The efficacy of melatonin on sleep disorders in Parkinson's disease (PD) is still unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of melatonin on sleep disorders in PD by ...summarizing evidence from randomized clinical trials (RCTs).
PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, and Web of Science databases were searched for studies published before 20 August 2021. Results were analyzed using Review Manager 5.2 software. We used Trial Sequential Analysis (TSA) software to avoid false-positive results caused by random errors.
We included 7 studies in this systematic review and meta-analysis. The results of the meta-analysis showed that compared with placebo, the subjective sleep quality of patients with PD significantly improved after melatonin treatment (MD = -2.19, 95% CI: -3.53 to -0.86,
= 0.001). In the systematic review, we qualitatively analyzed the efficacy of melatonin on the objective sleep quality of patients with PD, and the results showed that melatonin exerted a positive effect with good safety and tolerability. However, there was no significant improvement in excessive daytime sleepiness assessed by the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS).
We found that melatonin can significantly improve the subjective and objective sleep quality of patients with PD with good safety and tolerability. Melatonin could be considered an effective treatment for insomnia in patients with PD.
This paper adopts models from epidemiology to account for the development and decline of neologisms based on internet usage. The research design focuses on the issue of whether a host-driven epidemic ...model is well-suited to explain human behavior regarding neologisms. We extracted the search frequency data from Google Trends that covers the ninety most influential Chinese neologisms from 2008-2016 and found that the majority of them possess a similar rapidly rising-decaying pattern. The epidemic model is utilized to fit the evolution of these internet-based neologisms. The epidemic model not only has good fitting performance to model the pattern of rapid growth, but also is able to predict the peak point in the neologism's life cycle. This result underlines the role of human agents in the life cycle of neologisms and supports the macro-theory that the evolution of human languages mirrors the biological evolution of human beings.
The progression of Parkinson's disease (PD) is often accompanied by the loss of substantia nigra dopaminergic neurons, mitophagy damage, learning, and memory impairment. Idebenone is a therapeutic ...drug that targets the mitochondria of neurodegenerative diseases, but its role in Parkinson's disease and its pathological mechanism are still unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether idebenone could improve behavioral disorders, especially motor, learning, and memory disorders, in mouse PD models and to explore its molecular mechanism. In the present study, C57BL-6 mice underwent intraperitoneal injection of MPTP (30 mg/kg) once a day for five consecutive days. Then, a 200 mg/kg dose was given as a single daily gavage of idebenone dissolved in water for 21 days after the successful establishment of the subacute MPTP model. Motor, learning, and memory were measured by a water maze and a rotarod test. Our results showed that idebenone could reduce MPTP-induced dopaminergic neuron damage and improve movement disorders, memory, and learning ability, which may be associated with upregulating mitochondrial autophagy-related outer membrane proteins VDAC1 and BNIP3 and activating the Parkin/PINK1 mitochondrial autophagy pathway. To confirm whether idebenone promotes the smooth progression of autophagy, we used eGFP-mCherry-LC3 mice to construct a subacute model of Parkinson's disease and found that idebenone can increase autophagy in dopaminergic neurons in Parkinson's disease. In summary, our results confirm that idebenone can regulate the expression of the mitochondrial outer membrane proteins VDAC1 and BNIP3, activate Parkin/PINK1 mitophagy, promote the degradation of damaged mitochondria, reduce dopaminergic neuron damage, and improve behavioral disorders in Parkinson's disease mice.
Source domain verification has not received as much attention as criteria for metaphor identification in the study of conceptual metaphor. In this paper, we provide a replicable approach to source ...domain verification which we hope will provide a foundation for new approaches to this important question. We adopt an empirical method extended from previous research that used corpus-based linguistic tools such as SUMO (Suggested Upper Merged Ontology), WordNet, collocational patterns and an online dictionary. We present a new, step-by-step procedure to verify which keywords may be categorized in the source domain of building, using data from the Corpus of Hong Kong Political Speeches which contains parsed Chinese-language speeches by Hong Kong Chief Executives of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1997-2014). Following the verification of a number of keywords in the building source domain, we discuss how this method may be adapted for other source domains and languages and discuss its application to various areas of study within metaphor research as well as the current limitations of this approach.
The existing four-elemental matrix transformer terminal integration methods lay out rectifier devices (SRs) outside the magnetic core, resulting in additional footprint area or core loss problems. To ...address these limitations, this letter proposes an internal magnetic core terminal integration method by excavating the center area of the upper and lower magnetic plates and integrating SRs with the secondary winding. First, the center area of the upper and lower magnetic plates is verified to have a low magnetic density, so excavating this area has a small effect on the magnetic flux density of the core. Then, the transformer loss model of the proposed magnetic core is built, and the PCB winding integration with this core is implemented. Finally, two 480W LLC prototypes were built to verify the superiority of the proposed method by comparing efficiency and temperature.
Microplastics (MPs) co-exist with plastic additives and other emerging pollutants in the drinking water distribution systems (DWDSs). Due to their strong adsorption capacity, MPs may influence the ...occurrence of additives in DWDSs. The article investigated the occurrence of typical additives bisphenol A (BPA) and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) in DWDSs under the influence of polyamide 6 (PA6) MPs and further discussed the partitioning of BPA/DBP on PA6s, filling a research gap regarding the impact of adsorption between contaminants on their occurrence within DWDSs. In this study, adsorption experiments of BPA/DBP with PA6s and pipe scales were conducted and their interaction mechanisms were investigated. Competitive adsorption experiments of BPA/DBP were also carried out with site energy distribution theory (SEDT) calculations. The results demonstrated that PA6s might contribute to the accumulation of BPA/DBP on pipe scales. The adsorption efficiencies of BPA/DBP with both PA6s and pipe scales were 26.47 and 2.61 times higher than those with only pipe scales. It was noteworthy that BPA had a synergistic effect on the adsorption of DBP on PA6s, resulting in a 26.47 % increase in DBP adsorption. The article provides valuable insights for the compounding effect of different types of additives in water quality monitoring and evaluation.
