There is increasing public concern about poultry welfare; the quality of animal welfare is closely related to the quality of livestock products and the health of consumers. Good animal welfare ...promotes the healthy growth of poultry, which can reduce the disease rate and improve the production quality and capacity. As behaviour responses are an important expression of welfare, the study of behaviour is a simple and non-invasive method to assess animal welfare. The use of modern technology offers the possibility to monitor the behaviour of broilers and laying hens in a continuous and automated way. This paper reviews the latest technologies used for monitoring the behaviour of broilers and laying hens under both experimental conditions and commercial applications and discusses the potential of developing a precision livestock farming (PLF) system. The techniques that are presented and discussed include sound analysis, which can be an online tool to automatically monitor poultry behaviour non-invasively at the group level; wireless, wearable sensors with radio-frequency identification devices, which can automatically identify individual chickens, track the location and movement of individuals in real time and quantify some behavioural traits accordingly and image processing technology, which can be considered a direct tool for measuring behaviours, especially activity behaviours and disease early warning. All of these technologies can monitor and analyse poultry behaviour, at the group level or individual level, on commercial farms. However, the popularity and adoption of these technologies has been hampered by the logistics of applying them to thousands and tens of thousands of birds on commercial farms. This review discusses the advantages and disadvantages of these techniques in commercial applications and presents evidence that they provide potential tools to automatically monitor the behaviours of broilers and laying hens on commercial farms. However, there still has a long way to go to develop a PLF system to detect and predict abnormal situations.
Although surgery remains the mainstay of curative treatment for colorectal cancer (CRC), many patients still have high chance to experience disease relapse. It is therefore imperative to identify ...prognostic markers that can help predict the clinical outcomes of CRC. Aberrant microRNA expression holds great potential as diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for CRC. Here we aimed to investigate clinical potential of miR-34a-5p as a prognostic marker for CRC recurrence and its functional significance. First, we validated that miR-34a-5p was downregulated in CRC tumour tissues (P<0.05). The expression level of tissue miR-34a-5p was then evaluated in two independent cohorts of 268 CRC patients. miR-34a-5p expression was positively correlated with disease-free survival in two independent cohorts (cohort I: n=205, P<0.001; cohort II: n=63, P=0.006). Moreover, the expression of miR-34a-5p was an independent prognostic factor for CRC recurrence by multivariate analysis (P<0.001 for cohort I, P=0.007 for cohort II). Ectopic expression of miR-34a-5p in p53 wild-type colon cancer cell HCT116 significantly inhibited cell growth, migration, invasion and metastasis. miR-34a-5p induced cell apoptosis, cell cycle arrest at G1 phase and p53 transcription activity in HCT116 cells, but not in the HCT116 p53 knockout (p53(-/-)) cells. miR-34a-5p significantly suppressed the HCT116 growth in vivo, whereas it showed no effect on the HCT116 p53(-/-) xenograft, indicating that the growth-inhibiting effect by miR-34a-5p was dependent on p53. In addition, the expression level of miR-34a-5p in patients with p53-positive expression was higher than that in patients with p53-negative expression (P<0.01). In conclusion, miR-34a-5p inhibits recurrence of CRC through inhibiting cell growth, migration and invasion, inducing cell apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in a p53-dependent manner.
The use of adult stem cells is limited by the quality and quantity of host stem cells. It has been demonstrated that Wharton's jelly-derived mesenchymal stem cells (WJMSCs), a primitive stromal ...population, could integrate into ischemic cardiac tissues and significantly improve heart function. In this randomized, controlled trial, our aim was to assess the safety and efficacy of intracoronary WJMSCs in patients with ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction (AMI).
In a multicenter trial, 116 patients with acute ST-elevation MI were randomly assigned to receive an intracoronary infusion of WJMSCs or placebo into the infarct artery at five to seven days after successful reperfusion therapy. The primary endpoint of safety: the incidence of adverse events (AEs) within 18 months, was monitored and quantified. The endpoint of efficacy: the absolute changes in myocardial viability and perfusion of the infarcted region from baseline to four months, global left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) from baseline to 18 months were measured using F-18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission computed tomography (F-18-FDG-PET) and 99mTc-sestamibi single-photon emission computed tomography (99mTc-SPECT), and two-dimensional echocardiography, respectively.
