To assess the safety and effectiveness of percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy (PELD) under epidural anesthesia (EA) and general anesthesia (GA) for treating lumbar disc herniation (LDH).
A ...retrospective study involving 86 patients with LDH managed by PELD under EA and GA was conducted from July 2018 to March 2019. These patients were divided into 2 groups according to the type of anesthesia. Patient's demographics data as well as the operation time, complications, fluoroscopy shots, visual analog scale (VAS), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA), and MacNab scores of the 2 groups were recorded. All of the patients were followed-up at 6 months after operation.
There were no significant differences were detected in the preoperative demographics between the groups (p > 0.05). Two cases (4.8%) under GA developed transient motor weakness, 3 cases (7.4%) presented numbness of lower limb, and 1 case (2.4%) had cauda equina syndrome after operation. In EA group, 1 case (2.2%) had motor weakness and 3 cases (6.7%) had lower limb numbness, which resolved completely at the last follow-up. There was significant difference between preoperative VAS, JOA, and ODI scores and postoperative scores (p < 0.01). Moreover, there were no differences in the operation time, fluoroscopy shots, and MacNab scores between the 2 groups (p > 0.05).
EA and GA in PELD are effective and safe, and no significant difference in complications was observed. Based on our experience, we recommended junior surgeons to perform PELD under EA for getting feedback from the patient to avoid nerve injury and reduce the radiation dose. The concentration of ropivacaine in EA should be considered carefully.
Anxiety and depression continue to be significant comorbidities for people with HIV infection. We investigated the prevalence of and factors associated with anxiety and depression among adult ...HIV-infected patients across China.
In this cross-sectional study, we described clinical and psychosocial variables related to depression and anxiety in 4103 HIV-infected persons. Doctors assessed anxiety and depression by asking patients whether they had experienced anxiety or depression in the prior month. Patients also self-administered the Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HAD) scale; those with score ≥8 on HAD-A/D were considered to be at high risk of anxiety or depression.
Associations between socio-demographic, psychosocial, and ART-related clinical factors and risk of depression or anxiety were investigated using multivariable logistic regression. Among patients assessed between 9/2014 and 11/2015, 27.4% had symptoms of anxiety, 32.9% had symptoms of depression, and 19.0% had both. Recentness of HIV diagnoses (
= 0.046) was associated with elevated odds of anxiety. Older age (
= 0.004), higher educational attainment (
< 0.001), employment (
= 0.001), support from family / friends (
< 0.001), and sleep disturbance (
< 0.001), and number of ART regimen switches (
= 0.046) were associated with risk of depression, while neither sex nor transmission route showed any associations. There were no significant associations with HIV-specific clinical factors including current CD4
T cell count and current viral load.
Prevalence of symptoms of anxiety and depression is high in this cohort of treatment-experienced HIV patients. Psychological and social-demographic factors, rather than HIV disease status, were associated with risk of depression and anxiety. This finding highlights the need to deliver interventions to address the mental health issues affecting HIV-infected persons with fully successful immune restoration across China.
The present study was undertaken to evaluate the fatty acid composition, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and cholesterol contents in the milk from three yak breeds, Maiwa yak (
n
=
24), Zhongdian yak ...(
n
=
16) and Gannan yak (
n
=
16) and two yak crossbreeds, Maiwa yak
×
yellow cattle (
n
=
16) and Gannan yak
×
yellow cattle (
n
=
16). Statistically significant differences (
P
<
0.05) in the proportions of individual milk fatty acids were observed among the three yak breeds. The proportion of saturated fatty acids (SFAs) and monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) did not differ statistically (
P
>
0.05) among the three yak breeds. However, the percentage of total polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in Zhongdian yak milk (4.82%) was significantly higher (
P
<
0.01) than in Maiwa (3.99%) and Gannan (3.68%) yak milks. The contents of α-linolenic acid (C18:3) and cis-9, trans-11 conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) were significantly different (
P
<
0.05) among the three yak breeds. The total SFAs, MUFAs and PUFAs were not significantly different (
P
>
0.05%) between the two yak crossbreeds. The cholesterol contents in milk samples from yak breeds and yak crossbreeds were found to be in the range 12.32–16.17
mg/100
g. Cholesterol contents in milk samples from yak breeds and yak crossbreeds were positively correlated with their fat contents.
