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Due to the increasing use of local anesthetic techniques in various healthcare settings, local anesthetic toxicity still occurs. Seizures are the most common symptom of local anesthetic toxicity. The relationship between local anesthetic-induced seizures and the sensation of pain has not been established till now. Here, we assessed the development of pain hypersensitivity after ropivacaine-induced seizures (RIS) and the influence of RIS on incision-induced postsurgical pain and formalin-induced acute inflammatory pain. In addition, the involvement of spinal 5-HT/5-HT

The nano-sized neodymium doped aluminum lutetium garnet (LuAG:Nd) phosphors well crystallized with particle size of around 100–130 nm were successfully synthesized via microwave-induced solution combustion method. The optimal crystallization temperature of LuAG:Nd was determined at 900 °C based on controlled trials. XRD results showed an obvious distortion in lattice parameters of LuAG, which could be confirmed by the shift of diffraction peak towards lower degrees with Nd concentration increasing. Another evidence for successful doping of neodymium was the absorption line at around 808 nm in the absorption spectra, which could result from the Nd3+ 4I9/2-4F5/2 transition. Furthermore, the near-infrared spectra showed that the quenching concentration of Nd3+ in prepared LuAG:Nd polycrystalline samples with the highest intensity of 1064 nm was at 5 mol%.

Trueperella pyogenes is an importantly opportunistic and commensal pathogen that causes suppurative lesions of most economically important livestock. To understand the molecular mechanism underlying the infection by T. pyogenes, we carried out a large-scale transcriptome sequencing of mice livers intraperitoneally infected with T. pyogenes using RNA-sequencing. A total of 47 G clean bases were obtained and 136 differentially expressed genes were detected between the control and the infection groups in the liver transcriptomes. Additionally, we found that the expression of a key autophagy regulator, mTOR (mechanistic target of rapamycin) was significantly up-regulated in the infection groups. Mechanistically, T. pyogenes infection induced the expression of mTOR and subsequently inhibited the autophagy of host cell. Blocking autophagy with inhibitor 3-methyladenine (3-MA) or silencing autophagy-related gene 7 (Atg7) reduced the effect of bacterial elimination. Interestingly, inhibition of mTOR induced autophagy and reduced T. pyogenes viability in RAW264.7 murine macrophages. The silencing mTOR regulated oxidation and cytokines (interleukin-1β, IL-6 and tumor necrosis factro-α) against T. pyogenes in macrophages and significantly protected mice from T. pyogenes challenge. These findings indicate that mTOR is a novel functional regulator in autophagy-mediated T. pyogenes elimination and will be useful to further knowledge on the development of effective therapeutic strategy to control T. pyogenes-related diseases.

A substantial number of experiments have so far been carried out to study the response of the C-N-P stoichiometry of terrestrial plants to the rising CO2 level of the earth. However, there is a need of systematic evaluation for assessing the impact of the elevated CO2 on plant C-N-P stoichiometry. In the present investigation, a comprehensive meta-analysis involving 386 published reports and including 4481 observations has been carried out. The goal of the research was to determine the response of plants to their C-N-P stoichiometry due to elevated levels of global atmospheric CO2. The results showed that rising CO2 altered the concentration of C (+2.19%, P 0.05) in the plant was observed. However, plant leaf, shoot and herbaceous type of plants showed more sensitivity to rising CO2. CO2 magnitude exhibited a positive effect (P

Whether the Y ( 4260 ) can couple to open charm channels has been a crucial issue for understanding its nature. The available experimental data suggest that the cross section line shapes of exclusive processes in e + e − annihilations have nontrivial structures around the mass region of the Y ( 4260 ) . As part of a series of studies of the Y ( 4260 ) as mainly a D ¯ D 1 ( 2420 ) + c . c . molecular state, we show that the partial widths of the Y ( 4260 ) to the two-body open charm channels of e + e − → D ⁎ D ¯ ⁎ and D s ⁎ D ¯ s ⁎ are much smaller than that to D ¯ D ⁎ π + c . c . . The line shapes measured by the Belle Collaboration for these two channels can be well described by the vector charmonium states ψ ( 4040 ) , ψ ( 4160 ) and ψ ( 4415 ) together with the Y ( 4260 ) . It turns out that the interference of the Y ( 4260 ) with the other charmonia produces a dip around 4.22 GeV in the e + e − → D ⁎ D ¯ ⁎ cross section line shape. The data also show an evidence for the strong coupling of the Y ( 4260 ) to the D D ¯ 1 ( 2420 ) , in line with the expectation in the hadronic molecular scenario for the Y ( 4260 ) .