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•PA6s acted as carriers to enrich BPA/DBP in pipe scales.•Hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interactions dominated BPA/DBP adsorption on PA6s.•Application of SEDT to prove synergistic adsorption of plastic additives on PA6s.•Synergistic interaction accelerated the enrichment of DBP on PA6s.
Safe and reliable management of nuclear waste is one of the key components if energy from nuclear is to become a primary energy source. The current strategy involves immobilizing high-level nuclear ...waste from spent nuclear fuel in a glass or ceramic wasteform. Nuclear wasteforms used to immobilize the actinides must remain stable for long geological timescales. Pyrochlore-based glass-ceramics have the potential to be the novel nuclear wasteforms. In order to evaluate the performance of glass-ceramic wasteforms during long-term storage and compare with pure ceramics wasteforms, in this thesis, radiation effects from α-decay events have been investigated in Gd2Ti2O7 and Y2Ti2O7 glass-ceramic composites using accelerated ion beams. Separate effect of He accumulation was studied in Gd2Ti2O7 glass-ceramics, showing that the helium bubbles with an average bubble size of 1.2 nm were formed within the ceramic matrix at 1.1 × 1017 He/cm2 (15 at.%). While no helium bubbles were observed in glass phase due to their higher diffusion coefficient. Besides, helium bubbles preferred to nucleate near glass-ceramic interfaces and accumulate along ceramic grain boundaries. Separate effect of α-recoil damage was also studied in Y2Ti2O7 glass-ceramics, showing that the fully amorphization of pyrochlores occurred at 5 × 1014 Au/cm2 , indicating Y2Ti2O7 glass-ceramics retain comparable radiation tolerance as Y2Ti2O7 ceramics. The phase transformation to the defect-fluorite structure was observed at the interface between pristine and irradiated regions. In relevant geological environments, the wasteforms will experience modifications due to synergistic effects produced by α-recoil’s displacive damage and He accumulation. Combined effects of α-recoil damage and He accumulation were studied in pre-damaged Y2Ti2O7 glass-ceramics, showing that the accumulation of He can lead to the nucleation of helium bubbles within the amorphous Y2Ti2O7ceramic phase at a critical concentration of 3.4 at.%, corresponding to 45,000 years of 20 wt.% 239Pu loading. Hence, amorphization caused by α-recoil damage may occur before helium bubble nucleation. To the best of our knowledge, the works related to the radiation damage in glass-ceramics are very limited, and this being the first one to present radiation damage and He accumulation in pyrochlore-based glass-ceramics.
The electrochemical corrosion of ductile pipes (DPs) in drinking water distribution systems (DWDS) has a crucial impact on cement-mortar lining (CML) failure and metal release, potentially leading to ...drinking water quality deterioration and posing a risk to public health. An in-situ scanning vibrating electrode technique (SVET) with micron-scale resolution, microscopic scale detection and water quality analysis were used to investigate the corrosion behavior and metal release from DPs throughout the whole CML failure process. Metal pollutants release occurred at three different stages of CML failure process, and there are potential risks of water quality deterioration exceeding the maximum allowable levels set by national standards in the partial failure stage and lining peeling stage. Furthermore, the effects of water chemistry (Cl−, SO42−, NO3−, and Ca2+) on corrosion scale growth and iron release activity, were investigated during the CML partial failure stage. Results showed that the CML failure process in DPs was accelerated by the autocatalysis of localized corrosion. Cl− was found to damage the uncorroded metal surface, while SO42− mainly dissolved the corrosion scale surface, increasing iron release. Both the oxidation of NO3− and selective sedimentation of Ca2+ were found to enhance the stability of corrosion scales and inhibit iron release.
Plastic surfaces are colonized by microorganisms and biofilms are formed in the natural aquatic environment. As the biofilm develops, it changes the density and buoyancy of the plastic-biofilm ...complex, results in plastic sinking, and increases the heavy metals accumulated by biofilm's mobility and availability in aquatic ecosystems. In this experiment, biofilms were cultured on five colors of polyvinyl chloride (PVC; transparent, green, blue, red, black) in an aquatic environment to investigate the effects of plastic color on biofilm formation and development (Phase 1) and to study the effects of being sunk below the photic zone on biofilm (Phase 2). The PVC color significantly affected the biofilm formation rate but had no impact on the final biofilm biomass. After sinking the biofilm-PVC below the photic zone in Phase 2, the layer of diatoms on the biofilm surface began to disintegrate, and the biomass and Chlorophyll-a (Chla) content of the biofilm decreased, except on the red PVC. Below the photic zone, the microbial community of the biofilm changed from primarily autotrophic microbes to mostly heterotrophic microbes. Microbial diversity increased and extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) content decreased. The primary factor leading to microbial diversity and community structure changes was water depth rather than PVC color. The changes induced in the biofilm led to an increase in the concentration of all heavy metals in the biofilm, related to the increase in microbial diversity. This study provides new insights into the biofilm formation process and the effects on a biofilm when it sinks below the photic zone.
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•Plastic biofilm development was studied in five different PVC colors.•Plastic color affects biofilm growth rate.•The sinking process is the most important factor affecting the microbial community changes in plastic biofilms than color.•Increased heavy metal concentrations in plastic biofilms after settling were associated with increased microbial diversity.
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