In the present study, we aimed to compare the detoxifying effects of two fat emulsions containing either long-chain triglyceride or a mixture of medium-chain and long-chain triglycerides in the propafenone-poisoned rat model. Rats were randomly divided into 3 groups according to the fat emulsions used: long-chain triglyceride-based fat emulsion (LL) group; medium-chain and long-chain triglyceride-based fat emulsion (ML) group; normal saline (NS) group. Propafenone was continuously pumped (velocity=70 mg/kg per h) until the mean blood pressure dropped to 50% of basal level. Then, LL/ML fat emulsions or NS was intravenously infused instantly with a loading-dose (1.5 mL/kg) and a maintenance dose (0.25 mL/kg per min) for 1 h. Subsequently, the propafenone was added to plasma (3.5 μg/mL) in vitro, mixed with three doses of LL or ML (1, 2, or 4%). Finally, after centrifugation, the concentration of propafenone was measured. Rats treated with LL exhibited accelerated recovery, characterized by higher blood pressure and heart rate. Rats in both the LL and ML groups demonstrated decreased propafenone in plasma (time-points: 15, 25, and 60 min). However, rats that received LL showed lower propafenone in myocardial tissue at the end of detoxification treatment. Rats in the ML group had the lowest value of pH, the minimum content of HCO3-, and the highest production of lactic acid at the end. In the in vitro experiments, propafenone decreased more dramatically in the LL group compared to the ML group. Long-chain triglyceride fat emulsion had a better effect on treating propafenone poisoning in rats.

Objective: To examine the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale – Second Edition (Y-BOCS-II). Method: A total of 86 adults with a primary diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), ranging in age from 15 to 78 years, participated in the study. Participants were administered the Y-BOCS-II by a trained clinician who also rated overall illness severity on two additional measures. Patients completed the Obsessive Compulsive Inventory-Revised and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21. Results: Results indicated high internal consistency and fair 1-week test retest reliability. The Y-BOCS-II scales correlated strongly with clinician-rated obsessive-compulsive severity and modestly with self-reported obsessive-compulsive symptom frequency and distress. The relationship between Y-BOCS-II total score and depressive and anxiety symptoms was strong, which may reflect high rates of comorbid conditions in this sample or the linkage between obsessive-compulsive symptom severity and distress. Factor analysis demonstrated a two-factor structure consisting of obsession and compulsion factors, with interference due to obsessions cross-loading. Conclusions: Overall, these results support the use of the Y-BOCS-II among individuals from China. Future study by an independent group is necessary to replicate these findings, as well as investigate interrater reliability and treatment sensitivity.

ABSTRACT We propose a segmentation algorithm for raisin extraction. The proposed approach consists of the following aspects. Deep learning is used to predict the number of raisins in each connected region, and the shape features such as the roundness, area, X-axis value for the centroid, Y-axis value for the centroid, axis length and perimeter of each region will be used to establish the prediction model. Morphological analysis, based on edge parameters including the polar axis, polar angle and angular velocity, is applied to search for the suitable break points that are useful for identifying the dividing lines between two adjacent raisins. To make our segmentation more accurate, some machine-learning algorithms such as the random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM) and deep learning (deep neural network, DNN) are applied to predict the number of raisins and to decide whether the raisins need more segmentation. The performance of the three models is compared, and the DNN is the most accurate.

Abstract Wide compatibility and erect panicles are important traits for heterosis and ideal plant type breeding in rice and accordingly are targets for rice yield improvement. In this study, a multiplex PCR system based on functional markers was developed to simultaneously identify genotypes of the wide compatibility allele S5-n and the erect panicle allele dep1. Forty-nine rice varieties in the Huang-Huai-Hai region of China were identified using this system. Thirty-three varieties contained the erect panicle allele dep1 and two varieties contained the wide compatibility allele S5-n. The frequency of dep1 was obviously higher than that of S5-n. The multiplex PCR method was also tested using an F2 segregating population and was found to be simple, efficient, and reliable. It will be useful in marker-assisted selection based on the wide compatibility allele S5-n and erect panicle allele dep1 to breed super rice varieties using indica and japonica heterosis.

ABSTRACT Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a common complication of pelvic fractures. To identify the vascular and neurogenic factors associated with ED, 120 patients admitted with ED after traumatic pelvic fracture between January 2009 and June 2013 were enrolled in this study. All patients answered the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5) questionnaire. Nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT) testing confirmed the occurrence of ED in 96 (80%) patients on whom penile duplex ultrasound and neurophysiological testing were further performed. Of these ED patients 29 (30%) were demonstrated only with vascular abnormality, 41 (42.7%) were detected only with neural abnormality, 26 (27.1%) revealed mixed abnormalities. Of the 55 patients (29+26) with vascular problems, 7 patients (12.7%) with abnormal arterial response to intracavernous injection of Bimix (15mg papaverine and 1mg phentolamine), 31 (56.4%) with corporal veno-occlusive dysfunction and 17 (30.9%) had both problems. Of the 67 (41+26) patients with abnormal neurophysiological outcomes, 51 (76.1%) with abnormal bulbocavernosus reflex (BCR), 20 (29.9%) with pathological pudendal nerve evoked potentials (PDEPs) and 25 (37.3%) with abnormal posterior tibial somatosensory nerve evoked potentials (PTSSEPs). Our observation indicated that neurogenic factors are important for the generation of ED in patients with pelvic fracture; venous impotence is more common than arteriogenic ED.

