Favorable Effect Research Articles

P1042 Effectiveness and safety of vedolizumab in real-world studies in Chinese patients with inflammatory bowel disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract Background Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), consisting of Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), are chronic gastrointestinal conditions with increasing prevalence in China. Vedolizumab (VDZ), a humanized monoclonal antibody that targets α4β7 integrin, has been approved for use in China since 2020. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the real-world effectiveness and safety of VDZ in Chinese patients with IBD. Methods A systematic literature search was conducted on 20th Dec 2023 to identify real-world studies evaluating intravenous VDZ in Chinese patients with IBD. Meta-analyses were performed separately for CD and UC patients using a random-effects model in R software to pool clinical remission and response rates, and endoscopic remission rates across induction (6-14 weeks), medium term (22-30 weeks), and long term (over 48 or 52 weeks). Subgroup analysis was conducted based on the history of biologics. Incidence of adverse events (AE), serious AE (SAE), and serious infection was assessed for safety. Results A total of 20 studies (12 CD, and 15 UC), involving 1472 patients (610 CD, and 862 UC), were included in the analysis (Figure 1). During the induction phase, a clinical response and clinical remission were achieved by 71.31% and 75.58% of CD patients, and 67.89% and 46.46% of UC patients, respectively. In the medium term, 64.32% of CD patients and 65.72% of UC patients achieved a clinical response, while 60.72% of CD patients and 60.95% of UC patients achieved clinical remission. In the long term, clinical response rates were 57.14% in CD patients and 73.50% in UC patients, while clinical remission rates were 51.28% and 60.84% for CD and UC patients, respectively. For the endoscopic remission, there were 11.11%, 18.41%, and 36.42% of that in CD patients, and 44.58%, 53.32%, and 62.40% of that in UC patients were achieved in the induction, medium term, and long term. Subgroup analyses indicated that both bio-naïve and bio-exposed patients, in both UC and CD groups, showed relatively favourable outcomes across the available time points (Table 1). Adverse events (AEs) were reported in 6.67% to 61.54% of CD patients, and 29.69% to 75.38% of UC patients. Serious adverse events (SAEs) and serious infection rates ranged from 0.00% to 1.56%, and 0.00% to 2.70%, respectively, in UC patients, while neither SAE nor serious infections were reported in the CD studies. Conclusion VDZ demonstrated favourable effectiveness in Chinese patients with IBD across induction, medium- and long-term treatment periods, with a good safety profile.

Effectiveness and Treatment Persistence of Vedolizumab Compared to Anti-Tumour Necrosis Factor-α in Patients With Crohn's Disease: A Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis.

Vedolizumab is approved for the treatment of moderately to severely active Crohn's disease (CD). Real-world evidence is essential for understanding the effectiveness and benefit-risk profile of vedolizumab outside clinical trial settings. To identify, systematically review and assess the real-world effectiveness and treatment persistence of vedolizumab in patients with CD, particularly over long-term follow-up periods and among populations with differing treatment experience, and to compare with the treatment persistence of anti-tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α treatment. Literature searches were conducted to identify studies published from 2014 to 2022. Relevant congress searches were conducted (2015-2022) using Embase or by hand. Data on adults with CD treated with vedolizumab or anti-TNFα treatment in a real-world setting were extracted for meta-analysis. Data from 73 studies, including 29,894 patients with CD, reported ≥ 1 outcome of interest for this analysis. Vedolizumab treatment persistence rate was 65.3% (95% confidence interval [CI] 60.2-70.1) at 1year and 54.8% (95% CI 43.9-65.3) at 2years. The treatment persistence rate with vedolizumab versus anti-TNFα treatment was 84.6% (95% CI 70.2-92.8) versus 75.3% (95% CI 69.7-80.2) at 1year and 70.6% (95% CI 60.7-78.8) versus 64.6% (95% CI 56.7-71.8) at 2years. The mucosal healing rate at 1year was 40.6% (95% CI 34.2-47.3). Clinical remission rates were 39.4% (95% CI 33.9-45.1) at 1year and 34.3% (95% CI 18.1-55.2) at 2years. Corticosteroid-free clinical remission rates were 33.2% (95% CI 28.5-38.3) at 1year and 20.4% (95% CI 12.5-31.5) at 2years. All clinical outcome rates were higher in biologic-naive than in biologic-experienced patients. Real-world use of vedolizumab was associated with favourable long-term effectiveness and treatment persistence. Vedolizumab is a suitable first-line biological option for biologic-naive patients with CD.

