OBJECTIVE: To predict the trends for fine-scale spread of Oncomelania hupensis based on supervised machine learning models in Shanghai Municipality, so as to provide insights into precision O. hupensis snail control. METHODS: Based on 2016 O. hupensis snail survey data in Shanghai Municipality and climatic, geographical, vegetation and socioeconomic data relating to O. hupensis snail distribution, seven supervised machine learning models were created to predict the risk of snail spread in Shanghai, including decision tree, random forest, generalized boosted model, support vector machine, naive Bayes, k-nearest neighbor and C5.0. The performance of seven models for predicting snail spread was evaluated with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), F1-score and accuracy, and optimal models were selected to identify the environmental variables affecting snail spread and predict the areas at risk of snail spread in Shanghai Municipality. RESULTS: Seven supervised machine learning models were successfully created to predict the risk of snail spread in Shanghai Municipality, and random forest (AUC = 0.901, F1-score = 0.840, ACC = 0.797) and generalized boosted model (AUC= 0.889, F1-score = 0.869, ACC = 0.835) showed higher predictive performance than other models. Random forest analysis showed that the three most important climatic variables contributing to snail spread in Shanghai included aridity (11.87%), ≥ 0 °C annual accumulated temperature (10.19%), moisture index (10.18%) and average annual precipitation (9.86%), the two most important vegetation variables included the vegetation index of the first quarter (8.30%) and vegetation index of the second quarter (7.69%). Snails were more likely to spread at aridity of < 0.87, ≥ 0 °C annual accumulated temperature of 5 550 to 5 675 °C, moisture index of > 39% and average annual precipitation of > 1 180 mm, and with the vegetation index of the first quarter of > 0.4 and the vegetation index of the first quarter of > 0.6. According to the water resource developments and township administrative maps, the areas at risk of snail spread were mainly predicted in 10 townships/subdistricts, covering the Xipian, Dongpian and Tainan sections of southern Shanghai. CONCLUSIONS Supervised machine learning models are effective to predict the risk of fine-scale O. hupensis snail spread and identify the environmental determinants relating to snail spread. The areas at risk of O. hupensis snail spread are mainly located in southwestern Songjiang District, northwestern Jinshan District and southeastern Qingpu District of Shanghai Municipality.
Animals ; Bayes Theorem ; China/epidemiology* ; Ecosystem ; Gastropoda ; Supervised Machine Learning

Natural products have been a major source of leading compounds in drug discovery. How to effectively screen active compounds from complex matrix remains an interesting topic. In this review, we comprehensively summarized advanced liquid chromatography based approaches in natural products screening, including pre-column, on-column and post-column screening methods. Their advantages, disadvantages and prospect are also discussed.

OBJECTIVETo access left ventricular global deformation abnormalities during low-dose dobutamine stress test (DSE) by three-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography(3D-STE)in patients with non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTE-ACS), and explore the diagnostic value of 3D-STE combined with DES for NSTE-ACS.

METHODSForty-nine patients with suspected NSTE-ACS underwent DSE and coronary angiography with an initial dobutamine dose of 5 µg·kg(-1)·min(-1), which was doubled at 3-min intervals to the peak dose of 20 µg·kg(-1)·min(-1). The global longitudinal strain (GLS), global circumferential strain (GCS), territory longitudinal strain (TLS), and territory circumferential strain (TCS) of the left ventricular subendocardial myocardium were measured with 3D-STE at rest and at the peak-dose stage. Conventional echocardiography and 3D-STE parameters and their changes during DSE were evaluated, and their diagnostic values were analyzed according to the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves.

RESULTSAll the patients completed DSE uneventfully and 3D-STE showed a good reproducibility of the results. Compared with patients with non-NSTE-ACS, NSTE-ACS patients showed obviously reduced resting left ventricular global deformation function especially in terms of circumferential deformation (P<0.05); the ROC curves for the parameters were similar between the two groups (P>0.05). During DSE, the global deformation differences between the two groups further increased (P<0.01), and the diagnostic values of the peak-dose stage parameters were significantly greater than those of the resting parameters. ROC curves analysis showed that TLS and TCS at peak-dose stage had the highest diagnostic value for NSTE-ACS.

CONCLUSION3D-STE combined with low-dose DSE is a safe and effective noninvasive technique for accessing and identifying NSTE-ACS, and DSE can significantly enhance the diagnostic value of 3D-STE.

