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Equitable access to sanitation for all is a goal of sustainable development, notably in rural areas. However, studies including economic, socio-cultural, and other factors that have been conducted to comprehensively assess rural sanitation at the community level in developing countries are limited. This study aimed to investigate the current state of rural environmental sanitation on the community level and to evaluate the characteristics of the diverse sub-clusters. A multidimensional environmental sanitation survey was conducted on 400 communities in Chongqing, China in 2020, and the priority options for improving sub-clusters’ sanitation were explored using cluster analysis. Among all communities, more than 60 % had positive village appearance, 50.50 % had domestic sewage treatment, and the coverage rate of household sanitary toilets was 72.28 %. The average content for lead, cadmium (Cd), and chromium in soil was 26.01, 0.53, and 54.47 mg/kg, respectively. The communities were clustered into 3 groups (I, II, III) based on similar characteristics including basic information, village appearance, water, sanitation, hygiene management, bio-vector control, and soil pollution. The proportion of cluster I, II, and III was 39.25 % (157/400), 31.75 % (127/400), and 29.00 % (116/400), respectively. Each cluster had its sanitation characteristics, and significant differences among the sub-clusters were observed in Cd of soil (p = 0.001), domestic sewage disposal ratio (p

Background and aims: Momordica charantia L. (M. charantia) has been traditionally utilized as a medicinal intervention for managing type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The current study was designed to offer a GRADE-assessed systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) examining the impact of M. Charantia intake on glycemic indexes and the lipid profile of patients with T2DM. Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted across several databases, including PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library, from the inception of each database until April 22, 2023. The Hartung-Knapp adjustment was applied to ensure conservative summary estimates with broad confidence intervals. Results: A total of eight trials involving 423 patients with T2DM were included in this study. Compared to the control group, the intake of M. charantia supplementation resulted in significant reductions in fasting blood glucose (FBG) (WMD: −0.85 mmol/L; 95%CI: −1.44, −0.26; p = 0.005; I2 = 73.4 %), postprandial glucose (PPG) (WMD: −2.28 mmol/L; 95%CI: −3.35, −1.21; p = 0.000; I2 = 66.9 %), glycosylated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) (WMD: −0.38 %; 95%CI: −0.53, −0.23; p = 0.000; I2 = 37.6 %), and total cholesterol (TC) (WMD: −0.38 mmol/L; 95%CI: −0.70, −0.07; p = 0.017; I2 = 63.6 %). These results remained statistically significant even after applying the Hartung-Knapp adjustment. However, no significant differences were observed in terms of triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and low-density lipoprotein (LDL). Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that M. charantia could serve as a potential alternative for individuals with T2DM, particularly those with elevated total cholesterol levels. However, further high-quality studies are necessary to validate these results.

SKD11 has a wide range of applications in the tooling industry. However, due to its high mechanical strength and hardness, it is a difficult material to machine. To address the issues of low machining efficiency, severe tool electrode wear, and environmental pollution caused by traditional EDM, this paper proposes a more efficient and sustainable method of EDM production called short electric arc machining (SEAM). This paper discussed the mechanism of material removal by a short electric arc and then conducted experiments on SKD11 machining with various voltage parameters using a self-designed short electric arc milling machine, analysing the material removal rate (MRR), relative tool electrode wear ratio (REWR), and specific energy consumption (SEC) of the machined workpiece. The experimental results indicate that the maximum removal rate is 15,745 mm3/min, the REWR is significantly reduced to 1.4 %, and the energy consumption ratio is 76.84 KJ/cm3. Finally, the microscopic morphology and elemental composition of the workpiece and tool electrode were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), and the variation of cross-sectional grains was analyzed by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD).It can be concluded that the short-arc milling method discussed in this paper can provide an efficient machining method for difficult-to-machine materials.

