Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a natural polymer that has bioactivity, biodegradability and biocompatibility. It displays unique physical, chemical and mechanical properties including high crystallinity, high water holding capacity, nanofibre-network structure, high tensile strength and elastic modulus. Due to its unusual material properties, BC has recently become a kind of attractive biomedical material in the international research.Describes BC's properties, study history and its applications as biomedical materials, especially gives emphasis to introduce the applications of BC on scaffold tissue engineering, artificial blood vessels, artificial skin and the treatment of skin wound, as well as the present study status.

OBJECTIVETo establish a clinical data based practical diagnostic model for Chinese medicine syndrome differentiation in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB), by way of seeking a combination of symptoms, signs and laboratory criteria associated with the typical syndromes of the disease.

METHODSA syndromatologic and laboratory investigation on 88 symptoms, 20 signs, and 14 laboratory indexes, was conducted in 1004 CHB patients. The clinical data of typical syndromes were selected and analyzed using Logistic regression analysis, decision tree and Bayesian network analysis in combination to establish a diagnostic model for effectively identifying the typical syndromes in CHB.

RESULTSThe most typical syndromes revealed in the 1004 CHB patients were the Gan-dan damp-heat syndrome (340 patients, accounting for 33.86%) and the Gan-stagnancy with Pi-deficiency syndrome (366 patients, 36.45%). Based on the clinical data from patients with the two syndromes, 16 symptoms/signs and 3 laboratory indicators, provided with statistical significance, were selected using Logistic regression analysis. Then, a diagnostic model for differential the two syndromes, which was proved to have an accurate diagnosic rate of 74.36%, was formed by decision tree method. It was found that white tongue coating, light red tongue, yellow sclera, eye dryness, blood levels of alanine aminotransferase and HBeAg appeared to be the effective combination of indexes that may be helpful to differentiate the two syndromes. And the significance of the above-mentioned indexes was also verified by a Bayesian network approach.

CONCLUSIONA decision tree model for diagnosing the two typical syndromes in CHB patients, the Gan-dan damp-heat syndrome and the Gan-stagnancy with Pi-deficiency syndrome, was established, which could be helpful for shifting the diagnosis of syndrome from experience-based to the data-model-based form, to make the syndrome diagnosis more objectively.

Adult ; Decision Trees ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Female ; Hepatitis B, Chronic ; diagnosis ; Humans ; Male ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; methods ; Middle Aged ; Yin Deficiency ; diagnosis ; Young Adult

Using the superabsorbent of starch graft sodium acrylate copolymer as the only carbon source, 4 excellent strains which can utilize the synthesized superabsorbent were obtained from soil after one month's screening and purification, then the taxa of the strain were identified, i.e., two kind of actinomycetes, yeast and mould.The result shows that the superabsorbent can be degraded successfully.

OBJECTIVETo investigate the effect of ganoderma lucidum polysaccharides on blood lipid and lipoperoxidation from the experimental hyperlipidemic rats.

METHOD50 rats were randomly divided into normal group, hyperlipidemia control group, experimental group 1, 2 and 3 in which the rats were treated with ganoderma lucidum polysaccharides at dosages of 200 mg x kg(-1) and 400 mg x kg(-1) and 800 mg x kg(-1) respectively. Apart from the rats in control group, all the rats in other groups were fed with high fat forage for 30 days. The blood was collected from the tails of rats for measuring the serum TC, TG, HDL-C, LDL-C, GSH-Px, SOD and LPO.

RESULTGanoderma lucidum polysaccharides could significantly decrease the serum contents of TC, TG, LDL-c in the experimental hyperlipidemic rats (P < 0.01), and markedly increase the level of serum HDL-C (P < 0.05), Mean Level of blood LPO in the experimental groups treated by ganoderma lacidum polysaccharides at different dosages were much lower than that in hyper lipidema group, and the GSH-Px and SOD activities of blood in the group of ganoderma were much higher than those in hyperlipidema group.

CONCLUSIONGanoderma can regulate lipid metabolism, enhance the antioxidation and reduce the lipid peroxidation in the rats with hyperlipidemia.

Animals ; Cholesterol, HDL ; blood ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; pharmacology ; therapeutic use ; Female ; Hyperlipidemias ; drug therapy ; Hypolipidemic Agents ; pharmacology ; therapeutic use ; Lipid Peroxidation ; drug effects ; Lipids ; blood ; Male ; Phytotherapy ; Polysaccharides ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; therapeutic use ; Random Allocation ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Reishi ; chemistry

It has long been thought that bioprocess, with their inherent measurement difficulties and complex dynamics, posed almost insurmountable problems to engineers. A novel software sensor is proposed to make more effective use of those measurements that are already available, which enable improvement in fermentation process control. The proposed method is based on mixtures of Gaussian processes (GP) with expectation maximization (EM) algorithm employed for parameter estimation of mixture of models. The mixture model can alleviate computational complexity of GP and also accord with changes of operating condition in fermentation processes, i.e., it would certainly be able to examine what types of process-knowledge would be most relevant for local models' specific operating points of the process and then combine them into a global one. Demonstrated by on-line estimate of yeast concentration in fermentation industry as an example, it is shown that soft sensor based state estimation is a powerful technique for both enhancing automatic control performance of biological systems and implementing on-line monitoring and optimization.
Algorithms ; Bioreactors ; microbiology ; Cell Culture Techniques ; methods ; Cell Proliferation ; Ethanol ; metabolism ; Fermentation ; physiology ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Models, Biological ; Models, Statistical ; Online Systems ; Oxygen ; metabolism ; Oxygen Consumption ; physiology ; Saccharomyces cerevisiae ; growth & development ; metabolism ; Software

OBJECTIVETo observe the clinical significance of nitric oxide (NO) and 8-isoprostane (8-isoPG) changes in exhaled breath condensate ( EBC) of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) patients after treated by Qingfei Decoction (QD).