Gamma-tocotrienol, a major component of tocotrienol-rich fraction of palm oil, has been suggested to exhibit bone protective effects in vivo. However, the effects of γ-tocotrienol on osteoblast cells ...are still unclear. In this study, the effects of γ-tocotrienol on the proliferation, differentiation, and mineralization in osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 cells were investigated. Our results showed that γ-tocotrienol (2–8 μmol/L) significantly improved the cell proliferation (p<0.05), but it did not affect cell cycle progression. γ-Tocotrienol significantly increased alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity (p<0.05), secretion levels of osteocalcin (OC) and osteonectin (ON), and mRNA levels of collagen type I (Col I) of MC3T3-E1 cells. Meanwhile, we found that γ-tocotrienol is promoted in differentiation MC3T3-E1 cells by upregulation of the expression of Runx2 protein. Moreover, the number of bone nodules increased over 2.5-fold in cells treated with γ-tocotrienol (2–8 μmol/L) for 24 d compared to control group. These results indicated that γ-tocotrienol at low dose levels, especially 4 μmol/L, could markedly enhance the osteoblastic function by increasing the proliferation, differentiation, and mineralization of osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 cells. Moreover, our data also indicated that Runx2 protein may be involved in these effects. Further studies are needed to determine the potential of γ-tocotrienol as an antiosteoporotic agent.
Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) from traditional Chinese fermented soybean paste were isolated and identified. A total of 61 LAB were selectively obtained from 32 homemade Chinese soybean pastes. The ...isolated LAB were divided into two groups by their salt tolerance, 28 halophilic LAB and 33 non-halophilic LAB. Phenotypic analysis showed that these LAB belonged to four genera and 13 species.
Tetragenococcus halophilus
was the predominant species in the identified strains. Four species of LAB were firstly isolated from fermented soybean food product,
Lactobacillus panis
,
Lactobacillus pentosus
,
Lactobacillus vaccinostercus
and
Lactobacillus collinoides
.
T. halophilus
T5 showed vigorous growth and fast acidification in high salt concentration. The volatile compounds of mixed microorganism soybean paste with
T. halophilus
T5,
Zygosaccharomyces
and
Torulopsis candida
, during the different fermentation stage were higher in number than those of normal soybean paste at same processing procedure.
This study aimed to develop a technology for producing ultrahigh temperature ultrahigh temperature-treated (UHT) milk enriched with docosahexaenoic acid. Starch hydrophobically modified with octenyl ...succinic anhydride (OSA starch) was used as an emulsifier to make algae oil emulsion in UHT milk. In this study, the stability of oil-in-water emulsions was examined. The emulsification of 10 % algae oil model emulsion with 10 % OSA starch and 40 % corn syrup had small droplets and was completely stable. Milk enriched with unsaturated fatty acids was heated using an indirect UHT treatment, and the milk was then stored at different temperatures. The oxidative stability of fish oil-enriched milk was investigated by measuring peroxide value, measuring volatile secondary oxidation products, and carrying out sensory analysis. All of the milk samples were stable. In summary, fish oil-enriched milk is resistant to oxidation. Algae oil-enriched drinking milk is a stable product during 11 weeks of storage. Application of high storage temperature (40 °C) does not significantly increase the oxidation process. The present study suggested that stable algae oil emulsion can be formed by OSA starches with corn syrup, and a food formulation test confirmed the successful application of algae oil emulsion to extend the shelf life of milk.
The aim of this study was evaluation of stability of immobilized phospholipase A2 (PLA2) for soybean oil degumming. Also, the effect of reaction time on residual phosphorus levels was investigated ...according to the optimum pH and temperature. The free PLA2 and three immobilized PLA2 demonstrated significant differences in optimum operation conditions. pH, temperature and reaction time increased upon immobilization for three different immobilized PLA2 (PLA2–CA, PLA2–CAC and PLA2–CAG). Immobilized PLA2 showed enhanced thermal stability and retained more than 74% of relative activity after 1 h of incubation at 60°C, while the free PLA2 retained only 33%. The three immobilized PLA2 retained 30% to 60% of initial activities after 7 recycles. In particular, PLA2–CAC has more significant profiles in pH, temperature, reaction time and showed the highest remaining activity, thermal stability, reusability. Therefore, PLA2–CAC is a suitable immobilized enzyme for soybean oil degumming process.