Natural products are one of the essential sources of innovative drugs. Trigothysoid N, a natural daphnane diterpenoid obtained from Trigonostemon thyrsoideus, possessed the strong ability to inhibit the proliferation of A549 cells. Besides interrupting the cell cycle, the mechanism examination revealed that trigothysoid N can inhibit tumor proliferation and migration by targeting mitochondria, regulating the STAT3/FAK signal pathway, and suppressing angiogenesis. In addition to the possible mechanism, in vivo antitumor experiments were performed to explore the potential of trigothysoid N for treating non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Collectively, these findings supported the great potential of trigothysoid N as a hopeful therapeutic agent against NSCLC.

An unreported polysaccharide, PLP90-1B, was isolated from Paeonia lactiflora. Structural analysis showed that PLP90-1B contained arabinose and glucose, which was a highly-linear gluco-arabinan having a molecular weight of about 9.5 kDa. The backbone of PLP90-1B consisted of → 5)-α-l-Araf-(1→, →3,5)-α-l-Araf-(1→, →2,3,5)-α-l-Araf-(1→, and → 4)-α-d-Glcp-(1→, terminating with α-l-Araf. PLP90-1B was found to have anti-tumor activity by suppressing the proliferation and migration of HepG2 cells microinjected into the zebrafish. The further mechanism investigation revealed that the anti-tumor activity of PLP90-1B was closely related to immune regulation, which can improve phagocytic ability and enhance the release of NO and cytokines (IL-6, IL-1β, and TNF-α) in RAW264.7 cells. The immunopotentiation activity was further corroborated by zebrafish experiments. All these results exhibited that PLP90-1B may have the potential to become a potentially immune-mediated anti-tumor drug in the future.

Objective: Light-chain amyloidosis and transthyretin-related amyloidosis (wild-type and mutated) are three main types of systemic amyloidosis associated with a clinically relevant cardiac involvement. In this study, we compared prognosis in patients with different categories of cardiac amyloidosis using meta-analysis and present a systematic review. Methods: A systematic literature search was performed through Jan 1, 2018, and two reviewers independently extracted data and assessed risk of bias. We extracted MACE and death endpoint events and hazard ratios from regression models and performed a meta-analysis of the multiple prognosis association studies. Results: We observed that there were significant MACE differences between patients diagnosed with transthyretin amyloidosis and light-chain amyloidosis (OR: 2.09; 95% CI: 1.06-4.12; P = 0.03), and the same is true in the sub-comparison between AL and mATTR or wtATTR (AL vs. mATTR: OR: 1.72; 95% CI: 1.06-2.82; P = 0.03; AL vs. wtATTR: OR: 1.48; 95% CI: 0.85-2.58; P = 0.17). However, no significant difference was observed between two transthyretin types (P = 0.17). Overall death rate evaluated showed that compared with transthyretin-related amyloidosis, light-chain type showed a significant difference (P

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are key players in the soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycles; on the one hand, AM fungi have been influenced by global changes, while on the other hand, they are involved in shaping the future climate. However, few field studies have combined AM fungi with both elevated temperatures and N deposition to examine their potential combined effects on the stocks of soil C and N in temperate meadow ecosystems. A 5-year experiment was conducted to explore the effects of AM fungal reductions on soil C and N stocks under elevated temperatures and N deposition. The stock of soil C and N and the C:N ratio were measured. The results showed that AM fungi significantly reduced soil C stocks by 8.5% across all treatment combinations compared to the AM fungi suppression treatment, and slight soil C accumulation was detected across the five years. The response of the soil C stocks was not influenced by elevated temperatures and N deposition simultaneously. The soil N stocks in the treatments without AM fungal suppression were, on average, 9.7% lower across all treatments than those in the AM fungal suppression treatment. AM fungi, elevated temperatures, and N deposition did not affect the soil C:N ratio. The robust decreases in soil C and N stocks caused by AM fungi observed here, even when combined with other global changes, suggest that AM fungi might accelerate soil C losses in temperate meadow ecosystems; however, there is a strong potential for reduced soil N accumulations to mitigate the negative impact of increasing N deposition on the stability of grassland ecosystems under future global changes. Overall, our results highlight that the effect of AM fungi on soil C and N stocks has a high resistance to global warming and N deposition in temperate meadow ecosystems.