Taking Radix Phodiolae polysac-charides (RPPS) which was extrated from Radix Phodiolae native to Tibet, and using the immunosuppresive mice model, induced with Cy (cyclophosphamide), this paper investigated effects of RPPS on the WBC numbers and Hb content of perpheral blood, thymus weight and cell-mediated immunity of mice. It was found that RPPS had no obvious effects on WBCnumbers and thymus weight, and could decrease the content of Hb in normal mice while it increased the content of Hb in immunosuppresive mice. RPPS not only could enhance lymphocyte transformation and NK activity in normal mice but also could reverse the decrease of the above indexes in immunosuppresive mice. The results suggested that RPPS be a new biological response modifier.

OBJECTIVE:To promote the working performace of automatic medicine packing machine in our hospital. METH-ODS:Combined with the problems we met in the use of the automatic medicine packing machine,the reconstructions of software functions,such as drug inventory management,drug identification,specific drug sub-package and document printing of non-pack-age drug,were introduced. Related indicators were compared before and after reconstruction. RESULTS:After the software recon-struction,compared with 2012,loss events of expire drug due to poor sales fell by 70% in 2013;drug dispensing errors related to medicine packing machine dropped by 1/2;the time of drug checking shortened by 1/5. CONCLUSIONS:The software program re-construction of automatic medicine packing machine can improve the work efficiency of pharmacy and the accuracy of drug dispens-ing,further guarantee the quality and safety of drugs,and meet the practical demand of our hospital.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the leading cause of chronic liver dysfunction and has complex pathogenesis and progression. With in-depth studies in recent years, the theory of “two hits” has gradually been replaced by the theory of “multiple hits”. The theory of “multiple hits” including the neuroendocrine immune inflammatory network suggests that various factors participate in the progression of NAFLD, such as insulin resistance, adipose tissue dysfunction, mitochondrial dysfunction, endoplasmic reticulum stress, inflammatory activation, fatty acids, gut microbiota, iron overload, dietary factors, genetic factors, and epigenetic factors. With reference to the research advances in recent years, this article reviews the pathogenesis of NAFLD from the aspects of genetic and epigenetic factors, gut microbiota, intrahepatic immune cells, and aquaporin.

Alcoholic liver disease is a common chronic liver disease. Inflammatory pathways in the immune microenvironment of the liver play important roles in the development and progression of alcoholic liver disease, providing potential targets for therapeutic interventions. This review focused on the pathophysiology of alcoholic liver disease, changes in the immune microenvironment including immune cells and inflammatory mediators, and advances in targeted therapy.

Objective:In order to analyze the current research status of handover shift in nursing management, summarize, analyze and judge the existing literature, in order to provide reference for clinical nursing practice.Methods:Through literature review, it is planned to review the current situation, shortcomings and future development of nursing handover classes.Results:The handover process was generally divided into four stages, of which SBAR was the best practice tool for handing over key information. For the performance of handover shifts, NASR, PVNC-BR, HES and Handoff CEX were often used to evaluate the performance of shifts, and for the results of shifts, evaluations were mostly conducted at the levels of patient safety, process elements, and organizational management. At present, the use of electronic information systems, benign organizational culture and patient and family-centered clinical practice could effectively improve the efficiency and effectiveness of handover.Conclusions:The process and elements of the current shift mode are relatively complete, and the communication strategy is reasonable, but there are still many shortcomings and defects. This suggests that nursing managers should adopt scientific intervention methods and evaluation tools when paying attention to and reforming nursing handover in the future to continuously improve the quality of handover.

