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Background. Vascular endothelial cell injury is not only the initiating factor of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases but also the essence of blood stasis. Levistilide A (LA), a natural component isolated from the traditional Chinese herb, Ligusticum chuanxiong Hort, has traditional effects on improving blood circulation and removing stasis. In this study, the effects and potential mechanisms of LA in the rat model of blood stasis and the mechanism in endothelial cell injury have been explored. Materials and Methods. In this experiment, the effects of LA on the model of acute blood stasis in rats were explored. The blood samples were collected for the measurement of coagulation and hemorheological indices, and the carotid arteries were also excised from rats for hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining and immunohistochemistry (IHC). In addition, the improvement effects of LA on the H2O2-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) injury model were evaluated. And the cell viability detection was conducted by the CCK8 assay, and the pathway-related protein expressions were detected by western blotting. Results. In vivo, compared with the model group, the treatment of LA (10 mg/kg) could reduce the FIB (fibrinogen) content ( P < 0.01 ), increase the INR (international normalized ratio) and PT (prothrombin time) ( P < 0.01 ), and reduce the plasma viscosity ( P < 0.05 ) and whole blood viscosities of low, medium, and high shear rates in the blood of blood stasis model rats ( P < 0.01 ). In vitro, the cell viability in the LA-pretreated group was higher than that of the model group ( P < 0.05 ). The expression levels of PI3K, AKT, and eNOs in the LA-pretreated group were increased ( P < 0.01 ) as compared to the model group. Conclusion. These findings demonstrated that LA has the ability to improve blood hypercoagulation and blood viscosity, and enhance the viability of cells. It is more likely that it exerts a protective effect on the endothelial cell through the PI3K-AKT-eNOs pathway. These results indicate LA will be a potential candidate to cure blood stasis with endothelial cell injury.

The construction of intelligent mines puts forward new challenges to the talent training of Mining Engineering. The connotation and future development trend of intelligent mines were systematically expounded in the paper, summarizing the current situation and the barriers to upgrading and transforming the major. Based on the development status of intelligent mines, a curriculum system construction plan was proposed incorporating the principle of merging traditional courses, introducing in new courses, strengthening knowledge integration, highlighting practical ability training, and setting elective course groups according to the research direction. In addition, a supporting teacher construction plan and a practice base construction plan were proposed accordingly. Subsequently, a talent training and an upgrading path for the major of Mining Engineering under the background of intelligent mining were proposed.

Exposure to early adversity increases vulnerability to psychiatric disorders in later life. Microglia-mediated inflammation has been linked to psychopathology, so such inflammation may be a target for treating depression. Using a model of depression involving adolescent male C57BL/6J mice subjected to maternal separation, we explored whether using minocycline to mitigate inflammation can alleviate depression-like behaviors. Between postnatal days 1 and 14, male mice were separated from their mothers for 3 h per day. Minocycline (20 mg/kg) was administered intraperitoneally once daily for 2 weeks starting one week after weaning. Then the male mice were subjected to a second stress for 2 weeks. Results from the sucrose preference test, forced swimming test, and open field test showed that maternal separation did not obviously alter behavior of the male mice, but it did increase the risk of depression-like behaviors following a second stress. This increased risk disappeared if minocycline was given preemptively before the second stress. Maternal separation and second stress up-regulated pro-inflammatory markers and down-regulated anti-inflammatory markers in the hippocampus, and they activated microglia and promoted pro-inflammatory transitions in microglia. All these effects were reversed by minocycline. These changes in inflammatory processes correlated with changes in neurogenesis and BDNF expression in the hippocampus. Our results in this mouse model suggest the potential of minocycline for treating psychiatric disorders induced by early adversity.

