Some Preliminary Results on Pilot Study of Global Change in China

On the basis of existing data and research results the changes of life supporting environment in China in the history are briefly described. The differences between regional climate variations and climate jump are the very important features and phenomena in estimating the trend of environmental evolution in the future. Finally, it is pointed out that sensitive zone is an ideal place to study global change. Many evidences show that the response of environmental elements in the sensitive zones to global change events is very obvious, so that much attention should be paid to the study of sensitive zone.

Latest Results on Studying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Irecently read Studies on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Prof. Sun Pinghua. With the support ofgovernmental social science fund ing, Prof. Sun wrote the book on the basis of his doctoral thesis. I would like to share my thoughts after read ing this book. After the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was published on Dec. 10, 1948, Chinese scholars and media studied the document and introduced it to China. Since the adoption of the reform and opening up policy three decades ago, and with the building of the socialist legal system with Chinese charac teristics and the deepening of human rights dialogue between China and other countries and international organizations, the academic com munity has shown more interest in studying the document. Examples of such research include Universal Declaration of Human Rights： An Important Milestone of International Human Rights History, by Dong Yunhu （People＇s Daily, Dec. 10, 1998）, Role and Function of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in International Human Rights Law, by Bai Guimei （Peking University Law Journal, vol. 6, 1998）,Cornerstone of International Human Rights Law, by Zhao Jianwen （Legal Research, vol. 2, 1999）, On the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by Fan Guoxiang （Human Rights, vol.

Remarkably different results between two studies from North America on genomic mutations and sensitivity to DNA demethylating agents for myelodysplastic syndromes

Sekeres et al. （1） conducted a multicenter randomized, controlled trial to compare whether azacitidine-based combinations with lenalidomide or vorinostat produce superior overall response rates to azacitidine in the treatment of myelodysplastic syndromes （MDS）. In that trial, 224 patients with higher-risk MDS and 53 with chronic myelomonocytic leukemia （CMML） were enrolled and randomly assigned to the ＂azacitidine＂ group, ＂azacitidine plus lenalidomide＂ group or ＂azacitidine plus vorinostat＂ group. The researchers found that patients with MDS treated with azacitidine-based combinations had similar response rate to azacitidine monotherapy. Using genomic mutation analysis, they found that the overall response rate to azacitidine-based treatment was higher for patients with mutations in DNMT3A and lower for those with mutations in SRSF2. Whereas in another study, Welch et al. enrolled 26 patients with MDS and 90 with acute myeloid leukemia （AML） who were treated with decitabine, and they found that patients with TP53 mutations had a higher response rate, but not those with DNMT3A mutations （2）. We propose that this big discrepancy in the conclusions between the two studies might have been caused by the presence of many co-interacting factors, e.g. study aims, DNA demethylating agents, treatment protocols, and patient sources.

POST-STROKE ANTIHYPERTENSIVE TREATMENT STUDY A PRELIMINARY RESULT

Post-stroke Antihypertensive Treatment Study (PATS) was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled trial, which aimed at determining whether antihypertensive treatment could reduce the risk of fatal and nonfatal stroke incidence in patients with a history of stroke or transient ischemic attack (TLA). 5 665 patients were randomized by a sealed envelope system. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) ranged from 80 to 280 mm Hg and diastolic (DBP) from 50 to 150 mmHg. The average SBP was 154 mmHg and average DBP 93 mmHg. The mean age was 60 years. Among the patients, women accounted for 28%. In 71% the latest stroke was ischemic. Average follow-up approximated to 2 years. The three-year average SBP was 149 mmHg for the placebo group and 144 mmHg for the indapamide treatment group, and the three-year DBP was 89 mmHg and 87 mmHg respectively. The three-year first incidence of fatal and nonfatal stroke was 12.3 per 100 patients placebo treatment and 9.4 per 100 with indapamide. The relative risk by proportional hazards regression analysis was 0.71 (P=0.0009). For deaths from all causes, the relative risk was 0.91. (P>0.05). The findings of this trial indicate that in patients with a history of stroke or TLA, blood pressure reduction of 5 / 2 mmHg with 2.5 mg indapamide reduced the first incidence of fatal and nonfatal stroke by 29%, with three-year absolute benefit of 29 events per 1000 participants.