Rabs and axonal regeneration

Membrane trafficking processes are presumably vital for axonal regeneration after injury, but mechanistic understanding in this regard has been sparse. A recent loss-of-function screen had been carried out for factors important for axonal regeneration by cultured cortical neurons and the results suggested that the activity of a number of Rab GTPases might act to restrict axonal regeneration. A loss of Rab27b, in particular, is shown to enhance axonal regeneration in vitro, as well as in C. elegans and mouse central nervous system injury models in vivo. Possible mechanisms underlying this new finding, which has important academic and translational implication, are discussed.     

Learning to Discretize: Solving 1D Scalar Conservation Laws via Deep Reinforcement Learning

Conservation laws are considered to be fundamental laws of nature. It has broad applications in many fields, including physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and engineering. Solving the differential equations associated with conservation laws is a major branch in computational mathematics. The recent success of machine learning, especially deep learning in areas such as computer vision and natural language processing, has attracted a lot of attention from the community of computational mathematics and inspired many intriguing works in combining machine learning with traditional methods. In this paper, we are the first to view numerical PDE solvers as an MDP and to use (deep) RL to learn new solvers. As proof of concept, we focus on 1-dimensional scalar conservation laws. We deploy the machinery of deep reinforcement learning to train a policy network that can decide on how the numerical solutions should be approximated in a sequential and spatial-temporal adaptive manner. We will show that the problem of solving conservation laws can be naturally viewed as a sequential decision-making process, and the numerical schemes learned in such a way can easily enforce long-term accuracy. Furthermore, the learned policy network is carefully designed to determine a good local discrete approximation based on the current state of the solution, which essentially makes the proposed method a meta-learning approach. In other words, the proposed method is capable of learning how to discretize for a given situation mimicking human experts. Finally, we will provide details on how the policy network is trained, how well it performs compared with some state-of-the-art numerical solvers such as WENO schemes, and supervised learning based approach L3D and PINN, and how well it generalizes.     

Genome-wide haplotypic testing in a Finnish cohort identifies a novel association with low-density lipoprotein cholesterol

We performed genome-wide tests for association between haplotype clusters and each of 9 metabolic traits in a cohort of 5402 Northern Finnish individuals genotyped for 330 000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms. The metabolic traits were body mass index, C-reactive protein, diastolic blood pressure, glucose, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), insulin, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), systolic blood pressure, and triglycerides. Haplotype clusters were determined using Beagle. There were LDL-associated clusters in the chromosome 4q13.3-q21.1 region containing the albumin (ALB) and platelet factor 4 (PF4) genes. This region has not been associated with LDL in previous genome-wide association studies. The most significant haplotype cluster in this region was associated with 0.488 mmol/l higher LDL (95% CI: 0.361–0.615 mmol/l, P-value: 6.4 × 10⁻¹⁴). We also observed three previously reported associations: Chromosome 16q13 with HDL, chromosome 1p32.3-p32.2 with LDL and chromosome 19q13.31-q13.32 with LDL. The chromosome 1 and chromosome 4 LDL associations do not reach genome-wide significance in single-marker analyses of these data, illustrating the power of haplotypic association testing.     

