To evaluate the clinical effectiveness of professor WU Lian-zhong's “resuscitation and regulating muscle” acupuncture method for spasmodic torticollis (ST) based on syndrome differentiation, and to ...compare the efficacy of acupuncture treatment between the patients with spasmodic torticollis who were not given botulinum toxin A by injection and the patients given botulinum toxin A by injection.
Forty patients were divided into treatment group (not given botulinum toxin A by injection) and control group (given botulinum toxin A by injection), with 20 patients in each group. “Resuscitation and regulating muscle” acupuncture method was adopted in both two groups, and the treatment lasted for 6 months. The clinical efficacy in both two groups was compared after treatment. Tsui's Scale was applied to evaluate the overall effect, the abnormal posture of cervical spine and dystonic tremor. Toronto Western Spasmodic Torticollis Rating Scale (TWSTRS) was used for scoring the severity of torticollis, quality of life and pain.
After treatment, the markedly effective rate and the total effective rate in treatment group were 35.0% and 90.0%, respectively, which were superior to those in control group, namely 20.0% and 75.0%, and the efficacy difference was statistically significant for the total effective rate (P<0.05). It was shown according to the Tsui's Scale and TWSTRS that the differences were statistically significant when compared the two groups before and after treatment (all P<0.01); the difference of intergroup comparison after treatment was statistically significant (P<0.05). No adverse effect was found in both two groups during acupuncture treatment.
“Resuscitation and regulating muscle” acupuncture method can effectively improve the clinical symptoms of ST patients, and better efficacy is found in the patients not given botulinum toxin A by injection. The course of treatment of acupuncture treatment for torticollis patients is longer, and the patients should insist on treatment, and keep a good attitude.
AIM: To assess the effects of preoperative treatment on the hepatic histology of non-tumoral liver and the postoperative outcome. METHODS: One hundred and six patients underwent hepatic resection for ...colorectal metastases between 1999 and 2009. The surgical specimens were reviewed with established criteria for diagnosis and grading of pathological hepatic injury. The impact of preoperative therapy on liver injury and postoperative outcome was analyzed.alone, whereas 42 patients (39.6%) received neoadjuvant chemotherapy and 11 (10.4%) patients received preoperative hepatic artery infusion (HAI). Chemotherapy included oxaliplatin-based regimens (31.1%) and irinotecan-based regimens (8.5%). On histopathological analysis, 16 patients (15.1%) had steatosis, 31 (29.2%) had sinusoidal dilation and 20 patients (18.9%) had steatohepatitis. Preoperative oxaliplatin was associated with sinusoidal dilation compared with surgery alone (42.4% vs 20.8%, P = 0.03); however, the perioperative complication rate was not significantly different between the oxaliplatin group and surgery group (27.3% vs 13.2%, P = 0.1). HAI was associated with more steatosis, sinusoidal dilation and steatohepatitis than the surgery group, with higher perioperative morbidity (36.4% vs 13.2%, P = 0.06) and mortality (9.1% vs 0% P = 0.02). CONCLUSION: Preoperative oxaliplatin was associated with sinusoidal dilation compared with surgery alone. However, the preoperative oxaliplatin had no significant impact on perioperative outcomes. HAI can cause pathological changes and tends to increase perioperative morbidity and mortality.
•The tree vigor was improved after inarching.•The tree nutrient status was improved after inarching.•The fruit quality of citrus was increased after inarching.
Inarching is an agronomic technique to ...repair trees that have been girdled as a result of damage caused by mice, rabbits and other rodents as well as mechanical injury. In addition, inarching significantly influences the growth, productivity and quality of citrus trees. In the present study, field observations and laboratory experiments revealed that inarching nursery stock Citrus reticulata Blanco var. tangerine trees could affect the tree vigor, nutrient status and fruit quality of Citrus sinensis Osbeck ‘Newhall’ trees that have Poncirus trifoliata (L.) Raf as rootstocks. The results showed that the parameters related to tree vigor (circumference, height and diameter) and yield significantly increased in response to inarching. Moreover, the leaf contents of trace elements, including manganese (Mn), iron (Fe) and calcium (Ca), increased after inarching, while the contents of copper (Cu), zinc (Zn) and potassium (K) decreased. However, compared with those in the control (CK), the contents of magnesium (Mg), phosphorus (P), boron (B) and nitrogen (N) after inarching did not significantly change. In addition, fruit quality, the total soluble solids (TSS) content, the soluble sugar content (SSC) and the TSS/titratable acid (TA) ratio significantly decreased in the inarching treatment, while the TA, vitamin C (Vc) content, single fruit weight, fruit shape index and fruit mastication did not significantly differ. Fruit flavor evaluations revealed that sourness, fruitiness and juiciness significantly increased after inarching, while sweetness and gumminess decreased. Taken together, these results provide a novel direction for improving the production of Citrus sinensis Osbeck ‘Newhall’.