Objective:To investigate the influence of COX-2 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) on the infiltration and immune response of conventional type 1 dendritic cells (cDC1).Methods:Clinicopathological data from 111 HCC patients undergoing radical hepatectomy at Peking University People's Hospital from Jan 2016 to Jun 2017 were retrospectively analyzed. Immunofluorescence staining was employed to evaluate the cDC1 infiltration and COX-2 expression in tumor tissues. Patients were divided into two groups based on cDC1 infiltration: cDC1 enrichment and cDC1 depletion, and the correlation between COX-2 expression and cDC1 infiltration was analyzed. Single-cell sequencing of HCC tumor tissues was used to further investigate the correlation between PTGS2, the encoding gene of COX-2, and cDC1 infiltration. Hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) were utilized for in vitro generation of cDC1. HSC-derived cDC1s were sorted by FACS and cocultured with HCC cell line SNU423. Celecoxib, a selective COX-2 inhibitor, was used to suppress the COX-2 expression in HCC cell line SNU423. The functions of cDC1 were explored by FITC-dextran uptake assay, flow cytometry, and Luminex multiplex cytokine assay. Results:COX-2 expression was significantly higher in the cDC1 depletion group ( n=73) compared to the cDC1 enrichment group ( n=38) ( P=0.004 2). Patients with higher PTGS2 expression had significantly lower proportion of cDC1. Increased cDC1 infiltration in the HCC tumor microenvironment correlated with improved patient overall survival rates ( P=0.037) and disease-free survival rates ( P=0.048). Results from FITC-dextran uptake assay, flow cytometry, and Luminex assay indicated that cDC1 co-cultured with HCC showed significantly reduced antigen uptake function, co-stimulatory molecule expression, and cytokine secretion, but partially abrogated with celecoxib treatment. Conclusions:The intratumoral infiltration of cDC1 is positively correlated with favorable prognosis in HCC patients. Elevated COX-2 expression in HCC impedes the intratumoral accumulation of cDC1 and compromises their immune response capabilities. COX-2 inhibitors hold promise for enhancing cDC1 function in HCC.

African swine fever (ASF) is a hemorrhagic and devastating infectious disease of pigs caused by African swine fever virus (ASFV), with mortality up to 100%. The first ASF outbreak occurred in China in August 2018, followed by 69 cases of ASF in 18 provinces in more than three months, causing a heavy burden to the pig industry. Based on the global epidemic situation of ASF and the experience of prevention and control in other countries, the ASF control and eradication situation in China is extremely complex and serious. The availability of effective and safe ASF vaccines is an urgent requirement to reinforce control and eradication strategies. Therefore, this article starts with the latest findings of ASFV, summarizes the progress in prevention and control strategies and vaccine approaches for ASFV. We also discuss the challenges of preventing and controlling ASF, focusing on current vaccine strategies, the gaps, future research directions, and key scientific issues in commercial applications. We hope to provide basic information for the development of vaccines and prevention control strategies against this disease in China.
African Swine Fever ; African Swine Fever Virus ; Animals ; Biomedical Research ; China ; Disease Outbreaks ; Swine ; Vaccines

Objective·To develope an auditory brainstem implant(ABI)vocoder based on cochlear implant(CI)vocoder characteristics and ABI electrode array topology,and to verify its reliability.Methods·An"n-of-m"coding strategy CI/ABI vocoder was constructed based on MATLAB.Within each frame,only the envelopes of the n channels with the highest energy were selected.The interaction coefficient(IC)(range:1?3),channel numbers(range:5?22),and electrode array topology(CI/ABI)were adjustable parameters,allowing for the synthesis of simulated speech.Psychoacoustic evaluation was employed,recruiting normal hearing subjects to perform closed-set simulated phoneme perception.The phoneme recognition accuracy(20 vowel questions/condition,11 consonant questions/condition)was compared with the corresponding conditions of CI and ABI from reference literature to determine the IC value of the vocoder and verify its reliability.Results·The vocoder successfully synthesized all test stimuli.In the closed-set CI-simulated speech recognition,the simulated vowel and consonant recognition accuracy for IC2 and IC3 conditions showed no significant difference compared to the accuracy reported in the CI reference literature(P＞0.05).The difference in vowel and consonant accuracy between IC2 and the literature was smaller than that between IC3 and the literature(vowel|d|=1.6%vs.20%,consonant|d|=8.4%vs.9.9%),thus determining the optimal interaction coefficient of this model as 2.Subsequently,when modifying the electrode array topology to ABI,it was found that the simulated phoneme recognition accuracy for a 16-channel ABI was significantly lower than that for the 16-channel CI group,consistent with the reported literature.The simulated vowel and consonant accuracy within the 5?8 channel range for ABI showed no significant difference(P＞0.05),also aligning with the trend reported in the literature.Conclusion·A CI/ABI vocoder based on"n-of-m"coding strategy is established and the optimal IC is determined.The established ABI encoder has been evaluated for high reliability through psychoacoustic experiments.It provides suitable technical means for validating ABI-specific coding strategies.

