The aim of this study was to investigate chemical constituents of the leaves of Acanthopanax henryi, and their antioxidant, acetyl cholinesterase inhibitory activities. Caffeoyl quinic acid derivates and flavonoids were obtained from A. henry, through column chromatography technologies, and the content of major constituents was determined by the HPLC-UV method. Anti-oxidant activity of the isolated metabolites was evaluated by free radical scavenging (DPPH, ABTS radicals) and superoxide anion scavenging. The results showed that di-caffeoyl quinic acid derivates had stronger antioxidant activity than positive controls (ascorbic acid, trolox and allopurinol). Acetyl cholinesterase inhibitory activity was estimated on the constituents, among which, quercetin, 4-caffeoyl-quinic acid and 4,5-caffeoyl quinic acid were found to have strong acetyl cholinesterase inhibitory activity with IC50 values ranging from 62.6 to 121.9 μM. The present study showed that some of the tested constituents from the leaves of A. henryi exhibit strong antioxidant and acetyl cholinesterase inhibitory effects. This suggest that the leaves of A. henryi can be used as a new natural complementary source of acetyl cholinesterase inhibitors and anti-oxidant agents, thus being a promising potential complementary source against Alzheimer's disease.

Triterpenoid saponins are difficult to analyze using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to UV/vis spectrophotometry due to their lack of chromophores. This study describes the first analytical method for the determination of 15 triterpenoid saponins from the leaves, stems, root bark, and fruits of Acanthopanax henryi, using a high-performance liquid chromatography with charged aerosol detection coupled with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry method. The separation was carried out on a Kinetex XB-C18 column with an acetonitrile/water gradient as the mobile phase, followed by charged aerosol detection. The operating conditions of charged aerosol detection were set at 24 kPa for nitrogen pressure and 100 pA for the detection range. Liquid chromatography with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry is described for the identification of compounds in plant samples. The electrospray ionization mass spectrometry method involved the use of the [M + Na](+) and [M + NH4 ](+) ions for compounds 1-15 in the positive ion mode with an extracted ion chromatogram. The developed method was fully validated in terms of linearity, sensitivity, precision, repeatability, and recovery, then subsequently applied to evaluate the quality of A. henryi.

Background: Recently, a simplified modified Rankin Scale (mRS) questionnaire (smRSq) showed good reliability but has not been tested for its validity by its original creators. Our study aimed to test its reliability and validity in Chinese stroke patients. Methods: Randomly chosen paired raters scored the smRSq, the conventional mRS, and the NIH Stroke Scale (NIHSS) face-to-face in 150 hospitalized stroke patients. Inter-rater reliability and concurrent validity were assessed for this translated questionnaire. Results: For inter-rater reliability of the smRSq, the overall agreement among the raters was 84%, the ĸ was 0.79 (95% CI 0.72–0.87), and the ĸw was 0.91 (95% CI 0.88–0.94). For inter-rater reliability of the mRS, the overall agreement among the raters was 81%, the ĸ was 0.75 (95% CI 0.67–0.83), and the ĸw was 0.88 (95% CI 0.84–0.92). The agreement between the mRS and smRSq was 71%, ĸ = 0.63 (95% CI 0.54–0.71), and ĸw = 0.83 (95% CI 0.79–0.88). The correlation between the NIHSS and the smRSq (concurrent validity) was moderate (Spearman’s correlation coefficient 0.70, p < 0.0001). Conclusions: Our results confirm the value of the smRSq in the assessment of stroke functional outcome in China. As this is a novel stroke tool, further validations are needed.

For the sake of achieving to manage and query the experimental data scientifically, as well as relevant experiment information for Neutral Beam Injection (NBI) system, NBI Data Server software is developed for data exchanging between the remote server control layer and the field measurement and control layer, data storage and querying. Experimental results show that managing data scientifically can ensure data security and making best use of data will bring data value into full play. NBI Data Server software is programmed by C language, developed with Client/Server program model and multi-threading technology, runs on linux operating system. Experiments show that NBI data server software can work steadily and reliably.