Maternal infection during pregnancy is an important factor involved in the pathogenesis of brain disorders in the offspring. Mounting evidence from maternal immune activation (MIA) animals indicates that microglial priming may contribute to neurodevelopmental abnormalities in the offspring. Because peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) activation exerts neuroprotective effects by regulating neuroinflammatory response, it is a pharmacological target for treating neurogenic disorders. We investigated the effect of PPARγ-dependent microglial activation on neurogenesis and consequent behavioral outcomes in male MIA-offspring. Pregnant dams on gestation day 18 received Poly(I:C) (1, 5, or 10 mg/kg; i.p.) or the vehicle. The MIA model that received 10 mg/kg Poly(I:C) showed significantly increased inflammatory responses in the maternal serum and fetal hippocampus, followed by cognitive deficits, which were highly correlated with hippocampal neurogenesis impairment in prepubertal male offspring. The microglial population in hippocampus increased, displayed decreased processes and larger soma, and had a higher expression of the CD11b, which is indicative of the M1 phenotype (classical activation). Activation of the PPARγ pathway by pioglitazone in the MIA offspring rescued the imbalance of the microglial activation and ameliorated the MIA-induced suppressed neurogenesis and cognitive impairments and anxiety behaviors. In an in vitro experiment, PPARγ-induced M2 microglia (alternative activation) promoted the proliferation and differentiation of neural precursor cells. These results indicated that the MIA-induced long-term changes in microglia phenotypes were associated with hippocampal neurogenesis and neurobehavioral abnormalities in offspring. Modulation of the microglial phenotypes was associated with a PPARγ-mediated neuroprotective mechanism in the MIA offspring and may serve as a potential therapeutic approach for prenatal immune activation-induced neuropsychiatric disorders.

This study reports an outbreak of Tuberculosis (TB) in a high school in Hunan province, China during January 2017-April 2018. Contact investigation and TB screening were conducted through symptom screening, tuberculin skin testing, chest radiography and smear examination. Identification of positive isolates and drug susceptibility phenotype were assessed by standard method. Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Units-Variable Number Tandem Repeats (MIRU-VNTR) and Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) were performed to investigate the relationships among the positive isolates. A total of 90 students and one teacher were diagnosed active pulmonary TB among 2908 students and 188 staff, with an attack rate of 2.94%. Thirteen positive isolates were identified as drug susceptible Beijing family of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Results of MIRU-VNTR typing and WGS revealed two clones of Mycobacterium tuberculosis circulating during outbreak. One hundred and twenty-nine Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) discriminated the isolates in two clusters; the maximum number of SNPs between any pair of isolates in each cluster was five or fewer. Our findings highlight the importance of early identification and isolation of the TB cases to prevent spread of TB. WGS provides better resolution than MIRU-VNTR to identify recent transmission in TB outbreak.

Recent research has examined how the concept of institutional capacity relates to the ability of organisations to deliver industrial symbiosis, and in particular how that ability itself can develop over time. One approach to developing industrial symbiosis has been to build a network of local bodies to work together to this end. Terming such a body an industrial symbiosis coordination network, this study innovatively applies institutional capacity building theory in the context of a Chinese eco-industrial park. It examines how the coordination network developed the expertise to encourage local companies to engage in industrial symbiosis. This research consisted of a qualitative study, including participant observation, semi-structured interviews and document analysis to analyse the development of an industrial symbiosis coordination network in Tianjin Binhai New Area. It is found that the network increased institutional capacity for local IS development by promoting relational links across organisational divisions and governance levels, and by increasing various types of knowledge for coordinating IS. The concept of institutional capacity building is shown to have cross-cultural applicability. Reflections on this study indicate that local government can play a vital role in building and maintaining an IS coordination network in the Chinese context, but that other bodies are also needed to mobilise institutional capacity for IS development.