The Effects of In-Game Status, Game Fairness, and Game Favorability on the Perception of Unfair Opportunity in the Real World

The Effects of In-Game Status, Game Fairness, and Game Favorability on the Perception of Unfair Opportunity in the Real World

Effectiveness of the use biologically active substances in the rations of young cattle

The input of probiotic additives RuminPro and Actisaf in the diet of young cattle in the amount of 3 g/head during the entire milk period of rearing showed that the feed additive RuminPro allows to increase the absolute gain in live weight of calves by 5.76 %, the additive Actisaf by 1.71 % with an average daily gain of 883.59 g (р ≤ 0.001) and 849.75 g (р ≤ 0.001) in comparison with the absolute gain in live weight of the control group, where it was 150.38 kg. In general, during the observation period the relative gain in live weight of calves in the 1st experimental group receiving RuminPro exceeded the control group by 1.87 abs.% (р ≤ 0.001), and the relative gain in calves in the 2nd experimental group using the probiotic Actisaf did not diff er from the relative gain in the control group and were at the level of 135.68 %. It was found by analyzing the results of blood tests in calves using the probiotics RuminPro and Actisaf that the use of RuminPro had a more favorable eff ect on the total protein indicators at 2 months of age 64.66 g/l, while in the 2nd experimental group the indicator was 60.78 g/l. At the age of 6 months, a similar pattern was noted for the superiority in the total protein content in the experimental groups by 5.6–7.9 %, with a reliable diff erence in the 2nd experimental group (р ≤ 0.05). These results showed that RuminPro had a more favorable eff ect on the protein-synthesizing function of the liver in this group of calves. Positive changes in the body of calves when using feed additives made it possible to reduce feed costs per unit of live weight gain. Thus, when using the probiotic RuminPro during the period of calves rearing, costs decreased by 5.2 %, and the probiotic Actisaf by 1.4 %.

Evaluating the financial credibility of third-party logistic providers through a novel frank operators-driven group decision-making model with dual hesitant linguistic q-rung orthopair fuzzy information

In the relevant literature, there is no study dealing with the financial credibility of third-party logistic providers with the help of decision-making frames. Further, there are no criteria to evaluate the third-party logistics providers' creditworthiness in practice, and decision-makers in the banks consider their judgments and experiences to assess the demand of the logistics firms. This study proposes a multi-criteria group decision-making framework through a dual hesitant linguistic q-rung orthopair fuzzy (DHLq-ROF) set to manage uncertainties more effectively and make a theoretical contribution to the academic literature. For ranking, the score function and accuracy function are defined. Additionally, some novel operational laws based on Frank t-norms and t-conorms are defined for DHLq-ROF numbers. A wide range of generalized aggregation operators, such as DHLq-ROF Frank weighted averaging, DHLq-ROF Frank weighted geometric, DHLq-ROF Frank generalized weighted averaging, and DHLq-ROF Frank generalized weighted geometric operators, are also investigated. Beyond that, several prominent characteristics of the proposed operators are studied. It is applied to a financial credibility problem for a multinational organization to demonstrate the introduced model's applicability. Considering the results obtained regarding the importance of the criteria, the most crucial criterion is market indebtedness, followed by fleet vehicle structure and current rate criteria, respectively. The results indicate that UPS, Kuhne & Nagel and DHL Deutsche Post are the best third-party logistic providers. The sensitivity analysis shows that the framework possesses favourable flexibility and effectiveness. Thanks to the framework's ability to produce practical solutions to challenging decision-making problems, it can be reliably preferred in engineering and other fields.

Topical Anti-ulcerogenic Effect of the Beta-adrenergic Blockers on Diabetic Foot Ulcers: Recent Advances and Future Prospectives.

