Objective To investigate the correlation of serum interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protien (CRP) lev?els with left atrial thrombus and severe spontaneous echocontrast (SEC) in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). Methods A case-control study of patients with atrial fibrillation (n=76) was carried out. All patients were divided into control group (n=45) and study group (n=31) according to their conventional echocardiography performance. Serum IL-6 and CRP were exam?ined in both groups. Results The levels of serum IL-6 in patients with thrombus and severe SEC were (324.13±42.86) ng/L and (332.29±53.17) ng/L, respectivly which is higher than that in patient without thrombus or without severe SEC (108.75± 25.43) ng/L and (93.59 ± 27.82) ng/L respectively. In parallel, CRP levels in patients of thrombus and severe SEC were (66.97 ± 17.65) mg/L and (71.81 ± 20.19) mg/L respectively which is higher than that in patients without thrombus or without severe SEC (17.28±6.52) mg/L and (16.76±8.73) mg/L respectively. All differences were of statistically significant(P<0.05). Conclusion Increase of serum IL-6 and CRP as well as high systemic inflammatory state correlate with left atrial thombus and severe SEC in patients with AF.

Objective To explore the Kano model analysis in the application of midwife outpatient service quality management. Methods Kano questionnaire was consisted of 24 items, including five parts, environment facilities, service evaluation, service technology, the team service, delivery service′quality. Using the Kano model analysis, the impact factors of the midwife outpatient service quality in five different quality attributes were determined. It included property and had the opposite answer to the question, charisma, essential properties and one property. Results By identifing the quality index classification of the pregnant women with satisfactory service quality to midwife outpatient service, attributable to a property were 1,2,3,4,8,9,10,14,20,21;attributable to mandatory attributes were 13, belonging to the charm of the property had 5,6,7,11,12,15,16,17,18,19,22,23,24. Midwives outpatient had most of charisma attribute, 54.2%(13/24) of the total;The second was one attribute, 41.7% (10/24) of the total. The technology level of midwife was essential attribute. Conclusions Kano mode analysis technology will be introduced to the midwife outpatient service quality management to provide decision reference for improving the quality of the hospital management level, improve maternal satisfaction, improve the obstetric operation efficiency.

Objective To evaluate the significance of contrast medium (CM) volume and estimated glomerular filtration rate (CM/eGFR) in predicting contrast-induced nephropathy (CIN) after PCI. Methods A total of 307 patients after PCI were enrolled from Nanfang Hospital from May 2014 to October 2015. The patients were divided into the CIN group(n = 29) and the non-CIN group(n = 278) according to whether CIN within 72 hours after PCI. The baseline renal function was assessed by the sCr and CyC, respectively. Results Twenty-nine patients (9.4%, 29/307) developed CIN. There were significant differences in Age, CM、NTpro-BNP、IABP、 Periprocedural Hypotension、Preprocedural sCr/CyC between two groups (P < 0.05, respectively). The result of multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that Age, Cardiac function ≥Ⅲ level, IABP, use CCB, CM/eGFRMDRD, CM/eGFRCyC were independent risk predictors for CIN, respectively. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed that the area under the curve of CM/eGFRMDRD(AUC = 0.838) was superior to CM/eGFRCyC (AUC = 0.805) without significant difference. The sensitivity and specificity were 79.3%and 76.3%(Cut-off Point = 2.094), respectively. Conclusion Both the CM/eGFRMDRD and CM/eGFRCyC may be good methods to determine maximum CM before PCI and to predict CIN after PCI currently, without significant differences between these two predictors.

Objective To analyze and compare the capacity and efficiency of county-level hospitals′medical service by using the diagnosis related groups ( DRGs ) method. Methods The homepage data of discharged inpatients from seven county-level hospitals in Wenzhou region in 2013 - 2015 period were analyzed, for measurement of the medical service capacity changes of such hospitals using the number of DRGs, total multiplicity of weight, and CMI value, and that of their medical service efficiency changes using expense consumption index and time consumption index. Results The study found in the seven hospitals 8. 49% increase of the total number of DRGs, 17. 34% increase of total multiplicity of weight, and 5. 06%increase of CMI value, with unchanged expense consumption index and 9. 82% decrease of the time consumption index. These facts evidenced enhancements of these hospitals in both service capacity and service efficiency in general. Conclusions DRGs as tools prove useful objectively and scientifically. Policies of Two emphases at primary ends and two enhancements have been implemented desirably.