•Accurately counting the number of cells in microscopy images is desired.•Proposed a new density regression-based method for automatically counting cells.•Designed a fully convolutional regression ...network with concatenated layers (C-FCRN).•Concatenated layers allow multi-scale image features for cell density estimation.•Auxiliary CNNs assist in the training of intermediate layers of C-FCRN.
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Accurately counting the number of cells in microscopy images is required in many medical diagnosis and biological studies. This task is tedious, time-consuming, and prone to subjective errors. However, designing automatic counting methods remains challenging due to low image contrast, complex background, large variance in cell shapes and counts, and significant cell occlusions in two-dimensional microscopy images. In this study, we proposed a new density regression-based method for automatically counting cells in microscopy images. The proposed method processes two innovations compared to other state-of-the-art density regression-based methods. First, the density regression model (DRM) is designed as a concatenated fully convolutional regression network (C-FCRN) to employ multi-scale image features for the estimation of cell density maps from given images. Second, auxiliary convolutional neural networks (AuxCNNs) are employed to assist in the training of intermediate layers of the designed C-FCRN to improve the DRM performance on unseen datasets. Experimental studies evaluated on four datasets demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed method.
The study aimed at stabilizing the curcumin emulsions (CEs) using the soybean seed oil bodies (SSOBs) and investigated the gastrointestinal digestion of the CEs. The particle size decreased ...(P < 0.05) with the increasing concentration of SSOBs from 1.0 wt% to 5.0 wt%. The CEs stabilized with the SSOBs exhibited excellent stability at pH 2.0 and 6.0–10.0. The CEs were stable against the aggregation at 100–500 mmol/L NaCl concentration and elevated temperature. The droplet size analysis and confocal laser scanning microscope observation results indicated that the fat droplets aggregated in the CEs under the gastric conditions at 30 min and afterward it gradually dispersed. Under the simulated intestinal condition, the droplet size of the CEs significantly decreased compared to the simulated gastric conditions (P < 0.05). The release rate of curcumin continuously increased during 180 min digestion under the intestinal conditions. Therefore, SSOBs could be used as the natural emulsifiers and novel carriers in delivering the lipophilic bioactive compounds.
•Soybean seed oil bodies improved the stability of the curcumin emulsions.•Aggregation of the fat droplets occurred after 30 min of the gastric digestion.•Aggregation of the fat droplets dispersed after 30 min of the gastric digestion.•Release rate of the curcumin increased within 180 min of the intestinal digestion.
•A novel trisiloxane molecule (TSi) is adopted to modify TiO2.•TSi could simultaneously passivate surface defects, lower the work-function and enhance the hydrophobicity of TiO2.•DSSCs based on ...TiO2/TSi as electron transport layer (ETL) deliever a PCE of 9.43%.•The control devices based on TiO2 as ETL only produce an efficiency of 8.09%.
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Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with TiO2 as electron transport layer (ETL) demonstrate great potential in the field of photoelectric devices featuring low cost and high power conversion efficiency (PCE). However, the photovoltaic performance of DSSCs based on TiO2 ETL is still confined by the undesirable charge recombination occurring in TiO2 layer (intrinsic defects), dye layer (self-quenching) and at the interface between TiO2 and electrolyte (back electron transfer). Herein, we firstly adopted a trisiloxane molecule (denoted as TSi) to holistically reduce the abovementioned charge recombination of DSSCs via passivating surface defects of TiO2, fine-tuning dye molecules arrangement and forming interfacial energy barrier. As a result, the Z907-based DSSCs with TiO2/TSi ETL deliver a high PCE of 9.43%, increasing over 16% than that of DSSCs without TSi treatment. Meanwhile, the DSSCs based on TiO2/TSi ETL present stronger endurance to high humidity and better long-term stability versus that of the DSSCs without TSi treatment. Our work provides a simple yet effective strategy to holistically reduce charge recombination of devices for improving the photovoltaic performance and stability of DSSCs.
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