Patients with diabetes suffer from major complications like Diabetic Retinopathy, Diabetic Coronary Artery Disease, and Diabetic Foot ulcers (DFUs). Diabetes complications are a group of ailments whose recovery time is especially delayed, irrespective of the underlying reason. The longer duration of wound healing enhances the probability of problems like sepsis and amputation. The delayed healing makes it more critical for research focus. By understanding the molecular pathogenesis of diabetic wounds, it is quite easy to target the molecules involved in the healing of wounds. Recent research on beta-adrenergic blocking drugs has revealed that these classes of drugs possess therapeutic potential in the healing of DFUs. However, because the order of events in defective healing is adequately defined, it is possible to recognize moieties that are currently in the market that are recognized to aim at one or several identified molecular processes. The aim of this study was to explore some molecules with different therapeutic categories that have demonstrated favorable effects in improving diabetic wound healing, also called the repurposing of drugs. Various databases like PubMed/Medline, Google Scholar and Web of Science (WoS) of all English language articles were searched, and relevant information was collected regarding the role of beta-adrenergic blockers in diabetic wounds or diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) using the relevant keywords for the literature review. The potential beta-blocking agents and their mechanism of action in diabetic foot ulcers were studied, and it was found that these drugs have a profound effect on diabetic foot ulcer healing as per reported literatures. There is a need to move forward from preclinical studies to clinical studies to analyze clinical findings to determine the effectiveness and safety of some beta-antagonists in diabetic foot ulcer treatment.

The miR-210 Primed Endothelial Progenitor Cell Exosomes Alleviate Acute Ischemic Brain Injury.

Stem cell-released exosomes (EXs) have shown beneficial effects on regenerative diseases. Our previous study has revealed that EXs of endothelial progenitor cells (EPC-EXs) can elicit favorable effects on endothelial function. EXs may vary greatly in size, composition, and cargo uptake rate depending on the origins and stimulus; notably, EXs are promising vehicles for delivering microRNAs (miRs). Since miR-210 is known to protect cerebral endothelial cell mitochondria by reducing oxidative stress, here we study the effects of miR-210-loaded EPC-EXs (miR210-EPC-EXs) on ischemic brain damage in acute ischemic stroke (IS). The miR210-EPC-EXs were generated from EPCs transfected with miR-210 mimic. Middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) surgery was performed to induce acute IS in C57BL/6 mice. EPC-EXs or miR210-EPC-EXs were administrated via tail vein injection 2 hrs after IS. To explore the potential mechanisms, inhibitors of the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2)/PI3 kinase (PI3K) or tyrosine receptor kinase B (TrkB)/PI3k pathways were used. The brain tissue was collected after treatments for infarct size, cell apoptosis, oxidative stress, and protein expression (VEGFR2, TrkB) analyses on day two. The neurological deficit score (NDS) was evaluated before collecting the samples. 1) As compared to EPC-EXs, miR210-EPC-EXs profoundly reduced the infarct volume and improved the NDS on day two post-IS. 2) Fewer apoptosis cells were detected in the peri-infarct brain of mice treated with miR210-EPC-EXs than in EPC-EXs-treated mice. Meanwhile, the oxidative stress was profoundly reduced by miR210-EPC-EXs. 3) The ratios of p-PI3k/PI3k, p- VEGFR2/VEGFR2, and p-TrkB/TrkB in the ipsilateral brain were raised by miR210-EPC-EXs treatment. These effects could be significantly blocked or partially inhibited by PI3k, VEGFR2, or TrkB pathway inhibitors. These findings suggest that miR210-EPC-EXs protect the brain from acute ischemia- induced cell apoptosis and oxidative stress partially through the VEGFR2/PI3k and TrkB/PI3k signal pathways.

Infl uence of the exercise regime on the quality indicators of sperm production in breeding boars

In the pig breeding industry, the quality of sperm obtained from breeding boars plays an important role in the issue of reproduction. The purpose of the research was to investigate the eff ect of exercise regime on the quality indicators of sperm production in breeding boars. The research was carried out at the Tyumensky Pig Complex LLC in the Tyumen Region. For the research 3 groups of boars were formed with 10 heads in each. The control group did not receive exercise, the 1st experimental group received passive exercise, the 2nd experimental group received active exercise. It was found that the rectilinear motility of sperm, which aff ects the fertilizing ability of semen was in the 1st experimental group of boars 87.0 %, which was by 2.8 abs.% higher than in other groups. Also, more sperm doses were obtained from semen with high rectilinear motility with the same volume and concentration indicators In the groups of boars without exercise and with active exercise, 5.7 % of dead sperm were found, which was by 0.8 abs.% more than in the analogs that received passive exercise (p < 0,05). In the 1st experimental group of boars with passive exercise, the lowest percentage of sperm with defects was found, which aff ects the efficiency of insemination and the quality of the off spring. It was found that passive exercise had a more favorable eff ect on the qualitative indicators of sperm of the breeding boars of the 1st experimental group compared to active exercise (2nd experimental group) and its absence (control group). The use of passive exercise regime for breeding boars had a positive eff ect not only on the quantitative indicators of semen, but also on the quality of sperm and can be recommended at the enterprise when housing breeding boars.

