Effectiveness of probiotic therapy for the prevention of relapse in patients with inactive ulcerative colitis

AIM: to evaluate the effectiveness of probiotic therapy for suppressing relapse in patients with inactive ulcerative colitis(UC).METHODS: Bio-Three tablets, each containing 2 mg of lactomin(Streptococcus faecalis T-110), 10 mg of Clostridium butyricum TO-A, and 10 mg of Bacillus mesentericus TO-A, were used as probiotic therapy.Sixty outpatients with UC in remission were randomly assigned to receive 9 Bio-Three tablets/day(BioThree group) or 9 placebo tablets/day(placebo group)for 12 mo in addition to their ongoing medications.Clinical symptoms were evaluated monthly or on the exacerbation of symptoms or need for additional medication. Fecal samples were collected to analyze bacterial DNA at baseline and 3-mo intervals. Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism and cluster analyses were done to examine bacterial components of the fecal microflora.RESULTS: Forty-six patients, 23 in each group,completed the study, and 14 were excluded. The relapse rates in the Bio-Three and placebo groups were respectively 0.0% vs 17.4% at 3 mo(P = 0.036), 8.7%vs 26.1% at 6 mo(P = 0.119), and 21.7% vs 34.8%(P = 0.326) at 9 mo. At 12 mo, the remission rate was 69.5% in the Bio-Three group and 56.6% in the placebo group(P = 0.248). On cluster analysis of fecal flora, 7 patients belonged to cluster Ⅰ, 32 to cluster Ⅱ,and 7 to cluster Ⅲ.CONCLUSION: Probiotics may be effective formaintaining clinical remission in patients with quiescent UC, especially those who belong to cluster Ⅰ on fecal bacterial analysis.

从回鹘文佛经到蒙古文佛经(下)

二、从回鹘引入蒙古的头韵四行诗回鹘文佛教文献有的以头韵诗形式书写,且在全部佛教文献中所占比例不低。回鹘文文献的头韵诗以押头韵的四行诗句为一节,以所谓头韵四行诗为基本结构。句首押韵以元音开头或者辅音+元音开头。元音i-/ï-,u-/o-,ü-/ӧ-分别被视作同一组韵。如果行首音是辅音,就会加以统一。每节诗的行首音通常都不一样。行末加两点(:),节末加四点(᠅)。每行通常有7-11个音节①。

Practical applications and limitations of basalt discrimination diagrams

Determining the tectonic setting of unknown volcanic rocks continues to be one of the key challenges in geoscience.While discrimination diagrams have been successfully employed due to their ease of use,recently,validation with big data has raised questions about their performance.In this study,the discrimination boundaries of Th/Yb versus(vs.)Nb/Yb and TiO2/Yb vs.Nb/Yb diagrams,which are the most used types of discrimination diagrams,were redefined based on a large amount of compiled data and support vector machine,a machine learning method.The effectiveness of discrimination diagrams was verified,and the limitations and conditions when using them were clarified.The results show that when using the Th/Yb vs.Nb/Yb diagram,only basalts with Th/Yb ratios higher than the discrimination boundary can be identified as volcanic arcs in origin.In contrast,a significant overlap occurs across boundaries in other cases when using these diagrams,particularly for enriched samples with Nb/Yb ratios higher than five.Therefore,when using these diagrams to determine the tectonic setting of unknown samples,their limitations must be considered when interpreting their results.

Ultrahigh-speed distributed Brillouin reflectometry

Optical fibre sensors based on Brillouin scattering have been vigorously studied in the context of structural health monitoring on account of their capacity for distributed strain and temperature measurements.However,real-time distributed strain measurement has been achieved only for two-end-access systems;such systems reduce the degree of freedom in embedding the sensors into structures,and furthermore render the measurement no longer feasible when extremely high loss or breakage occurs at a point along the sensing fibre.Here,we demonstrate real-time distributed measurement with an intrinsically one-end-access reflectometry configuration by using a correlation-domain technique.In this method,the Brillouin gain spectrum is obtained at high speed using a voltage-controlled oscillator,and the Brillouin frequency shift is converted into a phase delay of a synchronous sinusoidal waveform;the phase delay is subsequently converted into a voltage,which can be directly measured.When a single-point measurement is performed at an arbitrary position,a strain sampling rate of up to 100 kHz is experimentally verified by detecting locally applied dynamic strain at 1 kHz.When distributed measurements are performed at 100 points with 10 times averaging,a repetition rate of 100 Hz is verified by tracking a mechanical wave propagating along the fibre.Some drawbacks of this ultrahigh-speed configuration,including the reduced measurement accuracy,lowered spatial resolution and limited strain dynamic range,are also discussed.

Distributed polymer optical fiber sensors:a review and outlook

Aging degradation and seismic damage of civil infrastructures have become a serious issue for society,and one promising technology for monitoring their conditions is optical fiber sensing.Glass optical fibers have been predominantly used for the past several decades to develop fiber sensors,but currently polymer or plastic optical fibers(POFs)have also been used extensively to develop advanced fiber sensors because of their unique features,such as high flexibility,large breakage strain,and impact resistance.This review focuses on recently developed distributed and quasi-distributed POF-based sensing techniques based on Rayleigh scattering,Brillouin scattering,and fiber Bragg gratings.

43 Gbit/s x 54 ch Transmission with Dense 75 GHz Channel Spacing in NRZ Modulation Scheme

We demonstrated 2.16-Tbit/s (43 Gbit/s x 54 ch) WDM transmission over 600 km of standard single-mode fiber with high spectral efficiency 0.53 bit/s/Hz using optimized optical mux/demux filters for 75-GHz channel spacing in a simple NRZ modulation scheme.