Objective To evaluate the imaging methods for cardiovascular malformations in Williams syndrome(WS).Methods Thirteen cases of WS(7 males and 6 females)aged 10 months to 13 years were involved in this study.All patients underwent chest X-ray radiography,electrocardiography.echocardiography and physical examination.3 cases underwent electronic beam computed tomography (EBCT),cardiac catheterization and angiography were performed in 8 cases.Results Twelve patients were referred to our hespital for cardiac murmur and 1 cnse for cyanosis after birth.7 patients were found with "elfin-like"facial features.6 patients with pulmonary arterial stenosis.2 Cases with patent ductus arteriosus.2 case8 with 8evere pulmonary hypertension and 1 case with total endocardial cushion defect.Sudden death occurred in 2 patients during and after catlleterization.respectively. Conclusions Conventional angiography is the golden standard for the diagnosis of cardiovascular malformations in WS.Noninvnsive methods such as MSCT and MRI should be suggested because of the risk of sudden death in conventional angiography.

Corynebacterium glutamicum is one of the most important traditional industrial microorganisms and receiving more and more attention towards a novel cellular factory due to the recently rapid development in genomics and genetic operation toolboxes for Corynebacterium. However, compared to other model organisms such as Escherichia coli, there were few studies on its metabolic regulation, especially a genome-scale integrated cellular network model currently missing for Corynebacterium, which hindered the systematic study of Corynebacterium glutamicum and large-scale rational design and optimization for strains. Here, by gathering relevant information from a number of public databases, we successfully constructed an integrated cellular network, which was composed of 1384 reactions, 1276 metabolites, 88 transcriptional factors and 999 pairs of transcriptional regulatory relationships. The transcriptional regulatory sub-network could be arranged into five layers and the metabolic sub-network presented a clear bow-tie structure. We proposed a new method to extract complex metabolic and regulatory sub-network for product-orientated study taking lysine biosynthesis as an example. The metabolic and regulatory sub-network extracted by our method was more close to the real functional network than the simplex biochemical pathways. The results would be greatly helpful for understanding the high-yielding biomechanism for amino acids and the re-design of the industrial strains.
Corynebacterium glutamicum ; genetics ; metabolism ; Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial ; Gene Regulatory Networks ; genetics ; Lysine ; biosynthesis ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; genetics ; Transcription Factors ; genetics ; Transcription, Genetic

Age-associated changes in immune cells have been linked to an increased risk for infection. However, a global and detailed characterization of the changes that human circulating immune cells undergo with age is lacking. Here, we combined scRNA-seq, mass cytometry and scATAC-seq to compare immune cell types in peripheral blood collected from young and old subjects and patients with COVID-19. We found that the immune cell landscape was reprogrammed with age and was characterized by T cell polarization from naive and memory cells to effector, cytotoxic, exhausted and regulatory cells, along with increased late natural killer cells, age-associated B cells, inflammatory monocytes and age-associated dendritic cells. In addition, the expression of genes, which were implicated in coronavirus susceptibility, was upregulated in a cell subtype-specific manner with age. Notably, COVID-19 promoted age-induced immune cell polarization and gene expression related to inflammation and cellular senescence. Therefore, these findings suggest that a dysregulated immune system and increased gene expression associated with SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility may at least partially account for COVID-19 vulnerability in the elderly.
Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Aging ; genetics ; immunology ; Betacoronavirus ; CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes ; metabolism ; Cell Lineage ; Chromatin Assembly and Disassembly ; Coronavirus Infections ; immunology ; Cytokine Release Syndrome ; etiology ; immunology ; Cytokines ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Disease Susceptibility ; Flow Cytometry ; methods ; Gene Expression Profiling ; Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental ; Gene Rearrangement ; Humans ; Immune System ; cytology ; growth & development ; immunology ; Immunocompetence ; genetics ; Inflammation ; genetics ; immunology ; Mass Spectrometry ; methods ; Middle Aged ; Pandemics ; Pneumonia, Viral ; immunology ; Sequence Analysis, RNA ; Single-Cell Analysis ; Transcriptome ; Young Adult