Acute Coronary Syndrome ; diagnosis ; Coronary Angiography ; Echocardiography, Stress ; Echocardiography, Three-Dimensional ; Heart Ventricles ; pathology ; Humans ; Myocardium ; pathology ; ROC Curve ; Reproducibility of Results

s:Objective To access left ventricular global deformation abnormalities during low-dose dobutamine stress test (DSE) by three-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (3D-STE)in patients with non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTE-ACS), and explore the diagnostic value of 3D-STE combined with DES for NSTE-ACS. Methods Forty-nine patients with suspected NSTE-ACS underwent DSE and coronary angiography with an initial dobutamine dose of 5μg·kg-1·min-1, which was doubled at 3-min intervals to the peak dose of 20 μg ·kg-1 ·min-1. The global longitudinal strain (GLS), global circumferential strain (GCS), territory longitudinal strain (TLS), and territory circumferential strain (TCS) of the left ventricular subendocardial myocardium were measured with 3D-STE at rest and at the peak-dose stage. Conventional echocardiography and 3D-STE parameters and their changes during DSE were evaluated, and their diagnostic values were analyzed according to the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results All the patients completed DSE uneventfully and 3D-STE showed a good reproducibility of the results. Compared with patients with non-NSTE-ACS, NSTE-ACS patients showed obviously reduced resting left ventricular global deformation function especially in terms of circumferential deformation (P<0.05);the ROC curves for the parameters were similar between the two groups (P>0.05). During DSE, the global deformation differences between the two groups further increased (P<0.01), and the diagnostic values of the peak-dose stage parameters were significantly greater than those of the resting parameters. ROC curves analysis showed that TLS and TCS at peak-dose stage had the highest diagnostic value for NSTE-ACS. Conclusion 3D-STE combined with low-dose DSE is a safe and effective noninvasive technique for accessing and identifying NSTE-ACS, and DSE can significantly enhance the diagnostic value of 3D-STE.

s:Objective To access left ventricular global deformation abnormalities during low-dose dobutamine stress test (DSE) by three-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (3D-STE)in patients with non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTE-ACS), and explore the diagnostic value of 3D-STE combined with DES for NSTE-ACS. Methods Forty-nine patients with suspected NSTE-ACS underwent DSE and coronary angiography with an initial dobutamine dose of 5μg·kg-1·min-1, which was doubled at 3-min intervals to the peak dose of 20 μg ·kg-1 ·min-1. The global longitudinal strain (GLS), global circumferential strain (GCS), territory longitudinal strain (TLS), and territory circumferential strain (TCS) of the left ventricular subendocardial myocardium were measured with 3D-STE at rest and at the peak-dose stage. Conventional echocardiography and 3D-STE parameters and their changes during DSE were evaluated, and their diagnostic values were analyzed according to the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results All the patients completed DSE uneventfully and 3D-STE showed a good reproducibility of the results. Compared with patients with non-NSTE-ACS, NSTE-ACS patients showed obviously reduced resting left ventricular global deformation function especially in terms of circumferential deformation (P<0.05);the ROC curves for the parameters were similar between the two groups (P>0.05). During DSE, the global deformation differences between the two groups further increased (P<0.01), and the diagnostic values of the peak-dose stage parameters were significantly greater than those of the resting parameters. ROC curves analysis showed that TLS and TCS at peak-dose stage had the highest diagnostic value for NSTE-ACS. Conclusion 3D-STE combined with low-dose DSE is a safe and effective noninvasive technique for accessing and identifying NSTE-ACS, and DSE can significantly enhance the diagnostic value of 3D-STE.

Aim To investigate the effect of flavonoids from Prinsepia utilis Royle( FPR) on the histomorphol-ogy of kidney in diabetic mice, and to investigate its protective mechanism. Methods Diabetic mice in-duced by alloxan were given FPR orally each day for four weeks. After the administration for two and four weeks, ten mice in each group were randomly sacri-ficed. The kidneys were removed and weighed. The extracted renal tissue was embedded with paraffin and sectioned, the sections were stained with Hematoxylin and Eosin(HE)、Periodic acid Schiff(PAS) and Go-mori, and then observed under the microscopy. 1mm3 of renal cortex fixed with glutaral in four centi-degree , and then the ultrastructure of each group was observed under the electron microscope respectively after four weeks′ treatment. Results Compared with the model control group, in the treatment group, observation un-der the microscopy showed that glomerular volume and mesangial cells reduced, FPR could relieve thickening of the glomerular basement membrane ( GBM ) , little inflammatory cells infiltrated in the interstitium,tubular epithelial cells almost became normal, renal tubule had little glucogen, fiber decreased in the interstitium of renal tubule. Observation under the electron micro-scope indicated that foot process in podocytes lined up in order, mitochondria of the renal tubule’ s epithelial cell almost recovered. Conclusion FPR can relieve the changes of renal pathology,improve renal function, and delay the progression of pathologic changes of kid-ney in diabetic mice partly through reducing the blood glucose and the blood lipid.

