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Obesity-associated chronic inflammation is a key event to type 2 diabetes mellitus. Recent advances in deciphering the various immune cells and signalling networks that link the immune system and metabolic system have contributed to our understanding of the pathogenesis of obesity-associated chronic inflammation. Recent studies have suggested that pattern recognition receptors in the innate immune system recognise various kinds of endogenous ligands, and play a crucial role in initiating or promoting obesity-associated chronic inflammation. These findings have also informed new therapeutic strategies based on immunomodulation. Chinese herbal medicines have been used to treat type 2 diabetes mellitus in Asian countries. With the rapid advancement of novel technologies and the increased research on natural products, many new plant-derived extracts and active compounds have been identified to exhibit anti-inflammatory effects. Here we overview natural products that inhibit activation of pattern recognition receptors, particularly Toll-like receptors and inflammasomes, as potential therapeutic agents for the treatment of obesity-associated chronic inflammation. We also discuss molecular mechanisms by which the natural products regulate pattern recognition receptors, with a particular focus on our findings regarding unique compounds of Glycyrrhiza uralensis.

The variation of the water level at Palangka Raya is well described by the Nearest Neighbor Method (NNM) and the prediction can be made with 1-month lead time. A rainfall runoff model, traditional Tank Model, is applied to analyze the rainfall runoff to predict the water level at Palangka Raya using the data of several rainfall gauging station. The water balance is evaluated at Palangka Raya from the rainfall, the discharge and the evaporation.

Recent advances in magnetic resonance (MR) have made possible not only anatomical but functional mapping of the brain. The advantages of functional mapping with MRI are that the procedure is non-invasive, gives high temporal and spatial resolution, and makes use of equipment widely in the clinic. We introduce several new methods of detecting stroke lesions and evaluating the pathophysiology of cerebral ischemic disorders using a clinical 1.5T and an experimental 4.7T MR apparatus, including 1) a MR diffusion technique to detect acute stroke, 2) a MR perfusion technique to evaluate stroke areas using both spin labeling and Gd-dynamic susceptibility methods, 3) the basic and clinical application of fMRI, 4) activity-induced manganese (AIM) MRI for functional mapping and detecting acute ischemic lesions in experimental animals, and 5) multi-slice MR spectroscopic imaging to observe brain metabolites of cerebral ischemia and brain tumors. We emphasize that MR functional mapping of the brain has excellent potential for detecting acute stroke lesions and evaluating cerebral perfusion, cerebral function, and cerebral metabolism in clinical fields. Moreover, these methods should be useful for analyzing the pathophysiolgy of ischemic brain, especially when determining the therapeutic time window in acute cerebral ischemia.