Reduced Vitamin D Levels are Associated with Stroke-Associated Pneumonia in Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke.

Background And Aim: Stroke-associated pneumonia (SAP) is a common complication in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS). This study explored the potential relationship between serum vitamin D levels and SAP.

Methods: This study recruited 863 consecutive AIS patients.

Effect of integrin β1 in the treatment of stress urinary incontinence by electrical stimulation.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the protective effect of integrin β1 in the treatment of stress urinary incontinence (SUI) by electrical stimulation, and the underlying mechanisms by which electrical stimulation regulates the collagen metabolism of female vaginal wall fibroblasts (FVWFs). FVWFs obtained from the vaginal wall tissue of patients with (Ingelman‑Sundberg scale; grade II, n=8; grade III, n=10) or without (n=8) SUI during gynecological operations were isolated by enzymatic digestion and subsequently identified by immunocytochemistry. Following this, cultured FVWFs were treated with an inhibitor of integrin β1, recombinant human integrin β1 and electrical stimulation (100 mv/mm, 2 h, 20 Hz), followed by total mRNA and protein extraction.

Nonuniformity correction for an infrared focal plane array based on diamond search block matching.

In scene-based nonuniformity correction algorithms, artificial ghosting and image blurring degrade the correction quality severely. In this paper, an improved algorithm based on the diamond search block matching algorithm and the adaptive learning rate is proposed. First, accurate transform pairs between two adjacent frames are estimated by the diamond search block matching algorithm.

[A study on the transdifferentiation of adipose mesenchymal stem cells into hepatocytes].

Objective: To investigate the possibility of transdifferentiation of adipose mesenchymal stem cells (AMSCs) into hepatocytes.

Methods: Human omentum adipose tissue was dispersed with collagenase I. Cells collected were cultured in a DMEM-F12 medium containing 2% FBS supplemented with 20 ng/ml HGF, 10 ng/ml FGF4, 1xITS and 0.