Tuberculosis-related Mood Disorders: Probiotics as a Next-Generation Strategy

Introduction: Tuberculosis-related mood disorders are well-known but least researched. As frequent comorbidity of tuberculosis (TB), depression is linked to poor adherence to treatment for a number of illnesses. The exact causal mechanism and pathways behind TB disease and associated mental illnesses are unclear. The disease's severity and duration impact the occurrence of depression, and MDR-TB enhances this risk. To summarise the information on the association between depression and unfavourable outcomes of TB treatment, we carried out a narrative review. Objective: The objective of this study is to provide an overview of probiotics as a cutting-edge treatment for mood disorders linked to tuberculosis. Methods: A systematic stepwise online database research was done for systematic reviews, original studies, and review papers published on probiotics and mental disorders associated with tuberculosis in PubMed/MEDLINE, Google Scholar, and Web of Science. The reference lists for these articles were also used as sources for the bibliography Results: The gut microbiota and the brain are connected by neuroendocrine-immune pathways. The diversity and abundance of microbiota Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria Bacteroides, and Firmicutes are reduced in tuberculosis patients. Through the stimulation of different immunological responses or visceral sensory pathways, these changes in the gut microbiome may be a contributing factor in emotional instability and mood disorders. Probiotics also lessen the stress response caused by cortisol, in addition to releasing neurotransmitters, including GABA, serotonin, noradrenaline, acetylcholine, and dopamine, in various brain regions. Probiotics are the most prevalent in the sensory brain network of the brain, which controls the brain's core processing of emotions and sensations. In addition, they produce short-chain fatty acids (SCAFs) from the bacterial fermentation of fibre in the colon, such as butyrate, which inhibits histone deacetylase, binds to G protein-coupled receptors, and serves as an energy metabolite. Butyrate plays a significant role in maintaining brain health by having antimanic and antidepressant effects. Several clinical research on patients with MDD has revealed that probiotics have favourable effects on depressive symptoms. Conclusion: The central dopamine system, inflammation, the BDNF system, and the gut-brain axis are all recognised to play crucial roles in the pathogenesis of MDD. Commercial probiotics that generate butyrate-producing SCFAs and those resistant to metabolic disorders (such as Bacteroidetes) may be beneficial for tuberculosis-related MDD during and after treatment. In this situation, using bacteria that produce SCFA could be a cutting-edge method of treating clinical MDD.

Treatment of Behçet disease with oral roflumilast: anobservational study.

Mucocutaneous Behçet disease often presents a therapeutic challenge. Roflumilast has shown promise in the treatment of other inflammatory dermatological conditions. The objective of this study was to evaluate the characteristics, effectiveness and safety of roflumilast in the treatment of Behçet disease-associated aphthosis in routine clinical practice. We performed a single-cohort ambispective observational study. Eleven patients with Behçet disease treated with roflumilast participated. Data collection included demographic, clinical and outcome variables. Statistical analysis compared 12 weeks of treatment with roflumilast with a previous period without treatment and with a period when the previous treatment was used. During treatment with roflumilast, a reduction in flare-ups and oral ulcers was observed compared with the untreated period and the previous treatment period. A reduction in genital ulcers, pain and ulcer duration was observed between the without treatment period and the roflumilast treatment period. Adverse effects occurred in 54% of patients, most of which were self-limiting or manageable with dose adjustment. No patients withdrew treatment. Roflumilast appears to be a potential option in the treatment of Behçet disease with favourable effectiveness, safety and tolerability profiles. Although further research is needed, roflumilast offers a promising treatment option for Behçet disease-associated aphthosis, which could improve the patients' quality of life and address unmet therapeutic needs.

