Effect of Xingnao-Jianshen granules in treating AIS patients:study protocol for a non-randomized controlled intervention trial

Objective:Acute ischemic stroke(AIS)is characterized by high morbidity and high mortality.In recent years,complementary and alternative medicine has gradually been widely accepted and applied.At present,traditional Chinese medicine therapy and standard treatments are used for the treatment of AIS.Xingnao-Jianshen prescriptions(XNJS)is an effective prescription for the clinical treatment of AIS,but there is a lack of large-scale clinical evidence to confirm its clinical efficacy.Therefore,our team designed this protocol to evaluate the initial therapeutic effect of XNJS.Methods:The protocol for a non-randomized controlled trial is designed in which 72 eligible patients will be allocated to one of two groups.The control group(n=36)will receive standard treatment for AIS,the test group(n=36)will receive XNJS and standard treatment.Patients will be recruited after stroke onset and will receive the intervention continuously over 10±1 days,with a follow-up period of 90 days.The primary outcome will be the change in the NIHSS,BI,mRS scores.All outcome measures will be assessed at inception,after the intervention(10±1 days),and at the follow-up(90 days).The results will be disseminated to the public through peerreviewed journals and academic conferences.Discussion:The study will provide evidence of the preliminary effects.

Acupuncture for Moderate to Severe Allergic Rhinitis:A Non-randomized Controlled Trial

Objective： To evaluate the effect and safety of acupuncture therapy on patients with moderate to severe allergic rhinitis. Methods： A non-randomized controlled design was used to compare between the acupuncture group and the medication group. The acupuncture group received 8-week acupuncture therapy, and the medication group received budesonide nasal spray with cetirizine tablets for 8 weeks. The clinical symptoms and signs were analyzed before treatment, at 4 and 8 weeks after the start of treatment, and at 12 weeks after the end of treatment. Furthermore, the clinical efficacy and safety indicators were compared between the two groups. Results： A total of 76 participants consisting of 38 in each of the two groups were enrolled. The scores of each clinical symptom and sign, including sneezing, runny nose, stuffy nose, nasal itching, and turbinate edema, and the total scores decreased over time in both groups （all P〈0.05）; and no difference was found in the scores between the two groups （P〉0.05）. There was no statistically significant difference in the effective rates of the acupuncture group at 4 and 8 weeks after the start of treatment as well as at 12-week follow-up compared with those of the medication group （83.3% vs. 91.2%, and 94.4 % vs. 85.3%; and 80.6 % vs. 82.4%, all P〉0.05）. Experimental items including blood routine, urine routine, aspartate transaminase, alanine aminotransferase, urea nitrogen and creatinine were all in the normal reference ranges during the treatment in the acupuncture group. Conclusions： Acupuncture therapy has a comparable effect to the medication treatment on patients with moderate to severe allergic rhinitis, and it is safe with no severe adverse effects.

Non-Random Distribution of Human Orofacial Clefts in Ghana: Gene-Environment Interactions

Human orofacial clefts (OFCs) are congenital anomalies that result from the breakdown of normal mechanisms that regulate the formation of the human face. They could be syndromic or non-syndromic, with a global incidence of 1:700 per live births. Environmental and genetic factors are thought to play various roles in the aetiology of OFCs. This study seeks to establish the diversity, distribution and pattern of inheritance of OFCs as well as environmental and other risk factors associated with OFCs in a Ghanaian population. A family-based, descriptive cross-sectional study that employed an interview-based survey questionnaire was used to obtain information from 467 families with history of OFCs. We employed chi-square statistics to analyse the data and used graphs to interpret the data. All previously reported subphenotypes of OFCs were observed by the present study. Clinically, about 12% of clefts in the study population were syndromic. The most common syndromic forms observed were Pierre Robin Sequence, cleft-with-club foot abnormalities and Van der Woude Syndrome. Only about 5% of clefts in the study cohort were familial. The study also established that lower level of education of parents, poverty, late antenatal care and dietary folate deficiency are major environmental factors associated with clefts in the Ghanaian population. In conclusion, OFCs are non-randomly distributed in Ghana and folate deficiency could likely be a source of genetic mutations and “epimutations” that cause OFCs, since folate is essential for DNA methylation, replication and repair as well as histone modification.