Ecological inorganic blue pigments Sr1-xRExCuSi4O10+δ (RE = Pr, Nd, Sm, x ranges from 0 to 0.5) with high near-infrared reflectance were synthesized via sol-gel method. The pigments were characterized with scanning electron microscopy, UV-vis-NIR diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and the Commission Internationale de l’Eclairage 1976 L*a*b* colorimetric method. After annealed at 900 °C, the SrCuSi4O10 pigment samples exhibited near-infrared solar reflectance of 62.64% and relative intense blue color. The near-infrared reflectance spectra of different rare earth ions doped SrCuSi4O10 pigments presented various fluctuations due to the configurational electric dipole transitions. The incorporation of rare earth ions can promote the near-infrared reflectance and solar reflectance of SrCuSi4O10 pigments. When the adding amount of Pr, Nd and Sm, was 20%, 40% and 10%, the near-infrared solar reflectance of SrCuSi4O10 pigments reached the optimal value of 72.00%, 68.54%, 68.67%, respectively, which are expected to be promising candidates as environmentally benign cool blue pigments.

The Torque teno canis virus (TTCaV) is a small virus with circular single-stranded DNA that has been reported to cause infections in dogs. The present study aimed to identify the presence of TTCaV in blood samples obtained from domestic dogs, and examine its diversity and evolution of the genomes. Five strains of TTCaV were detected, and the overall prevalence was found to be 7% (28/400). Phylogenetic analysis showed that the five genomes were closely clustered with the previously known Cf-TTV10 and LDL strains and formed a Thetatorque virus. Homology analysis of the whole genome showed a sequence identity of 94.6%–96.8% among the five genomes. The percent sequence similarity among the five complete genomes ranged from 95.3% to 97.4% and from 95.1% to 97% compared to the Cf-TTV10 and LDL strains respectively. The ORF1-encoded amino acid sequences showed 94.4%–97.2% identity among the five isolates. Our findings suggest that the TTCaV has a large genetic diversity and showed that TTCaV and canine parvovirus (CPV) co-infection exists in China. Further studies on the pathogenicity of TTCaV are required.

In this short paper, we generalize the cyclotomic constructions of zero-difference balanced (ZDB) functions proposed by Zha and Hu [7] to generate ZDB functions with higher definition domain.

A series of nickel substituted copper ferrite nanocrystals (NixCu1-xFe2O4, x = 0 , 0.1 , 0.3 , 0.5 , 0.7 ) were synthesized by co-precipitation technique. The prepared powders were calcined twice at 900 °C (pre-calcination) and 1100 °C (post-calcination) respectively. The structural, morphological and magnetic properties were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), respectively. XRD analysis shows that all the samples have a single-phase cubic spinel structure. The crystallite size was calculated by using Debye-Scherrer’s formula. It was observed that the crystallite size decreases with the increasing nickel (Ni) content and increases after post-calcination. The saturation magnetization increased with the increasing Ni content, whereas the coercivity decreased. The saturation magnetization further increased after post-calcination. The parameters such as dielectric constant, dielectric loss and ac conductivity were also studied in the frequency range from 1 to 12 GHz. The complex dielectric permittivity of NixCu1-xFe2O4 nanocrystals was decreased with the increasing Ni contents and as well as after post calcination. Furthermore, the dielectric loss tangent and ac conductivity also decreases with the increasing Ni contents and as well as after post calcination.

Grazing exclusion by fencing is one of the most effective practices to recover the degraded alpine grasslands in Tibetan Plateau. In the present study, the effects of 8-year (GE8) and 4-year (GE4) grazing exclusion were studied in comparison with free grazing (FG) in the plant-soil ecosystems of alpine grasslands. Within fencing, improved plant characteristics such as aboveground biomass (AGB), belowground biomass (BGB) and plant total cover developed without grazing and trampling were observed. Also, there were significant improvements of soil organic carbon (SOC), ammonia nitrogen (NH4+-N) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations usually in the topsoil (0–30 cm) but a stable C:N ratio with the number of years of grazing exclusion. Fencing enhanced soil main enzyme (invertase, phosphatase, urease and β-glucosidase) activities by providing sufficient substrates for microbial activities. Unexpectedly, GE4 had higher soil invertase, phosphatase, urease and β-glucosidase activities than GE8, which had less plant diversity, richness and higher total cover causing a lowering of soil temperature. Additionally, the results supported the allometric allocation hypothesis for the ABG versus BGB in the grasslands of Tibetan Plateau. Our results indicated that SOC and BGB can be used as indicators of the restoration process of degraded alpine grassland. Cautions should be taken for a long-term fencing in degraded alpine grasslands because of the loss of plant richness, diversity and soil enzyme activities. The present results also suggested that a suitable grazing regime combined with fencing should be focused in the future study of the alpine grasslands. Research results obtained in the present study should, therefore, be helpful to offer a better guidance towards the management practices of the degraded alpine grasslands.