At high altitude, wastewater aeration efficiency is low, which is detrimental to nitrification in conventional biological nitrogen removal. The combined partial nitritation and anaerobic ammonium ...oxidation (CPNA) process requires little oxygen and can be appropriate in low-pressure conditions. As such, in this study, we investigated the effect of air pressure on CPNA using a laboratory-scale reactor. We found that low air pressure promoted the removal of total inorganic nitrogen (TIN), achieving a TIN removal rate of 43,000 mg·N/(kg·VSS·d). The secretion of extracellular polymeric substances under low air pressure was not significantly different from that under ordinary air pressure, indicating no adverse effects on microbial aggregation ability, stability, or settleability. The abundance of aerobic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AeAOB) increased from 0.2% to 5.6%, and the activity of anaerobic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AnAOB) enhanced, giving AeAOB and AnAOB a competitive advantage over nitrite-oxidizing bacteria, thus forming a microbial community structure favorable to the CPNA process. Our further analysis of the results of batch tests in serum bottles confirmed the positive effect of low air pressure on the anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) process, with a 28.5% ± 1.9% improvement in the specific anammox rate at 70 kPa compared with 100 kPa. AnAOB activity increased, which was reflected in the intracellular heme content increasing from 0.56 ± 0.18 μmol/(g·VSS) at 100 kPa to 2.56 ± 0.20 μmol/(g·VSS) at 70 kPa. We clarified the CPNA-process-promoting effect of low air pressure, which shows potential for nitrogen removal in high-altitude regions.
Display omitted
•Low air pressure improved the nitrogen removal performance of CPNA.•Low air pressure gave AnAOB and AeAOB an advantage in competition with NOB.•Low air pressure enhanced anaerobic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria activity.•Low air pressure helped form a microbial community favorable for CPNA.
In order to understand the status of benzodiazepine (BZD) use in middleschool students from Wuhan city.
In the Wuhan city zone, twenty-eight middle-schools were chosen randomly to the even numbers, ...with students from grade 8 to 12 had been studied. Altogether, 258 classes were investigated with 12 345 questionnaires were filled in by the subjects anonymously. SPSS 10.0 was used for data analysis.
Rate of BZD use in Wuhan middle school students was 4.0% with the rate of dependence as 4.1per thousand. There were differences in gender and grade: male students tend to be higher than females (P< 0.01), and senior higher than junior's (P < 0.01). More commonly used drugs would include Diazepam (59%) and Surazepam (29.7%). Among students who used drugs, 43.3% used for 1-7 day and 8.2% of them used 6 tablets or more. 57.6% used 1 tablet once a day (46.2%) before bed time (40.8%). The major reason for using drug was insomnia (43%), followed by pressure from school. The reasons for BZD abuse were: relief of anxiety (14
Dual antiplatelet therapy has been demonstrated to be superior to single antiplatelet in reducing recurrent stroke among patients with transient ischemic attack or minor stroke, but robust evidence ...for its effect in patients with mild to moderate ischemic stroke is lacking.
To evaluate whether dual antiplatelet therapy is superior to single antiplatelet among patients with mild to moderate ischemic stroke.
This was a multicenter, open-label, blinded end point, randomized clinical trial conducted at 66 hospitals in China from December 20, 2016, through August 9, 2022. The date of final follow-up was October 30, 2022. The analysis was reported on March 12, 2023. Of 3065 patients with ischemic stroke, 3000 patients with acute mild to moderate stroke within 48 hours of symptom onset were enrolled, after excluding 65 patients who did not meet eligibility criteria or had no randomization outcome.
Within 48 hours after symptom onset, patients were randomly assigned to receive clopidogrel plus aspirin (n = 1541) or aspirin alone (n = 1459) in a 1:1 ratio.
The primary end point was early neurologic deterioration at 7 days, defined as an increase of 2 or more points in National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score, but not as a result of cerebral hemorrhage, compared with baseline. The superiority of clopidogrel plus aspirin to aspirin alone was assessed based on a modified intention-to-treat population, which included all randomized participants with at least 1 efficacy evaluation regardless of treatment allocation. Bleeding events were safety end points.
Of the 3000 randomized patients, 1942 (64.6%) were men, the mean (SD) age was 65.9 (10.6) years, median (IQR) NIHSS score at admission was 5 (4-6), and 1830 (61.0%) had a stroke of undetermined cause. A total of 2915 patients were included in the modified intention-to-treat analysis. Early neurologic deterioration occurred in 72 of 1502 (4.8%) in the dual antiplatelet therapy group vs 95 of 1413 (6.7%) in the aspirin alone group (risk difference -1.9%; 95% CI, -3.6 to -0.2; P = .03). Similar bleeding events were found between 2 groups.