Effects of Good Practices for Catch-Up Vaccinations: Assessment with a Quasi-Experimental Study in Democratic Republic of Congo

Introduction: Despite the enormous resources deployed and the success achieved in vaccination, reducing the number of children who remain unvaccinated remains a major operational challenge in certain countries. In 2014, the Kalemie Expanded Program of Immunization outpost in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was faced with a high number of unvaccinated children. They instituted a “token” catch-up system based on a collaborative approach with community health workers. This study aims to document the effects of this strategy on vaccination coverage. Methods: This study was a comparative quasi-experimental test/control study. The “test” health area was Undugu where the catch-up strategy was implemented and the “control” health area was Kanunka. A vaccination coverage survey was conducted according to the WHO method in both health areas, examining children aged 12 to 23 months. The proportions were compared using a Pearson chi-square test and the odds ratios were estimated. Results: Vaccine coverage was significantly higher in the “test” health area for all the antigens. Full vaccination coverage was 69.4% in the “test” health area versus 31% in the “control” health area, with a 4.7 times greater chance of being fully vaccinated in the “test” health area (OR: 4.7;CI 95% [3.1 - 7.2];p = 0.0001). Conclusion: This study demonstrates the value of a strategy that can increase access to vaccination and use of vaccination services, leading to a reduction in inequality in this area. However, this is linked to adapting the collaborative model on which it is based. This must be taken into consideration in plans to reproduce the findings.

顺-1,2-二甲基环己烷—甲苯—环丁砜三元体系液液平衡数据测定和关联（英文）

Liquid–Liquid Equilibrium(LLE) data for three Ternary Systems comprising cis-1,2-dimethylcyclohexane +toluene + sulfolane were measured at 298.15, 313.15 and 328.15 K under atmospheric pressure. The phase diagrams for the ternary systems were presented. The reliability of the experiment data was tested using the Othmer–Tobias correlation. The LLE data were then correlated with the universal functional activity coefficient for liquid–liquid systems(UNIF-LL) and non-random two liquid using dataset 2(NRTL/2) activity coefficient models to obtain the binary interaction parameters as programmed by the Aspen Plus simulation. The results showed that the experimental data were satisfactorily represented by both the UNIF-LL and the NRTL/2 models as revealed from the very small values of the root mean square error and the absolute deviation in composition.

Entropy Production in a Non-Isolated Thermodynamic System Taking into Account Regular Factors of Nonrandom Nature

The work illustrates the impossibility of decreasing entropy in a strictly random thermodynamic process in a non-isolated system using the example of heating a planet by solar radiation flux without and taking into account its rotation around its own axis. That is, the second law of thermodynamics formulated for isolated systems continues to govern such systems. We have shown that in order to achieve a stationary state at lower values of temperature and entropy far from thermodynamic equilibrium at a maximum of temperature and entropy, it is necessary to have regular factors of nonrandom nature, one of which in this example is the rotation of the planet around its own axis. This means that the reason for the appearance of ordered structured objects in non-isolated thermodynamic systems is not the random process itself, but the action of dynamic control mechanisms, such as periodic external influences, nonlinear elements with positive feedback, catalysts for chemical reactions, etc. We present the plots with dependences of temperature and entropy versus time in non-isolated systems with purely random processes and in the presence of a control factor of non-random nature-rotation.

Effects of Acupuncture on Chinese Medicine Syndromes of Vascular Dementia

Objective： To study the effects of acupuncture on Chinese medicine syndromes of vascular dementia （VaD）. Methods： Sixty-three VaD patients were divided into three groups. Those willing to be randomized were randomly assigned to receive either acupuncture （random acupuncture group, 24 cases） or rehabilitation training （guided rehabilitation group, 24 cases） for 6 weeks. Those unwilling to be randomized also received acupuncture for 6 weeks （non-random acupuncture group, 19 cases）. Patient syndromes and their severity were evaluated before treatment （baseline）, at the end of treatment, and at 4-week follow-up after the completion of treatment using a CM scoring system （scale of differentiation of syndromes of vascular dementia, SDSVD）. The SDSVD scores of the random and non-random acupuncture groups, and of all patients who received acupuncture （combined acupuncture group, 43 cases）, were compared with those in the guided rehabilitation group. Results： In the random, non-random, and combined acupuncture groups, SDSVD scores were significantly reduced at the end of treatment and at follow- up than at baseline. In the guided rehabilitation group, SDSVD scores were similar to baseline scores at the end of treatment and at follow-up. However, there were no significant differences in SDSVD scores among the three groups or between the combined acupuncture group and the guided rehabilitation group at any time points. In the non-random and combined acupuncture groups, SDSVD scores were significantly reduced at the end of treatment than at baseline in patients with hyperactivity of Liver （Gan）-yang or phlegm obstruction of the orifices. Conclusions： Acupuncture reduced the severity of VaD. The improvement was the greatest in patients undergoing their treatment of choice. Treatments in this study were more effective for excess syndromes, such as Liver-yang hyperactivity or phlegm obstruction of the orifices than deficiency syndromes, such as Kidney （Shen）-essence deficiency.

RANDOM FRACTAL ANALYSIS OF INTERGRANULAR FRACTURE IN METALS

In 1975, B. B. Mandelbrot presented the Fractal Geometry through careful observation and comprehensive analysis of many irregular bodies with complicated shapes in nature. Metal fracture is a crack propagation process along a zigzag path, while fractured surfaces are approximately fractal, i. e. 'self-similar'. Recently, fractal analysis in metal fractured surfaces has been widely applied, and the relationships between the fractal dimension of the frac-