During 18 months follow-up, AEs rates and laboratory tests including tumor, immune, and hematologic indexes were not different between the two groups. The absolute increase in the myocardial viability (PET) and perfusion within the infarcted territory (SPECT) was significantly greater in the WJMSC group 6.9 ± 0.6 % (95 %CI, 5.7 to 8.2) and 7.1 ± 0.8 % (95 %CI, 5.4 to 8.8) than in the placebo group 3.3 ± 0.7 % (95 %CI, 1.8 to 4.7), P <0.0001 and 3.9 ± 0.6(95 %CI, 2.8 to 5.0), P = 0.002 at four months. The absolute increase in the LVEF at 18 months in the WJMSC group was significantly greater than that in the placebo group 7.8 ± 0.9 (6.0 to approximately 9.7) vs. 2.8 ± 1.2 (0.4 to approximately 5.1), P = 0.001. Concomitantly, the absolute decreases in LV end-systolic volumes and end-diastolic volumes at 18 months in the WJMSC group were significantly greater than those in the placebo group (P = 0.0004, P = 0.004, respectively).
Intracoronary infusion of WJMSCs is safe and effective in patients with AMI, providing clinically relevant therapy within a favorable time window. This study encourages additional clinical trials to determine whether WJMSCs may serve as a novel alternative to BMSCs for cardiac stem cell-based therapy.
Clinical Trials NCT01291329 (02/05/2011).
To evaluate a reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assay for detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and compare it with RT-PCR.
...We designed primers specific to the orf1ab and S genes of SARS-CoV-2. Total viral RNA was extracted using the QIAamp Viral RNA Mini Kit. We optimized the RT-LAMP assay, and evaluated it for its sensitivity and specificity of detection using real-time turbidity monitoring and visual observation.
The primer sets orf1ab-4 and S-123 amplified the genes in the shortest times, the mean (±SD) times were 18 ± 1.32 min and 20 ± 1.80 min, respectively, and 63°C was the optimum reaction temperature. The sensitivities were 2 × 101 copies and 2 × 102 copies per reaction with primer sets orf1ab-4 and S-123, respectively. This assay showed no cross-reactivity with 60 other respiratory pathogens. To describe the availability of this method in clinical diagnosis, we collected 130 specimens from patients with clinically suspected SARS-CoV-2 infection. Among them, 58 were confirmed to be positive and 72 were negative by RT-LAMP. The sensitivity was 100% (95% CI 92.3%–100%), specificity 100% (95% CI 93.7%–100%). This assay detected SARS-CoV-2 in a mean (±SD) time of 26.28 ± 4.48 min and the results can be identified with visual observation.
These results demonstrate that we developed a rapid, simple, specific and sensitive RT-LAMP assay for SARS-CoV-2 detection among clinical samples. It will be a powerful tool for SARS-CoV-2 identification, and for monitoring suspected patients, close contacts and high-risk groups.
Abstract
A recent focus of quantum spin liquid (QSL) studies is how disorder/randomness in a QSL candidate affects its true magnetic ground state. The ultimate question is whether the QSL survives ...disorder or the disorder leads to a “spin-liquid-like” state, such as the proposed random-singlet (RS) state. Since disorder is a standard feature of most QSL candidates, this question represents a major challenge for QSL candidates. YbMgGaO
4
, a triangular lattice antiferromagnet with effective spin-1/2 Yb
3+
ions, is an ideal system to address this question, since it shows no long-range magnetic ordering with Mg/Ga site disorder. Despite the intensive study, it remains unresolved as to whether YbMgGaO
4
is a QSL or in the RS state. Here, through ultralow-temperature thermal conductivity and magnetic torque measurements, plus specific heat and DC magnetization data, we observed a residual
κ
0
/
T
term and series of quantum spin state transitions in the zero temperature limit for YbMgGaO
4
. These observations strongly suggest that a QSL state with itinerant excitations and quantum spin fluctuations survives disorder in YbMgGaO
4
.
Background
COVID‐19 is a new pneumonia. It has been hypothesized that tobacco smoking history may increase severity of this disease in the patients once infected by the underlying coronavirus ...SARS‐CoV‐2 because smoking and COVID‐19 both cause lung damage. However, this hypothesis has not been tested.
