Anticancer effects of Chinese herbal medicine, science or myth？

Currently there is considerable interest among oncologists to find anticancer drugs in Chinese herbal medicine （CHM）. In the past, clinical data showed that some herbs possessed anticancer properties, but western scientists have doubted the scientific validity of CHM due to the lack of scientific evidence from their perspective. Recently there have been encouraging results, from a western perspective, in the cancer research field regarding the anticancer effects of CHM. Experiments showed that CHM played its anticancer role by inducing apoptosis and differentiation, enhancing the immune system, inhibiting angiogenesis, reversing multidrug resistance （MDR）, etc. Clinical trials demonstrated that CHM could improve survival, increase tumor response, improve quality of life, or reduce chemotherapy toxicity, although much remained to be determined regarding the objective effects of CHM in human in the context of clinical trials. Interestingly, both laboratory experiments and clinical trials have demonstrated that when combined with chemotherapy, CHM could raise the efficacy level and lower toxic reactions. These facts raised the feasibility of the combination of herbal medicines and chemotherapy, although much remained to be investigated in this area.     

基于核独立成分分析的静息态fMRI数据研究（英文）

为了方便提取静息态默认网络,降低功能核磁共振（fMRI）数据复杂度,克服独立成分分析只适合于源信号线性混合的限制,提出了特征降维和非线性变换的框架.首先采用主成分分析对fMRI信号的时间维度进行降维,将原始维度为153 594×128的fMRI数据降至153 594×5,以达到降低计算复杂度的目的,并保留95%的信息成分.然后利用基于高斯核的非线性独立成分分析即核独立成分分析来分析静息态fMRI数据并提取默认网络.实验结果表明,在分析静息态fMRI数据的过程中,核独立成分分析不仅能准确提取默认网络,而且降低了噪声,所得到的结果优于普通独立成分分析.     

The twin-beginnings of COVID-19 in Asia and Europe—one prevails quickly

In the spread of SARS-CoV-2, there have been multiple waves of replacement between strains, each of which having a distinct set of mutations. The first wave is a group of four mutations (C241T, C3037T, C14408T and A23403G [this being the amino acid change D614G]; all designated 0 to 1 below). This DG (D614G) group, fixed at the start of the pandemic, is the foundation of all subsequent waves of strains. Curiously, the DG group is absent in early Asian samples but present (and likely common) in Europe from the beginning. European data show that the high fitness of DG1111 requires the synergistic effect of all four mutations. However, the European strains would have had no time to evolve the four DG mutations (0 to 1), had they come directly from the early Asian DG0000 strain. Very likely, the European DG1111 strain had acquired the highly adaptive DG mutations in pre-pandemic Europe and had been spreading in parallel with the Asian strains. Two recent reports further support this twin-beginning interpretation. There was a period of two-way spread between Asia and Europe but, by May 2020, the European strains had supplanted the Asian strains globally. This large-scale replacement of one set of mutations for another has since been replayed many times as COVID-19 progresses.