Sex-specific comparative outcomes between oral anticoagulants in patients with atrial fibrillation: a systematic review and meta-analysis

AimsWomen with atrial fibrillation (AF) are under-represented in randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs). This systematic review and meta-analysis of RCTs and observational studies examined sex-specific outcomes...

A pilot randomised controlled trial of acceptance and commitment therapy for medication decision-making and quality of life in women with breast cancer: The ACTION trial.

Non-adherence to adjuvant endocrine therapy (AET) in women with breast cancer is common and associated with medication side-effects and distress. We co-designed an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy intervention (ACTION) to enhance medication decision-making and quality of life (QoL). We undertook a pilot trial of ACTION to inform the feasibility of a phase III trial, and to examine intervention acceptability. This was a multi-site, exploratory, two-arm, individually randomised external pilot trial. Women with early breast cancer prescribed AET were randomised (1:1) to receive usual care (UC) or UC+ACTION. The ACTION intervention comprised a remotely delivered one-to-one ACT session followed by three group sessions delivered by clinical psychologists, alongside a website containing ideas for the self-management of side effects. Of the 480 women screened for eligibility, 260 (54.2%) were approached and 79 (30.4%) randomised. 71 (89.9%) women provided data at 3-month and 70 (88.6%) at 6-month 40 women were randomised to receive UC+ACTION and 32 (80.0%) completed the intervention. Most (75.0%) accessed the website at least once. ACTION was acceptable to participants (Borkovec & Nau Scale: mean=7.8 [SD=2.7] out of 10). Signals of effectiveness in favour of the UC+ACTION arm were observed for medication adherence (Adherence Starts with Knowledge questionnaire-12), QoL (work and social adjustment scale), health-related QoL (functional assessment of cancer therapy[FACT] general and FACT-ES-19/23), distress (generalised anxiety disorder -7, patient health questionnaire-9) and psychological flexibility (valuing questionnaire). The ACTION intervention was acceptable to patients. There were promising signals for effectiveness on primary and secondary outcomes. A phase III randomised controlled trial is feasible. ISRCTN12027752.

Flecainide sebagai Antiaritmia untuk Fibrilasi Atrium dan Aritmia Lainnya

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is one of the most common arrhythmias globally, and its prevalence is projected to increase, including in Indonesia. AF progression is related to lower quality of life and less responsive to therapy or even becomes irreversible. The progression of AF is significantly slower with the rhythm control strategy than with the rate control strategy alone. The options for therapy in Indonesia are limited to amiodarone and propafenone. Amiodarone is one of the most common drugs prescribed for AF rhythm control, but associated with multiple organ toxicities, thus increasing the risk of multiple side effects, especially on long-term usage, potentially leading to drug discontinuation. Flecainide is an antiarrhythmia with a favourable effectiveness and safety profile, especially for AF management, used for acute cardioversion, long-term rhythm control, and as a therapeutic modality for AF with preexcitation syndrome. Flecainide is a potential drug to address the unmet needs of amiodarone as a long-term management for AF.

Pomalidomide improves the effectiveness of CAR-T treatment in the relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma or B-cell leukemia/lymphoma with extramedullary disease.

Relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) and B-cell leukemia/lymphoma with extramedullary disease (EMD) have poor prognosis and high mortality, lack of effective therapeutic approaches. We reported for the first time that 6 patients with malignant hematological diseases with EMD received chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T treatment combined with pomalidomide, and CAR-T cells were treated with pomalidomide in vitro to determine its killing activity and cytokine secretion. Three patients with RRMM were given B cell maturation antigen (BCMA)-CAR-T therapy. All 3 patients with B-cell leukemia/lymphoma received CD19/22-CAR-T sequential infusion. There were no treatment-related deaths. The maximum overall response rate (ORR) was 100%. Median follow-up was 211.5 days (75-407 days). Three patients (50%) experienced cytokine release syndrome, all of which were grade 1, and no neurotoxicity was observed. In vitro experiments showed that the killing activity did not differ significantly between BCMA-CAR-T cells with and without pomalidomide (10, 25, or 50 μg/mL) in 8226/U266 cell cocultures (P > .05). Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and interferon (IFN)-γ secretion was significantly higher from 8226 and Raji cells cocultured with BCMA-CAR-T and cluster of differentiation (CD)19-CAR-T cells (P < .05). Based on the cocultures, adding pomalidomide significantly promoted IFN-γ and TNF-α secretion (P < .05). Based on the above clinical and in vitro studies demonstrating the co-administration of pomalidomide with CAR-T cell treatment demonstrated favorable tolerability and therapeutic effectiveness in RRMM or B-cell leukemia/lymphoma.