BACKGROUNDBone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMdMSCs) can differentiate into cardiomyocyte-like cells induced by different inductors individually or collectively. In this study, by inducing BMdMSCs with p53 inhibitor (p-fifty three inhibitor-alpha, PFT-α), 5-azacytidine (5-AZA), angiotensin-II (Ang-II) and bone morphogenic protein-2 (BMP-2) we compared the influences of four inductors on the differentiation of rat BMdMSCs into caridomyocyte like-cells.

METHODSBMdMSCs were collected from the bone marrow of Sprague Dawley rats and after the fourth generation, the purified cells were divided into five groups: 5-AZA (10 µmol/L), Ang-II (0.1 µmol/L), PFT-α (20 µmol/L), BMP-2 (10 µg/L) and control. The purity of the BMdMSCs and the cardiac differentiation rates were obtained by flow cytometry. The expressions of cTnT in the BMdMSCs after four weeks of induction were detected by immunofluorescence and the expressions of cTnI and Cx43 detected by Western blotting. The green fluorescent levels reflecting intracellular calcium transient function were determined by laser scanning confocal microscopy. The total potassium current levels of cells were measured on patch clamp.

RESULTSAll inductors affected to a different degree the differentiation of BMdMSCs into cardiomyocyte-like cells and the expressions of cTnT, cTnI and Cx43 suggesting that the combination of inductors could be an improved method for cardiac regenerative medicine. In addition, the total potassium current level and calcium transient in PFT-α cardiomyocyte-like cells were higher than other groups.

CONCLUSIONSThe cardiac differentiation of BMdMSCs induced by PFT-α, 5-AZA, Ang-II and BMP-2 has been improved at different levels. PFT-α has an advantage of differentiation rate and electrophysiological function over other inductors.

Animals ; Blotting, Western ; Bone Marrow Cells ; cytology ; Cell Differentiation ; physiology ; Cells, Cultured ; Electrophysiology ; methods ; Male ; Mesenchymal Stromal Cells ; cytology ; Myocytes, Cardiac ; cytology ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley

BACKGROUNDRoux-en-Y gastric bypass (GBP) is the main surgical procedure used in type 2 diabetes. The objective of this study was to evaluate the different types of GBP in treatment of type 2 diabetes.

METHODSPatients with type 2 diabetes were randomly divided into two groups: those who underwent gastrojejunal loop anastomosis bypass and those who underwent gastrojejunal Roux-en-Y bypass. Blood glucose alterations, operation time, and operation complications were observed.

RESULTSGastrojejunal loop anastomosis bypass and gastrojejunal Roux-en-Y bypass were both effective in the treatment of selected patients with type 2 diabetes. Compared with gastrojejunal Roux-en-Y bypass, gastrojejunal loop anastomosis bypass had the advantages of easier implementation, shorter operation time, and fewer operation complications.

CONCLUSIONSGastrojejunal loop anastomosis is effective in treatment of type 2 diabetes. It is safe, easy to implement, and worthy of clinical popularization.

Adult ; Anastomosis, Roux-en-Y ; Blood Glucose ; metabolism ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 ; blood ; surgery ; Female ; Gastric Bypass ; methods ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Treatment Outcome

OBJECTIVETo review the progress of cardiac differentiation and electrophysiological characteristics of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells.

DATA SOURCESThe databases of PubMed, Springer Link, Science Direct and CNKI were retrieved for papers published from January 2000 to January 2012 with the key words of "bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, cardiac or heart, electrophysiology or electrophysiological characteristics".

STUDY SELECTIONThe articles concerned cardiac differentiation and electrophysiological characteristics of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells were collected. After excluding papers that study purposes are not coincident with this review or contents duplicated, 56 papers were internalized at last.

RESULTSFor the treatment of myocardial infarction and myocardiac disease, the therapeutic effects of transplantation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells which have the ability to develop into functional myocardial cells by lots of methods have been proved by many researches. But the arrhythmogenic effect on ventricles after transplantation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells derived myocardial cells is still controversial in animal models. Certainly, the low differentiation efficiency and heterogeneous development of electrical function could be the most important risk for proarrhythmia.

CONCLUSIONMany studies of cardiac differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells have paid attention to improve the cardiac differentiation rate, and the electrophysiology characteristics of the differentiated cells should be concerned for the risk for proarrhythmia as well.

Bone Marrow Cells ; cytology ; Cell Differentiation ; physiology ; Electrophysiology ; Humans ; Mesenchymal Stromal Cells ; cytology ; Myocardial Infarction ; therapy ; Myocytes, Cardiac ; cytology ; physiology

Administration, Oral ; Adolescent ; Female ; Histiocytosis, Langerhans-Cell ; complications ; drug therapy ; pathology ; Humans ; Lymph Nodes ; pathology ; Prednisone ; administration & dosage ; therapeutic use ; Retrospective Studies ; Skin Ulcer ; drug therapy ; etiology ; pathology ; Thalidomide ; administration & dosage ; therapeutic use ; Treatment Outcome