Rhizospheric soil fungal community patterns of Duchesnea indica in response to altitude gradient in Yunnan, southwest China.

The magnitude of the impact of altitude gradient on microbial community and diversity has been studied in recent decades. Whereas bacteria have been the focus of most studies, fungi have been given relatively less attention. As a vital part of the macro- and microscopic ecosystem, rhizosphere fungi play a key role in organic matter decomposition and relative abundance of plant species and have an impact on plant growth and development. Using Duchesnea indica as the host plant, we examined the rhizosphere soil fungal community patterns across the altitude gradient in 15 sites of Yunnan province by sequencing the fungal ITS2 region with the Illumina MiSeq platform. We determined the fungal community composition and structure. We found that, surprisingly, rhizosphere soil fungal diversity of D. indica increased with altitudinal gradient. There was a slight difference in diversity between samples from high- and medium-altitude sites, with medium-altitude sites having the greater diversity. Furthermore, the rhizosphere soil fungal community composition and structure kept changing along the altitudinal gradient. Taxonomic results showed that the extent of phylum diversity was greatest at high-altitude sites, with Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, Zygomycota, and Glomeromycota as the most dominant fungal phyla.

Development of Computer-Aided Cognitive Training Program for Elderly and Its Effectiveness through a 6 Months Group Intervention Study.

Since the increasing population of aging, cognitive training is focused as one of the non-pharmacological preventive approach of cognitive decline. Although the accumulation of the knowledge, they hardly reflect to the programs for clinical use. We developed a task set named "Atama-no-dojo," designed to activate multiple cognitive functions and enhance motivational incentives. The objective of our study is to confirm the effect of our program through a 6 months group intervention program. The intervention program conducted in a day service center for 6 months in the duration of 45 minutes per day, 4 days per month for a total of 25 sessions. Participants worked to the tasks on the screen all together with filling in the answering sheet. Neuropsychological tests, SF36 and GDS were assessed at pre-/post-intervention periods. Participants filled in a questionnaire about impression to the program at the last training session. Fourteen women (82.2 ± 2.9 years old) were analyzed and significant changes were found in the improvement of memory, attention, inhibition, GDS and some items of SF36. All participants recognized the program as fun and wanted to continue. Some of the participants' positive impressions to the program correlated to cognitive improvement. The improved cognitive functions by 6 months intervention of "Atama-no-dojo" were mainly related to prefrontal cortex and the motivational incentives seemed supported the effect of task contents. We recognized the importance of task difficulty setting and motivational incentives to reduce frustration from working on difficult tasks and enhance the effects of improvement from activating brain function.

[Establishment of archives of Schistosoma japonicum antibody indirect hemagglutination tests].

OBJECTIVE: To establish written and electronic archives of Schistosoma japonicum antibody indirect hemagglutination (IHA) tests. METHODS: In the process of schistosomiasis screening by IHA, the written records, electronic records, and serum sample bank were combined to make comprehensive archives. RESULTS: The S. japonicum antibody IHA test archives can preserve the schistosomiasis screening data in the long term and even can trace the source of experiments, and the operation was simple. CONCLUSION: The archives of S. japonicum antibody IHA tests are simple and useful, and worth of popularization.

An analysis of directional changes in the center of pressure trajectory during stance.

This study proposes a new approach of posturography analysis, which enables the evaluation of directional changes in the center of pressure trajectory. The concept is similar to that of so-called "stabilogram diffusion analysis". Instead of calculating the distance traveled by the center of pressure in a certain time interval, this new method calculates the cosine of the instantaneous velocity vectors of the center of pressure, which corresponds to the amount of change in the sway direction (cosine=1 corresponds to the identical direction; cosine=-1 corresponds to the opposite direction). This method was applied to the analysis of the experimental data in which postural sway was collected under four conditions: open eyes, closed eyes, and two auditory biofeedback conditions. In the biofeedback conditions, auditory signal was given to the subjects when the center of pressure swayed out of a certain area. As results, the differences in the postural reaction under these conditions were clearly shown using the new method. The results indicated that the subjects reacted to the auditory signals by swaying in the opposite direction with biofeedback. It was also found that the eyes open condition exhibited a more random-like profile. As this method analyzes the directional change in the postural sway, this method can be utilized cooperatively together with such a method as stabilogram diffusion analysis, which analyzes the magnitude of sway.

Control characteristics of an automatic matching control system for in vivo EPR spectroscopy.

A method for estimating the characteristics of an automatic matching control (AMC) system for in vivo electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy is described. AMC is also known as automatic coupling control (ACC) and is used to compensate for perturbation due to movement of the subject animal. The open-loop function of the AMC system is derived and the characteristics (gain, phase margin, steady-state error, system bandwidth, and disturbance rejection) of the system are examined. The proposed method is supported by experimental findings. The frequency response of perturbation due to the movement of an anesthetized rat was measured with a 1.1-GHz continuous-wave EPR spectrometer. Disturbance rejection with the AMC system was also considered for respiratory motion and the heartbeat of the anesthetized rat, and these perturbations were reduced by about 40 dB in the power spectrum of the output of the diode detector in the spectrometer.