Saturated Sliding Mode Control Scheme for a New Wearable Back-Support Exoskeleton

Low back pain has been torturing people around the world as a common and chronic disease, the main inducement of which is lumbar disc herniation (LDH). To alleviate patients’ pain noninvasively, this paper proposes a new lumbar spinal rehabilitation exoskeleton. This exoskeleton is composed of two bands connected by four motor-driven piston pushrods, where the range of band can be adjusted to adapt to people with different waistlines. The four pushrods provide support forces to hold the upper body to relieve the burden of lumbar. The joints between pushrods and band are universal pairs and spherical pairs. The whole structure can be regarded as a parallel robot, thus the supporting and waist tracking performance can be determined by motion control effect of pushrods. Considering the motor torque of pushrods is limited, in this paper, a saturated sliding mode control scheme is proposed. Meanwhile, an extended state observer (ESO) is employed to estimate the external disturbance and internal uncertainties, then the estimates of perturbations will be compensated by the feedback scheme. Furthermore, to enhance the disturbance-tracking performance of the ESO an integrated sliding mode observer is proposed to compensate the tracking errors of ESO. The stabilities of controller and observers are proved by Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, a simulation and two experiments are conducted to verify the performance of the proposed controller and the new exoskeleton. The simulation results show that the novel/new controller can drive the new exoskeleton to move along with the desirable trajectory to support the upper body so that alleviating the burden of waist. The results of myoelectricity experiments also show favorable effectiveness of exoskeleton on supporting upper body in different postures. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Note to Practitioners</i> —this article was inspired by the concerns of low back pain that many people are suffering. Most existing rehabilitation robots tend to focus on supporting lower body and arms, while back-support rehabilitation robots are barely seen. Although we can see a few upper-body supporting robots in sporadic papers, these studies have not proposed a good control scheme yet. Besides, it is difficult to find a rehabilitation robot with simple structure as well as conforming to ergonomics. To resolve the shortcomings of the structure of existing robots and control models, we proposed a completely new rehabilitation robot with novel mechanical structure. Meanwhile, a new saturated sliding mode and novel integrated observer are employed in the position-force control system to enhance the stability and controllability of the whole robot control system. Then, some elaborately designed experiments are conducted to test the proposed robot and the control system. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method can significantly increase the trajectory tracking performance and alleviate low back pain.

Scholarship of Learning of Students at Higher Education: The Role of Study Culture and Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

The study has been designed to examine the study culture, self-fulfilling prophecy, and learning skills of the students at the tertiary level. The study culture is very important for the learning of students at all levels, including primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. In the same case, self-fulfilling prophecy also enhances the learning skills of male and female students in higher education. This study has been conducted at the Hafiz Hayat Campus of the university. A survey method and a proportionate random sampling technique were used to draw a sample of 265 students. However, 235 students participated in the study. A structured questionnaire has been used to collect information from 30 students, and Cronbach Alpha has been reported to be more than .700. The study findings report that students use lecture notes, study online, and try to develop their performativity. The statistical analysis reveals that studying in groups, studying online, and studying lecture notes have favourable effects on the learning skills of students at the tertiary level. Further, communication skills and critical skills have also been found to be strong predictors of the learning skills of university students. Hence, it has been concluded that the learning skills of the students have been predicted by several factors at the tertiary level.

HIIT serves as an efficient training strategy for basketball players by improving blood fluidity and decreasing oxidative stress.