METHODSTotally 48 ARDS patients receiving mechanical ventilation were equally assigned to the QD treatment group and the control group by random digit table. EBC specimens were collected by modified Ecoscreen breath condensate collector (German JAEGER Company) on the first day and the fifth day after confirmed diagnosis of ARDS. Concentrations of NO and 8-isoPG in EBC were measured by ELISA. The oxygenation index and APACHE II scores were recorded at the same time.

RESULTS(1) The fatality rate in the QD treatment group was lower than that in the control group (8.3% vs 37.5%, P < 0.05). (2) After treatment NO and 8-isoPG concentrations in EBC were lower in the QD treatment group (34.49 ± 5.67 µmol/L, 30.09 ± 7.89 ng/L) than in the control group (39.78 ± 9.27 µmol/L, 35.65 ± 8.90 ng/L; P < 0.05). (3) After treatment improved oxygenation index value was higher in the QD treatment group than in the control group (120.88 ± 35.16 vs 101.50 ± 37.70, P < 0.05). After treatment APACHEII scores was lower in the QD treatment group than in the control group (6.21 ± 3.51 vs 10. 26 ± 4.33, P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONTreatment of ARDS patients by QD was favorable in controlling inflammation, alleviating lung injury, and improving clinical efficacy.

Breath Tests ; Dinoprost ; analogs & derivatives ; analysis ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; pharmacology ; therapeutic use ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Nitric Oxide ; analysis ; Respiration, Artificial ; Respiratory Distress Syndrome, Adult ; drug therapy

Objective To investigate the effects of antihypertension and reversing left ventricular hypertro- phy by carvedilol or bisoprolol in patients with mild to moderate essential hypertension.Methods 40 cases of mild to moderate essential hypertension patients were selected for this random single-blind,paralleling controlled clinical study.Results Patients were randomized to take 12.5～25mg carvedilol tablet orlce daily or bisoprolol 2.5～5mg once daily if DBP was still in the range of 12.0～14.6kPa(90～110mmHg)after 2 weeks' placebo baseline. Carvedilol group included 20 cases,bisoprolol group included 20 cases,and the course was 24 weeks.Blood pressure and heart rate were measured and symptoms and signs were recorded.At the end of placebo and in 24 weeks heart ultrasound,blood routine,serum glucose,blood lipid,hepatic function and renal function were examined.SBP,DBP and heart rate of patients in two groups decreased obviously.There were significant differences between the two groups.Ventricular hypertrophy of carvedilol group improved than that in pretherapy.There were significant differ- ences between the two groups.Conclusion Carvedilol was well-tolerated with less side effects such as mild headache,tiredness,dizziness,slightly elevating of serum glucose.Carvedilol could well treat the mild moderate essen- tial hypertension effectively and safely by 12.5～25mg once daily.

Objective To study the clinical features and prevention means of the infection caused by the highly dathogenic avian influenza A(H_5N_1).Method The clinical data which were confirmed to be an H_5N_1 infected case were analyzed retrospectively.Results The patient,16-year-old male,had no unambi guous history of direct contact with diseased or dead poultry before the onset of the disease.After the onset of the disease,chest X-ray showed flake shadow of the right lower lung quickly spread to the whole lung,associated with mediastinum,subcutaneous emphysema,acute respiratory distress syndrome(ARDS)was occurred on the fifth day.Mechanical ventilation is the primary measure in the comprehensive treatment.On the sixth day,Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention detected the pharyngeal specimen of the patient by RT - PCR,Real- time PCR method and suggested positive for the A/H5/N1 virus nucleic acid andis01ated the avian flu(H_5N_1) virus.The disease course was 10 days from onset of illness to death.Conclusions Human infection by the highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H_5N_1)is a deadly infectious disease.If the lesions is widespread and associated with ARDS,prognosis is poor.

Adult ; Aged ; Biomarkers, Tumor ; metabolism ; Carcinoma, Basal Cell ; metabolism ; pathology ; surgery ; Humans ; Keratin-5 ; metabolism ; Keratins ; metabolism ; Male ; Membrane Proteins ; metabolism ; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local ; Prostate ; metabolism ; pathology ; surgery ; Prostatectomy ; Prostatic Neoplasms ; metabolism ; pathology ; surgery

Acute Disease ; Adolescent ; Adult ; Female ; Hexanes ; poisoning ; Humans ; Male ; Prognosis ; Young Adult