Objective
Current study was designed to focus on smoking history in patients with COVID‐19 and test this hypothesis that tobacco smoking history increases risk for severe COVID‐19 by damaging the lungs.
Methods and results
This was a single‐site, retrospective case series study of clinical associations, between epidemiological findings and clinical manifestations, radiographical or laboratory results. In our well‐characterized cohort of 954 patients including 56 with tobacco smoking history, smoking history increased the risk for severe COVID‐19 with an odds ratio (OR) of 5.5 (95% CI: 3.1–9.9; P = 7.3 × 10−8). Meta‐analysis of ten cohorts for 2891 patients together obtained an OR of 2.5 (95% CI: 1.9–3.3; P < 0.00001). Semi‐quantitative analysis of lung images for each of five lobes revealed a significant difference in neither lung damage at first examination nor dynamics of the lung damage at different time‐points of examinations between the smoking and nonsmoking groups. No significant differences were found either in laboratory results including D‐dimer and C‐reactive protein levels except different covariances for density of the immune cells lymphocyte (P = 3.8 × 10−64) and neutrophil (P = 3.9 × 10−46).
Conclusion
Tobacco smoking history increases the risk for great severity of COVID‐19 but this risk is achieved unlikely by affecting the lungs.
Long intergenic noncoding RNAs (lincRNAs) have critical regulatory roles in cancer biology; however, the contributions of lincRNAs to esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) have been infrequently ...explored. The aim of this study was to explore the contribution of lincRNAs, located at ESCC susceptibility loci identified by genome-wide association studies, to the risk and prognosis of ESCC. The associations between lincRNAs and the risk and prognosis of ESCC were analyzed in 358 diagnosed patients from eastern China, and the findings were validated in 326 additional patients from southern China. Functional relevance of lincRNAs was further examined by biochemical assays. We found that lincRNA-uc002yug.2 was commonly overexpressed in ESCC compared with paired peritumoral tissue in eastern and southern Chinese populations. The expression levels of lincRNA-uc002yug.2 in ESCC might be a prognostic factor for survival. Moreover, lincRNA-uc002yug.2 promoted a combination of RUNX1 and alternative splicing (AS) factors in the nucleus to produce more RUNX1a, the short isoform and inhibitor of RUNX1, and reduce CEBPα (CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein-α) gene expression, thereby promoting ESCC progression. These results indicated that lincRNA-uc002yug.2 might involve in AS of RUNX1/AML1 and serve as a predictor for esophageal cancer and prognosis.
Shape memory alloy (SMA) is a novel functional material and has found increasing applications in many areas. Recently, research efforts have been extended to using SMA for control of civil ...structures. This paper presents a review of applications of the SMA materials for passive, active and semi-active controls of civil structures. First, an overview of the characteristics of SMA is presented. The shape memory effect (SME) and pseudoelasticity, two major properties of SMA associated with the thermal-induced or stress-induced reversible hysteretic phase transformation between austenite and martensite, are reviewed. These unique properties enable SMA to be used as actuators, passive energy dissipators and dampers for civil structure control. This paper then reviews current research using SMA-based devices for passive, semi-active or active control of civil structures. The operation mechanism, design and experimental results of these SMA-based devices are also presented in the paper.
Abstract
The most fascinating feature of certain two-dimensional (2D) gapless quantum spin liquid (QSL) is that their spinon excitations behave like the fermionic carriers of a paramagnetic metal. ...The spinon Fermi surface is then expected to produce a linear increase of the thermal conductivity with temperature that should manifest via a residual value (
κ
0
/
T
) in the zero-temperature limit. However, this linear in
T
behavior has been reported for very few QSL candidates. Here, we studied the ultralow-temperature thermal conductivity of an effective spin-1/2 triangular QSL candidate Na
2
BaCo(PO
4
)
2
, which has an antiferromagnetic order at very low temperature (
T
N
~ 148 mK), and observed a finite
κ
0
/
T
extrapolated from the data above
T
N
. Moreover, while approaching zero temperature, it exhibits series of quantum spin state transitions with applied field along the
c
axis. These observations indicate that Na
2
BaCo(PO
4
)
2
possibly behaves as a gapless QSL with itinerant spin excitations above
T
N
and its strong quantum spin fluctuations persist below
T
N
.
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