The creation of a road network can lead to the fragmentation and reduction of the connectivity of the ecological habitat. The study of urban ecological networks under threat from rapidly developing road networks is of great significance in understanding the changes in urban ecological processes and in constructing a reasonable ecological network. Spatial syntax is a linear space analysis method based on graph theory. Taking Wuhan city as an example and adopting spatial syntax to quantify road network threat factors, two resistance surfaces are established based on land use type assignment and overlapping road network threat factor assignment. The ecological environment under two scenarios is constructed by combining the MSPA (Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis) method and MCR (Minimal Cumulative Resistance) model to comprehensively evaluate the network. Results demonstrate that spatial syntax can effectively describe the spatial characteristics of the road network. The average resistance value of the study area increases by 15.94%, the length of corridor increases by 37.9 km, the energy consumption of biological and material exchanges increases, and the resistance increases. To a certain extent, the model reflects the impact of road network threats on ecological processes. The results are useful in identifying the impact of human activities on ecological processes and provide a reference point for the construction of urban ecological security patterns.

Many popular online social networks, such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Sina Weibo, adopt too simple privacy models to satisfy users’ diverse needs for privacy protection. In platforms with no (i.e., completely open) or binary (i.e., “public” and “friends-only”) access control, users cannot control the dissemination boundary of the content they share. For instance, on Twitter, tweets in “public” accounts are accessible to everyone including search engines, while tweets in “protected” accounts are visible to all the followers. In this work, we present Arcana to enable fine-grained access control for social network content sharing. In particular, we target the Twitter platform and introduce the “private tweet” function, which allows users to disseminate particular tweets to designated group(s) of followers. Arcana employs Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-based Encryption (CP-ABE) to implement social circle detection and private tweet encryption so that access-controlled tweets are only readable by designated recipients. To be stealthy, Arcana further embeds the protected content as digital watermarks in image tweets. We have implemented the Arcana prototype as a Chrome browser plug-in, and demonstrated its flexibility and effectiveness. Different from existing approaches that require trusted third-parties or additional server/broker/mediator, Arcana is light-weight and completely transparent to Twitter – all the communications, including key distribution and private tweet dissemination, are exchanged as Twitter messages. Therefore, with small API modifications, Arcana could be easily ported to other online social networking platforms to support fine-grained access control.

Aerogels with low density, high porosity and exceptional mechanical properties have attracted great interest as adsorbents. Preparing bio-based aerogels with high porosity and outstanding mechanical performance via a facile and green strategy is in a growing demand. In this paper, an effective approach was put forward to prepare porous lightweight bio-aerogels by introducing extensive microbubbles during gelation of gelatin, which not only endows aerogels with abundant and interconnected pores to ensure the low density and high adsorption capability, but also improves the elastic resilience and fatigue resistance of the formed aerogels. In addition, after further going through silylation treatment, the hydrophobically modified porous aerogels maintain the good mechanical stability, and efficiently collect oils/organic solvents from water. Considering the low-cost, greenness of the preparation process and high performance of the prepared aerogels, this approach holds a promising potential in preparing porous bio-based aerogels with excellent mechanical properties for controlling environmental pollution caused by petroleum products and toxic organic solvents.

Online social networks (OSNs) like Twitter provide an open platform for users to easily convey their thoughts and ideas from personal experiences to breaking news. With the increasing popularity of Twitter and the explosion of tweets, we have observed large amounts of potentially sensitive/private messages being published to OSNs inadvertently or voluntarily. The owners of these messages may become vulnerable to online stalkers or adversaries, and they often regret posting such messages. Therefore, identifying tweets that reveal private/sensitive information is critical for both the users and the service providers. However, the definition of sensitive information is subjective and different from person to person. To develop a privacy protection mechanism that is customizable to fit the needs of diverse audiences, it is essential to accurately and automatically classify potentially sensitive tweets. In this paper, we make the first attempt to classify private tweets into 14 categories, such as alcohol & drugs, family information, etc. We model tweet semantic with term distribution features as well as users' topic-preferences based on personal tweet history. Experiments show that our method can boost classification accuracy compared with the well-known Bag-of-Words and tf-idf methods.