Among Chinese patients with acute mild to moderate ischemic stroke, clopidogrel plus aspirin was superior to aspirin alone with regard to reducing early neurologic deterioration at 7 days with similar safety profile. These findings indicate that dual antiplatelet therapy may be a superior choice to aspirin alone in treating patients with acute mild to moderate stroke.
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02869009.
The durations (T {sub 90}) of 315 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected with Fermi/GBM (8-1000 keV) up to 2011 September are calculated using the Bayesian Block method. We compare the T {sub 90} ...distributions between this sample and those derived from previous/current GRB missions. We show that the T {sub 90} distribution of this GRB sample is bimodal, with a statistical significance level comparable to those derived from the BeppoSAX/GRBM sample and the Swift/BAT sample, but lower than that derived from the CGRO/BATSE sample. The short-to-long GRB number ratio is also much lower than that derived from the BATSE sample, i.e., 1:6.5 versus 1:3. We measure T {sub 90} in several bands, i.e., 8-15, 15-25, 25-50, 50-100, 100-350, and 350-1000 keV, to investigate the energy-dependence effect of the bimodal T {sub 90} distribution. It is found that the bimodal feature is well observed in the 50-100 and 100-350 keV bands, but is only marginally acceptable in the 25-50 keV and 350-1000 keV bands. The hypothesis of bimodality is confidently rejected in the 8-15 and 15-25 keV bands. The T {sub 90} distributions in these bands are roughly consistent with those observed by missions with similar energy bands. The parameter T {sub 90} as a function of energy follows T-bar {sub 90}{proportional_to}E{sup -0.20{+-}0.02} for long GRBs. Considering the erratic X-ray and optical flares, the duration of a burst would be even longer for most GRBs. Our results, together with the observed extended emission of some short GRBs, indicate that the central engine activity timescale would be much longer than T {sub 90} for both long and short GRBs and the observed bimodal T {sub 90} distribution may be due to an instrumental selection effect.
We jointly analyze the gamma-ray burst (GRB) data observed with BAT and XRT on board the Swift mission to present a global view on the internal energy dissipation processes in GRBs, including ...precursors, prompt gamma-ray emission, extended soft gamma-ray emission, and late X-ray flares. The Bayesian block method is utilized to analyze the BAT lightcurves to identify various emission episodes. Our results suggest that these emission components likely share a same physical origin, which is repeated activation of the GRB central engine. What we observe in the gamma-ray band may be the tip-of-iceberg of more extended underlying activities. The precursor emission, which is detected in about 10% of {\em Swift} GRBs, is preferably detected in those GRBs that have a massive star core-collapse origin. The soft extended emission (EE) tail, on the other hand, is preferably detected in those GRBs that have a compact star merger origin. Bright X-ray emission is detected during the BAT quiescent phases prior to subsequent gamma-ray peaks, implying that X-ray emission may be detectable prior the BAT trigger time. Future GRB alert instruments with soft X-ray capability would be essential to reveal the early stage of GRB central engine activities, sheding light into jet composition and jet launching mechanism in GRBs.
We continue our systematic statistical study of various components in gamma-ray burst (GRB) optical lightcurves. We decompose the early onset bump and the late re-brightening bump with empirical fits ...and analyze their statistical properties. Among the 146 GRBs that have well-sampled optical lightcurves, the onset and re-brightening bumps are observed in 38 and 26 GRBs, respectively. It is found that the typical rising and decaying slopes for both the onset and re-brightening bumps are ~1.5 and -1.15, respectively. No early onset bumps in the X-ray band are detected to be associated with the optical onset bumps, while an X-ray re-brightening bump is detected for half of the re-brightening optical bumps. The peak luminosity is anti-correlated with the peak time, L_p\propto t_{p}^{-1.81+/-0.32} and L_p\propto t_{p}^{-0.83+/-0.17} for the onset and re-brightening bumps, respectively. Both L_p and the isotropic energy release of the onset bumps are correlated with E_{\gamma, iso}, whereas no similar correlation is found for the re-brightening bumps. Taking the onset bumps as probes for the properties of the fireballs and their ambient medium, we find that the typical power-law index of the relativistic electrons is 2.5 and the medium density profile behaves as n\propto r^{-1} within the framework of the synchrotron external shock models. With the medium density profile obtained from our analysis, we also confirm the correlation between initial Lorentz factor (\Gamma_0) and E_{\gamma, iso} in our previous work. The jet component that produces the re-brightening bump seems to be on-axis and independent of the prompt emission jet component. Its typical kinetic energy budget would be about one order of magnitude larger than the prompt emission component, but with a lower \Gamma_0, typically several tens.
PDF
