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Sargassum horneri (S. horneri) is a brown seaweed that contains a fucose-rich sulfated polysaccharide called fucoidan and is known to possess beneficial bioactivities, such as anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antioxidative, and antitumoral effects. This study aimed to determine the anti-inflammatory effects of AB_SH (hydrothermal extracts from S. horneri) and its bioactive compound (fucoidan) against tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α)-induced inflammation in human retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells. AB_SH did not exhibit any cytotoxicity, and it decreased the mRNA expression of interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-8 and the production of the cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α. It also suppressed the expression levels of phosphorylated nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) and mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), including c-Jun amino-terminal kinases (JNK), p38 protein kinases (p38), and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) proteins, suggesting that AB_SH inhibits activation of the NF-kB/MAPK signaling pathway. Since fucoidan was identified in the composition analysis of AB_SH, it was additionally shown to be required for its anti-inflammatory effects in TNF-α-stimulated human RPE cells. In line with the AB_SH results, fucoidan reduced the mRNA levels of IL-6, IL-1ß, and IL-8 and production of the cytokines IL-6, TNF-α, and IL-8 through the downregulation of the NF-kB/MAPK signaling pathway in a dose-dependent manner. Collectively, the ability of AB_SH from S. horneri hydrothermal extracts to reduce inflammation indicates that it may be a good functional ingredient for managing ocular disorders.

Background In rotator cuff repair, the long head of the biceps tendon (LHB) is commonly used as graft material. However, factors influencing LHB tear severity are poorly understood, and predicting grade II LHB tears is challenging. This study aimed to identify these factors preoperatively. Methods The demographics, medical parameters, and pain severity of 750 patients who underwent arthroscopic surgery from January 2010 to February 2021 were evaluated to determine the factors associated with LHB tear severity and grade II tears. Both overall and large-to-massive rotator cuff tear (RCT) cohorts underwent ordinal and binary logistic regression analyses. Predictive accuracy for grade II LHB tears was determined using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Results In the overall cohort, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) >1 mg/L (P1 mg/L, subscapularis tear, and Patte retraction degree were significantly associated with grade II LHB tears (P1 mg/L, hypertension, and age ≥50 years (P1 mg/L (P1 mg/L demonstrated good predictive accuracy for grade II LHB tears (AUCs: 0.72 and 0.70). Conclusions Serum hs-CRP >1 mg/L is associated with LHB tear severity and serves as a reliable predictor of grade II LHB tears, facilitating preoperative assessment of the LHB as potential graft material in arthroscopic rotator cuff repair. Level of Evidence III

As a multi-hop extension of the desynchronization-based TDMA (Desync-TDMA), the extended Desync-TDMA (Ext-Desync) with self-adapting property is proposed to overcome the limitations of existing CSMA/CA and dynamic TDMA-based schemes for Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs). However, existing studies overlooked the potential problem of firing message collisions caused by node movements, leading to the severe degradation of MANET networking performance. In this paper, we derive a mathematical model to evaluate the problem due to collisions of firing messages for moving nodes. With the derived model, we propose a method for a collided node to determine whether it changes its firing phase or not, adaptively in a distributed manner, by considering both the collision situation and the slot utilization. The comparative analysis between the proposed method and existing representative ones is also presented for various networking features. The performances of the proposed method are compared with CSMA/CA as well as other existing Ext-Desync-based schemes. The numerical results show that the proposed method achieved much faster resolution and higher slot utilization in collision situations than other Ext-Desync-based schemes. In addition, we also show that the proposed method outperformed the comparable methods, including CSMA/CA, in terms of packet delivery ratios and end-to-end delays.