化浊解毒方对溃疡性结肠炎的治疗作用及机制

目的探讨化浊解毒方治疗溃疡性结肠炎(UC)的治疗作用及机制。方法120例UC患者按照随机数字表法分为观察组、对照组各60例。观察组予中药化浊解毒方口服,每日1剂,早晚2次温服;对照组予美沙拉嗪肠溶片口服,1.0 g/次,3次/d。2组疗程均4周。对比2组治疗前后Geboes指数、结肠镜下黏膜表现、生活质量评分、疾病活动指数及血清炎性因子IL-8、IL-35水平,凝血指标血清FIB水平,统计治疗后1年内复发情况。结果治疗后,观察组Geboes指数、疾病活动指数及血清炎性因子IL-8水平、凝血指标血清FIB水平均较本组治疗前降低,生活质量评分、血清炎性因子IL-35水平升高(P<0.05);且观察组治疗后疾病活动指数及血清炎性因子IL-8水平、凝血指标血清FIB水平均低于对照组,生活质量评分、血清炎性因子IL-35水平均高于对照组(P<0.05)。与对照组相比,治疗组糜烂、溃疡改善不明显(P>0.05),充血水肿、颗粒样变等肠镜表现改善情况均优于对照组(P<0.05)。治疗结束1年观察组复发率为10.64%,对照组为23.53%,2组差异有统计学意义(P<0.05)。结论化浊解毒方能改善UC患者临床症状,修复肠黏膜病理损伤,降低复发率;其机制可能与调节血清炎性因子IL-8、IL-35和凝血因子FIB水平有关。     

铜绿假单胞菌噬菌体PaP3生物学特性的研究

目的测定铜绿假单胞菌噬菌体PaP3的最佳感染复数、一步生长曲线和吸附K值及交叉吸附K值等基本生物学特性。方法按照感染复数（MOI）分别为0．0001、0．001、0．01、0．1、1和10加入噬菌体纯培养液和宿主菌，充分裂解细菌后，测定噬菌体滴度；以MOI=10的比例加入噬菌体及宿主菌，进行一步生长实验；纯化PaP3颗粒，免疫家兔，获得抗血清，通过中和反应实验测定PaP3和其抗血清之间的吸附反应常数K值。同时，利用抗血清交叉中和试验确定本室分离的三株噬菌体之间的血清学关系。结果当MOI=0．001时PaP3感染其宿主菌产生的子代噬菌体滴度最高；根据一步生长实验结果绘制一步生长曲线；通过血清交叉中和反应得出不同的吸附常数。结论PaP3最佳感染复数为0．001，感染宿主菌的潜伏期是20min，爆发期是60min，平均爆发量约为31，其抗血清反应的吸附常数K值为262。     

影响颅脑外伤术后颅内感染的危险因素分析

目的探讨影响颅脑外伤开颅术后颅内感染的危险因素。方法采用回顾性研究比较分析了912例颅脑损伤术后出现颅内感染与未出现颅内感染组间的差异因素。结果非感染 770例,颅内感染142例(15．6％)。感染类型有无菌性脑膜炎、细菌性脑膜炎、脑室炎及脑室积脓、脑脓肿、硬膜下腔积脓、术区皮下或(和)骨瓣下化脓或合并骨髓炎、切口感染。细菌检出率占感染的27．5％。颅脑外伤术后感染与高温季节、高龄、重度以上损伤、短期内两次以上手术、连续两侧开颅术、长时间 (>5 h)手术、显微外科手术、颅底与后颅凹手术、脑室外引流、皮下或硬膜外积液以及急诊手术等因素相关(P<0．05)。结论对具有上述危险冈素的易感患者应给予更密切的关注和预防性的处理。     

正常人及脑肿瘤患者听觉性中英文语言刺激的fMRI研究

目的应用BOLD-MfRI研究正常人及脑肿瘤患者听觉性中英文语言皮层定位并探讨其对脑肿瘤的临床应用价值。方法应用MarconiEclipse1.5T超导型磁共振机,30例受试者,行听觉性中、英文语言刺激的BOLD-MfRI,以定位正常人和脑肿瘤患者的语言皮层。结果正常人听觉性中英文语言任务激活区域均以左侧大脑半球为主,主要有双侧颞横回、Wernicke区、Broca区和SMA区。中文语言任务刺激时脑区激活面积和程度比英文语言任务大,但英文语言任务时可见更明显的Broca区和角回激活。累及功能皮层的脑肿瘤患者患侧半球可见残留部分功能激活区,但激活区移位,分布弥散,激活程度及范围较正常人略增高。未累及功能皮层者功能区定位与正常人大致相同。结论BOLD-MfRI是一种有效而无创的功能皮层定位方法,有利于脑肿瘤的精确定位诊断并指导临床治疗。