Publications by authors named "Hong-Wei Ren"

Inflammatory cytokines play a crucial role in Creutzfeldt-jakob disease (CJD). We examined inflammatory cytokine levels in both blood and CSF in a CJD patient and an epileptic encephalopathy as a control case. Results showed that IL-6, IL-8, IL-1β, and TNF-α levels were elevated in blood, but only IL-8 and IL-1β levels, especially IL-8, were significantly elevated in Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).

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BackgroundHome-dwelling situations (HDS) and neighborhood social interactions (NSI) significantly impact older adults' post-retirement lives. However, their relationship with subjective cognitive decline plus (SCD-plus), a potential biomarker of preclinical Alzheimer's disease (AD), remains uncertain.ObjectiveTo explore the association between NSI, HDS and SCD-plus among older adults.

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This paper investigates achieving leader-following consensus in a class of multi-agent systems with nonlinear dynamics. Initially, it introduces a dynamic event-triggered strategy designed to effectively alleviate the strain on the system's communication resources. Subsequently, a distributed control strategy is proposed and implemented in the nonlinear leader-follower system using the dynamic event-triggered mechanism, aiming to ensure synchronization across all nodes at an exponential convergence speed.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Sediment microorganisms play a crucial role in breaking down organic matter and recycling materials in rural black and odorous water bodies (RBOWB), and their community structure changes in response to environmental factors
  • - In a study of 29 RBOWB in Dongming County, significant levels of pollutants, notably nitrogen and phosphorus from domestic sewage, were found, which were much higher than levels from agricultural runoff
  • - The dominant bacterial groups in the sediments included Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Chloroflexi, with their diversity being significantly influenced by factors like dissolved oxygen and total nitrogen, providing important insights for future environmental treatments of RBOWB
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Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) as a worldwide chronic disease combined with the COVID-19 pandemic prompts the need for improving the management of hospitalized COVID-19 patients with preexisting T2D to reduce complications and the risk of death. This study aimed to identify clinical factors associated with COVID-19 outcomes specifically targeted at T2D patients and build an individualized risk prediction nomogram for risk stratification and early clinical intervention to reduce mortality.

Methods: In this retrospective study, the clinical characteristics of 382 confirmed COVID-19 patients, consisting of 108 with and 274 without preexisting T2D, from January 8 to March 7, 2020, in Tianyou Hospital in Wuhan, China, were collected and analyzed.

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Background: With evidence of sustained transmission in more than 190 countries, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been declared a global pandemic. Data are urgently needed about risk factors associated with clinical outcomes.

Methods: A retrospective review of 323 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in Wuhan was conducted.

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Acidic substances, which produced during chlorinated volatile organic compounds, will corrode the commonly used packing materials, and then affect the removal performance of biofiltration. In this study, three biofilters with different filter bed structure were established to treat gaseous chlorobenzene. CaCO and 3D matrix material was added in filter bed as pH buffering material and filter bed supporting material, respectively.

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Resistance develops against first-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), which target the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), after a while for non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Recently, researchers have developed specific inhibitors against them. Among those inhibitors, next-generation EGFR-TKIs have gained prominence due to the greater efficacy and more favorable tolerability.

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Blood-brain barrier (BBB) damage and astrocyte activation are important cause of recurrent epilepsy. There is experimental evidence for increased angiotensin receptor type 1 (AT1) expression during BBB breakdown and brain injury, and that blocking the AT1 receptor (e.g.

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Immature dendritic cell-derived exosomes (iMDEX) display a certain degree of immunosuppressive activity in autoimmune diseases. However, the role of iMDEX in experimental autoimmune myasthenia gravis (EAMG) is still unclear. Therefore, we tested the effects of mouse bone marrow (BM)-derived iMDEX on tolerance induction in a mouse model of EAMG.

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Acoustic emission (AE) is capable of monitoring the cracking activities inside materials. In this study, embedded sensors were employed to monitor the AE behavior of early age concrete. Type 1-3 cement-based piezoelectric composites, which had lower mechanical quality factor and acoustic impedance, were fabricated and used to make sensors.

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Substantial evidence indicates that neuroinflammation caused by microglial activation in substantia nigra is critical in the pathogenesis of dopaminergic neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease (PD). Increasing data demonstrates that environmental factors such as rotenone, paraquat play pivotal roles in dopaminergic neuron death. Here, potential role and mechanism of neuromelanin (NM), a major endogenous component in dopaminergic neurons of substantia nigra, on microglial activation and associated dopaminergic neurotoxicity were investigated.

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Objective: To evaluate the CT imaging characteristics of incomplete and complete myocardial bridges-mural coronary artery (MB-MCA).

Methods: Fifty subjects with dual source coronary CT angiography (DSCTA) evidenced MB were included. The subjects were divided into incomplete MB-MCA and complete MB-MCA groups.

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To know the details of the mechanism on stress-associated responses, attention was first focused on body temperature and blood glucose after stress. Mice were exposed to restraint stress for 6 h. Under this condition, hypothermia (39 degrees C --> 33 degrees C) and hyperglycemia (150 mg/dl --> 350 mg/dl) were induced.

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Since many top swimmers wearing Speedo LZR Racer swimsuits have broken world records, it is considered that the corset-like grip of suit supports the swimmers to maintain flexibility of movement and reducing water resistance. We propose an alternative mechanism to explain this phenomenon. The suits are so tight that the blood circulation of swimmers is suppressed.

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Metallothionein (MT), a metal-binding protein induced primarily by heavy metals in vertebrates, is considered a biomarker for environmental heavy-metal contamination. To investigate heavy metal pollution in the freshwater environment, MT-I and MT-II were purified from livers of crucian carp (Carassius carassius) by gel exclusion chromatography and ion exchange chromatography. To detect the purified MT-II, a specific monoclonal antibody (mAb) against crucian carp MT-II was produced from the hybridoma strains by cell-cell fusion.

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Metallothionein-3 (MT-3), renamed as growth inhibitory factor (GIF), is a brain specific member of the metallothionein family. Human dUTPase is a recently found protein in brain that can interact with hMT-3. They have the growth inhibitory activity on neuron cell by interaction.

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In order to examine the elusive functional mechanism of GIF (Neuronal growth inhibitory factor, GIF) and elucidate the possible relationship between GIF and Alzheimer's disease, we constructed bait1 plasmid (pHyblex-GIF) by cloning GIF cDNA directly in frame with plasmid pHyblex, and used the yeast two-hybrid system to screen Alzheimer's disease human brain cDNA library and found the GIF-interacting proteins. The final results from coimmunoprecipitation and western blotting experiments confirmed that interacting proteins specifically binds to GIF. After sequencing the nucleotide of the putative positive plasmids and searching for homologues, we found that one of these is the part of human nuclear dUTPase protein sequence.

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Neuronal growth inhibitory factor (GIF), known also as metallothionein-III (MT-III), was the first validated to be capable of inhibiting growth of neuronal cells in nervous system, its beta-domain being functional. GIF functional di-domain (GIFbeta- beta) was constructed to study the structure and function of GIF. N terminal beta-domain and C terminal beta-domain cDNAs were amplified by PCR, inserted into vector pGEX-4T-1 and expressed in Escherichia coli, as carboxyl terminal extension of glutathione-S-transferase (GST), by IPTG induction.

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