Elderly CADASIL patients with intact neurological status

Ruiting Zhang,Elisa Ouin,Lina Grosset,Karine Ighilkrim,Jessica Lebenberg,Stéphanie Guey,Véronique François,Elisabeth Tournier-Lasserve,Eric Jouvent,Hugues Chabriat 대한뇌졸중학회 2022 Journal of stroke Vol.24 No.3

Background and Purpose Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) is one of the most devastating cerebral small vessel diseases. However, despite its progression with aging, some patients remain neurologically intact (Nint) even when they get older. Their main characteristics are poorly known. We aimed to delineate their clinical, imaging, and molecular features. Methods Individuals aged over 65 years were selected from a cohort of 472 CADASIL patients. Subjects who had no focal deficit, cognitive impairment, or disability were considered Nint. Their demographic, genetic, clinical, and imaging features were compared to those with permanent neurological symptoms (Nps). Results Among 129 patients, 23 (17.8%) individuals were considered Nint. The frequency of vascular risk factors and NOTCH3 cysteine mutations in epidermal growth factor-like repeat (EGFr) domains 7-34 did not differ between Nint and Nps patients but Nint patients had less stroke events and were more likely to have migraine with aura. The number of lacunes and microbleeds and degree of brain atrophy were lower in the Nint group, but the volume of white matter hyperintensities did not differ between the two groups. Conclusions Nearly one in five CADASIL patients can remain Nint after the age of 65 years. Their clinical and imaging profile differed from that of other age-matched CADASIL patients. The location of NOTCH3 mutation inside or outside EGFr domains 1-6 cannot fully explain this discrepancy. The factors involved in their relative preservation of brain tissue from severe damage despite aging remain to be determined.

Enhanced Production of Soluble Pyrococcus furiosus α-Amylase in Bacillus subtilis through Chaperone Co-Expression, Heat Treatment and Fermentation Optimization

( Kang Zhang ),( Ruiting Tan ),( Dongbang Yao ),( Lingqia Su ),( Yongmei Xia ),( Jing Wu ) 한국미생물생명공학회(구 한국산업미생물학회) 2021 Journal of microbiology and biotechnology Vol.31 No.4

Pyrococcus furiosus α-amylase can hydrolyze α-1,4 linkages in starch and related carbohydrates under hyperthermophilic condition (~ 100°C), showing great potential in a wide range of industrial applications, while its relatively low productivity from heterologous hosts has limited the industrial applications. Bacillus subtilis, a gram-positive bacterium, has been widely used in industrial production for its non-pathogenic and powerful secretory characteristics. This study was conducted to increase production of P. furiosus α-amylase in B. subtilis through three strategies. Initial experiments showed that co-expression of P. furiosus molecular chaperone peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase through genomic integration mode, using a CRISPR/Cas9 system, increased soluble amylase production. Therefore, considering that native P. furiosus α-amylase is produced within a hyperthermophilic environment and is highly thermostable, heat treatment of intact culture at 90℃ for 15 min was performed, thereby greatly increasing soluble amylase production. After optimization of the culture conditions (nitrogen source, carbon source, metal ion, temperature and pH), experiments in a 3-L fermenter yielded a soluble activity of 3,806.7 U/ml, which was 3.3- and 28.2-fold those of a control without heat treatment (1,155.1 U/ml) and an empty expression vector control (135.1 U/ml), respectively. This represents the highest P. furiosus α-amylase production reported to date and should promote innovation in the starch liquefaction process and related industrial productions. Meanwhile, heat treatment, which may promote folding of aggregated P. furiosus α-amylase into a soluble, active form through the transfer of kinetic energy, may be of general benefit when producing proteins from thermophilic archaea.

Online Mean Kernel Learning for Object Tracking

Lei Li,Ruiting Zhang,Jiangming Kan,Wenbin Li 보안공학연구지원센터 2015 International Journal of Signal Processing, Image Vol.8 No.11

Features for representing the target are the fundamental ingredient when constructing the appearance model in the tracking problem. Only one type of features is utilized to represent the target in most current algorithms. However, the limited representation of a single feature might not resist all appearance changes of the target during the tracking process. To cope with this problem, we propose a novel tracking algorithm - Mean Kernel Tracker (MKT) - to robustly locate the object. The MKT combines three complementary features - Color, HOG (Histogram of Oriented Gradient) and LBP (Local Binary Pattern) - to represent the target. And Extensive experiments on public benchmark sequences show MKT performs favorably against several state-of-the-art algorithms.

Numerical investigation of two-phase flow characteristics in multiphase pump with split vane impellers

Yi Shi,Hongwu Zhu,Binbin Yin,Ruiting Xu,Jiate Zhang 대한기계학회 2019 JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Vol.33 No.4

Multiphase pump is a cost-effective option for subsea oil and gas field development. The ability to handle different inlet gas volume fractions (GVFs) especially high inlet GVF is critical to the development of pump performance. In this study, the two-phase flow characteristics in normal impeller and split vane impeller at different inlet GVFs were investigated by steady numerical simulations. The gas distribution on blade-to-blade plane and meridional flow channel at different inlet GVFs were analyzed and compared. Gas accumulation area and movement characteristics of the gas-liquid flow in impeller flow passage were also pointed out by unsteady simulations. Experimental results of the pump differential pressure were compared with the numerical simulation results, to validate the accuracy of numerical simulation method. The flow characteristics in pump with modified impeller and its performance at different inlet GVFs were both compared with that of the normal impeller. The steady simulation results of normal impeller in different inlet GVFs show that gas concentrating area in the flow passage increases as inlet GVF grows. The unsteady simulation results indicate that gas pocket firstly occurs on the pressure side of impeller, then moves to the suction side in the middle area of blade and finally transfers to outlet of impeller and disappears. The errors between numerical simulation results and experiment data are below 10 %, which validated the feasibility of the numerical simulation method. Simulation results on the split vane impeller demonstrate that the gas accumulation area in flow passage of the modified impeller is dramatically decreased compared to that of the normal impeller. The performance of the modified impeller is generally better than the normal impeller especially in high inlet GVF conditions.

One-pot synthesis of fluorescent nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots for portable detection of iron ion

Yao Qing,Wu Haoyi,Jin Yahong,Wang Chuanlong,Zhang Ruiting,Lin Yujia,Wu Sijian,Hu Yihua 한국물리학회 2022 Current Applied Physics Vol.41 No.-

Nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (N-GQD) were synthesized by direct thermal decomposition of ammonium citrate tribasic. With the increment of torrefaction temperature, the average size of N-GQD was increased from 2.56 to 3.73 nm. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis (XPS) proved the successful doping of nitrogen atoms. Besides, the N-GQDs showed blue fluorescence which was quenched by Fe3+ ions, and the fluorescence intensity of N-GQDs decayed exponentially. Accordingly, the same quenching effect was observed on a test paper prepared by soaking paper in N-GQDs dispersion. The quenching mechanism was due to electron transfer between Fe3+ and functional groups on the surface of N-GQDs which could be confirmed by XPS and diameter growth. Therefore, through this simple method, N-GQDs with high blue fluorescence and high production yield (64%) can be prepared, which provided a new strategy for monitoring and collecting Fe3+ in environmental water.