A challenge for coaches and athletes is to find the best combination of exercises during training. Considering its favorable effects, HIIT has been very popular recently. The goal of this study was to investigate anthropometric features, performance, erythrocyte deformability, plasma viscosity (PV) and oxidative stress in response to acute and long-term (6 weeks) HIIT in adolescent basketball players. 22 sportsmen between the ages of 14-16 were included. Tabata protocol was applied to the HIIT group in addition to their routine training program 3 days/week, for 6 weeks. Erythrocyte deformability was determined using an ectacytometer (LORCA), PV with a rotational viscometer. Total oxidant status (TOS), total antioxidant status (TAS) were measured by kits. HIIT for 6 weeks induced an improvement in performance tests and waist circumference. 6 weeks of HIIT resulted in a decrement, while the last exercise session yielded an increment in RBC deformability. PV and TOS of HIIT groups were decreased on the 6th week. Our results demonstrate that, HIIT in addition to the routine exercise program is beneficial for improving performance and blood fluidity as well as decreasing oxidative stress in basketball players. Therefore, HIIT seems as an efficient training strategy for highly-trained individuals.

Clinical experience of professor ZHANG Ren in the staging treatment with characteristic acupuncture techniques for oculomotor paralysis.

The paper summarizes the clinical experience of professor ZHANG Ren in the staging treatment with characteristic acupuncture techniques for oculomotor paralysis. According to the symptoms of oculomotor paralysis, the staging treatment is given, in which acupuncture is dominant and the needling techniques are optioned in compliance with the symptoms. In the early, middle and late stages of illness, three different acupuncture therapies are delivered accordingly, i.e. the combination of the point-toward-point needling at the four acupoints located on the forehead and the electroacupuncture with disperse-dense wave, the surrounding needling and the triple needling at the acupoints around the eyeball, as well as the perpendicular needle insertion at the three acupoints within the orbit. Professor ZHANG Ren lays the stress on identifying the etiology and differentiating the symptoms, as well as the early intervention for the disease. For the intractable cases, the comprehensive regimen such as acupoint injection, dermal needling and auricular point sticking is supplemented. During treatment, the spirit harmonization is greatly considered to ensure the effectiveness. On the basis of the staging acupuncture therapy, the acupuncture technique for harmonizing the spirit and regulating qi is combined to obtain the favorable clinical effect on oculomotor paralysis.

Salvage pemetrexed for brain metastases from ALK-positive lung cancer after Gamma Knife radiosurgery: illustrative case.

Systemic therapy for cancer treatment has improved, and therapeutic options for intracranial lesions are increasing. Combinations of treatment modalities are required in certain difficult cases. Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKS) is effective for the treatment of brain metastases, especially for lesions that are inoperable because of their anatomical or functional location. The authors report a case of brain metastases in anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive lung adenocarcinoma initially treated with GKS followed by the combination of repeat GKS and ALK tyrosine kinase inhibitors (ALK-TKIs) for tumor recurrence. During the clinical course, acquired resistance to ALK-TKIs due to the long exposure period was suspected. After a great deal of thought and discussion with the oncologist responsible for the treatment of the pulmonary lesions, the authors successfully controlled the lesion for the next 17 months by salvage pemetrexed administration. This is the first report on the effectiveness of pemetrexed for recurrent brain metastasis from ALK-positive lung adenocarcinoma resistant to both radiosurgery and ALK inhibitors. Salvage pemetrexed showed a favorable therapeutic effect in this specific case.

Facile Separation of Acetic Acid from 1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazolium Acetate Ionic Liquid with the Aid of a Protic Solvent.

1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate (EmimAc), an excellent solvent for cellulosic biomass, is expected to be utilized in chemical conversion, such as in biomass acetylation with acetic anhydride. The corresponding carboxylic acid, acetic acid (AcH), is quantitatively generated as a byproduct and should be separated from EmimAc for recycling. However, the strong interaction between EmimAc and AcH makes their separation difficult under moderate conditions. This study examined the efficacy of protic solvents in distillation and extraction to weaken this interaction through solvation or hydrogen-bonding interactions. The separation efficiency of AcH from EmimAc via distillation increased as the boiling point of the protic solvent increased. Water addition was more effective than the addition of alcohols with boiling points similar to those of water such as 1-propanol and 2-butanol. Furthermore, the favorable effect of water addition on the extraction of AcH was confirmed using common organic solvents, such as diisopropyl ether, diethyl ether, and ethyl acetate. The partition coefficient (α) of AcH between the aqueous and organic phases increased with an increasing dielectric constant of the organic solvent, whereas the α value of EmimAc decreased. Repeated treatments in both distillation and extraction facilitated the complete separation of AcH from EmimAc.