Objective    To explore the natural changes of procalcitonin (PCT) in the early period after pediatric cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). Methods    A prospective and observational study was done on patients below 3 years of age, who underwent cardiac surgery involving CPB, with the risk adjustment of congenital heart surgery (RACHS) score of 2 to 5 and free from active preoperative infection or inflammatory disease. Blood samples for measurement of PCT, C-reactive protein (CRP) and white blood cell (WBC) were taken before surgery and daily for 7 days in postoperative period. Infections and complications within 7 days after operation were investigated. According to the presence or absence of infection and complications within 7 days after operation, the enrolled children were divided into an infection+complications group, a simple infection group, a simple complication group, and a normal group. Results     Finally, 429 children with PICU stay≥ 4 days were enrolled, including 268 males and 161 females, with a median age of 8.0 (0.7, 26.0) months. There were 145 children in the simple infection group, 38 children in the simple complication group, 230 children in the normal group and 16 children in the infection+complications group. The levels of PCT, CRP and WBC were significantly higher after CPB. CRP and WBC peaked on the second postoperative day (POD) and remained higher than normal until POD7. PCT peaked on POD1 and would generally decrease to normal on POD5 if without infection and complications. Age, body weight, RACHS scores, the duration of CPB and aortic cross-clamping time were correlated with PCT level. There was a statistical difference in PCT concentration between the simple infection group and the normal group on POD 3-7 (P<0.01) and a statistical difference between the simple complication group and the normal group on POD 1-7 (P<0.01). A statistical difference was found between the simple infection group and the simple complication group in PCT on POD 1-5 (P<0.05). Conclusion    WBC, CRP and PCT significantly increase after CPB in pediatric cardiac surgery patients. The factors influencing PCT concentration include age, weight, RACHS scores, CPB and aortic cross-clamping time, infection and complications.

Objective    To investigate the timing and clinical efficacy of diaphragmatic plication in the treatment of diaphragmatic paralysis after congenital heart disease (CHD) operation. Methods    From January 2013 to February 2019, 30 children with CHD who were treated in Fuwai Hospital were collected, including 17 males and 13 females with a median age of 19.5 (3, 72) months. There were 6 patients with bilateral diaphragmatic paralysis (bilateral group) and 24 patients with unilateral diaphragmatic paralysis (unilateral group). The clinical data of the two groups were compared. Results    Among the 6 bilateral diaphragmatic paralysis patients, 2 underwent bilateral diaphragmatic plication, and the other 4 patients continued their off-line exercise after unilateral diaphragmatic plication. Patients in the unilateral group had shorter ventilator use time (266.77±338.34 h vs. 995.33±622.29 h, P=0.001) and total ICU stay time (33.21±23.97 d vs. 67.33±28.54 d, P=0.008) than those in the bilateral group. One patient died in the bilateral group, and there was no statistical difference between the two groups (P=0.363). There was no statistical difference in the ICU stay time after diaphragm plication between the two groups (11.68±10.28 d vs. 29.83±27.73 d, P>0.05). Conclusion    Diaphragmatic plication is an effective treatment for diaphragmatic paralysis after CHD operation once the conservative treatment failed. The prognosis of bilateral diaphragmatic paralysis is worse than that of unilateral diaphragmatic paralysis. Strict control of indications for surgery is beneficial to the early recovery of patients.