, oxidation and reduction, senescence and cell death. A potential quantitative trait locus (QTL) region associated with seed size was characterized based on the SNP-index, and expression analysis of candidate genes in the QTL region during ovule development in multiple seeded and seedless grape cultivars were conducted. Three SNPs were further subjected to SNaPshot analysis and one SNP in G8 showed 67.5％ efficiency in the grape progeny validation. Overall, the data obtained in this study shed light on the differences in seed development between seeded and seedless progeny at the genomic level, which provides valuable resources for future functional studies and grape breeding.
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•Zinc-containing nanowires-modified titanium surface was prepared.•This modified titanium surface improved physical surface properties.•This modified titanium surface enhanced ...osteoblast behaviors.•This modified titanium surface exhibited excellent antibacterial properties.
This study aimed to generate a titanium surface modified with zinc-containing nanowires and explore its enhancements in both biocompatibility and antibacterial property. Acid etching was used to prepare a micro-rough titanium surface. Nanowires were then synthesized on this pre-treated microstructured surface via a treatment with a NaOH solution in a 70 °C water bath. The resultant nanowires-modified titanium surface (Ti-NW) was then subjected to a second treatment with a ZnSO4 solution in a 70 °C water bath, resulting in zinc (Zn) deposition in the nanowires. This approach yielded a modified titanium surface with Zn-containing nanowires (Ti-NW-Zn). In addition, the control titanium surface was prepared via sandblasting with large-grit and acid etching (Ti-SLA), which is commonly used for dental implants. Afterwards, the properties of these surfaces were examined, including topography, roughness, wettability, elemental composition, metallurgical phase, and Zn ion release. The abilities of adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation of MC3T3-E1 cells on these surfaces were investigated, as well as their antibacterial properties in the context of oral microorganisms of Staphylococcus aureus, Porphyromonas gingivalis, and Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans. The modified titanium surface (Ti-NW-Zn) was successfully prepared and appeared as Zn-containing nanowire networks with high hydrophilicity. The Ti-NW-Zn surface was able to continuously release Zn ions. Furthermore, the results of in vitro study showed that the Ti-NW-Zn surface up-regulated cell adhesion, proliferation, osteogenic differentiation. Meanwhile, the Ti-NW-Zn surface possessed satisfactory antibacterial effectiveness in vitro. Relative to conventional SLA titanium surface, the Zn-containing nanowires-modified titanium surface exhibited significant improvements in both osteocompatibility and antibacterial activity against oral microorganisms.
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