Na construção de uma área de influência, o método de dilatação baseada em rasterização inevitavelmente introduz erros, e o método de dupla linha paralela envolve uma série de operações complexas. Neste artigo, propõe-se um algoritmo de armazenamento paralelo baseado na fusão de área e MPI (Interface de transferência de Mensagem) para melhorar o desempenho de análise de armazenamento, no processamento de grandes conjuntos de dados. Os resultados experimentais revelam que há três grandes gargalos de desempenho que impactam significativamente a eficiência de construção de armazenamentos seriais e paralelos, incluindo a estratégia de fusão de área, a tarefa / método do balanceamento de carga e os MPI resultantes da estratégia de fusão. Para superar esses gargalos, são sugeridas abordagens de correspondência de otimização envolvendo a estratégia de fusão em árvore, um método orientado de partição do número de vértices em tarefas paralelas e uma estratégia de fusão dos inter-processos. Os experimentos foram realizados para examinar a eficiência do algoritmo paralelo de otimização. Os resultados estimados sugerem que as abordagens de otimização podem fornecer alto desempenho e capacidade de processamento para a construção de armazenamento em um ambiente paralelo agrupado. Esse método pode fornecer sugestões sobre a paralelização de algoritmos de análise espacial.

On buffer zone construction, the rasterization-based dilation method inevitably introduces errors, and the double-sided parallel line method involves a series of complex operations. In this paper, we proposed a parallel buffer algorithm based on area merging and MPI (Message Passing Interface) to improve the performances of buffer analyses on processing large datasets. Experimental results reveal that there are three major performance bottlenecks which significantly impact the serial and parallel buffer construction efficiencies, including the area merging strategy, the task load balance method and the MPI inter-process results merging strategy. Corresponding optimization approaches involving tree-like area merging strategy, the vertex number oriented parallel task partition method and the inter-process results merging strategy were suggested to overcome these bottlenecks. Experiments were carried out to examine the performance efficiency of the optimized parallel algorithm. The estimation results suggested that the optimization approaches could provide high performance and processing ability for buffer construction in a cluster parallel environment. Our method could provide insights into the parallelization of spatial analysis algorithm.

A interação do alaranjado G com proteína foi investigada pela técnica de voltametria. O alaranjado G, em solução tampão Britton-Robinson (B-R), pH 2,0, mostrou um pico voltamétrico irreversível de redução, a -0,17V (vs. SCE) utilizando mercúrio como eletrodo de trabalho. A adição de albumina de soro humano (HSA) à solução de alaranjado G, resultou no decréscimo do pico de corrente de redução, aparentemente sem variações dos portenciais de pico e sem o surgimento de novos picos de corrente. Os parâmetros eletroquímicos da solução de alaranjado G, na ausência e presença de HSA, foram calculados e comparados. Os resultados mostraram que não ocorreram variações significantes, indicando que o comportamento eletroquímico da solução reacional utilizando mercúrio como eletrodo de trabalho não variou e que foi formado um biocomplexo supramolecular, eletroquimicamente inativo. O mecanismo de interação foi devido à formação do campo microeletrostático na estrutura da albumina em solução aquosa, causando a interação com o alaranjado G, o que induziu o decréscimo da concentração de equilíbrio do alaranjado G na solução reacional, e o decréscimo do pico de corrente de redução. As condições de interação foram discutidas cuidadosamente. Sob condições ótimas, o decréscimo do pico de corrente foi proporcional à concentração da proteína e posteriormente, usado para a determinação de diferentes tipos de proteínas. As curvas de calibração para a determinação de HSA, albumina de soro bovino (BSA), ovalbumina (OVA), hemoglobina bovina (BHb) e lipase, foram lineares nos intervalos de 4,0~28,0 mg L-1, 4,0~30,0 mg L-1, 2,0~20,0 mg L-1, 2,0~25,0 mg L-1 e 2,0~30,0 mg L-1, respectivamente. O limite de detecção foi 3,0 mg L-1 para HSA, 3,5 mg L-1 para BSA, 1,0 mg L-1 para OVA, BHb e lipase. O novo método eletroquímico estabelecido foi aplicado para determinar o teor de albumina em amostras de soro humano sadio e os resultados apresentaram boa concordância com o tradicional método espectrofotométrico Coomassie Brilliant Blue (GBB G-250).

The interaction of orange G with protein was investigated by voltammetric method in this paper. In pH 2.0 Britton-Robinson (B-R) buffer solution orange G displayed an irreversible voltammetric reduction peak at -0.17 V (vs. SCE) on mercury working electrode. The addition of human serum albumin (HSA) into the orange G solution resulted in the decrease of the reduction current peak apparently without the changes of peak potentials and no new peaks appeared. The electrochemical parameters of orange G solution in the absence and presence of HSA were calculated and compared. The results showed that there were no significant changes, which indicated that the electrochemical behaviors of reaction solution on the mercury working electrode showed no changes and a supramolecular electrochemical inactive biocomplex was formed. The interaction mechanism was due to the formation of the microelectrostatic field in albumin structure in aqueous solution and caused the interaction with orange G, which induced the decrease of the equilibrium concentration of orange G in the reaction solution, and the decrease of the reductive peak current. The interaction conditions were discussed carefully. Under the optimal conditions the decrease of peak current was proportional to the concentration of protein and further used to the determination of different kinds of proteins. The calibration curves for the determination of HSA, bovine serum albumin (BSA), ovalbumin (OVA), bovine hemoglobin (BHb), lipase were linear over the ranges of 4.0~28.0 mg L-1, 4.0~30.0 mg L-1, 2.0~20.0 mg L-1, 2.0~25.0 mg L-1, 2.0~30.0 mg L-1, respectively. The detection limit was 3.0 mg L-1 for HSA, 3.5 mg L-1 for BSA, 1.0 mg L-1 for OVA, BHb and lipase. The new established electrochemical method was applied to determine the content of albumin in healthy human serum samples and the results were in good agreement with the traditional Coomassie Brilliant Blue (GBB G-250) spectrophotometric method.