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Li-Shan Yan,1,* Shuang Cui,1,* Brian Chi-Yan Cheng,2 Xing-Bin Yin,1 Yi-Wei Wang,1 Xin-Yu Qiu,1 Ci-Ren Nima,3 Yi Zhang,1 Shuo-Feng Zhang1 1School of Chinese Materia Medica, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 2College of Professional and Continuing Education, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China; 3Tibetan Traditional Medical College, Lhasa, Tibet, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Shuo-Feng Zhang; Yi Zhang, School of Chinese Materia Medica, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, No. 11, Bei San Huan Dong Lu, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100029, People’s Republic of China, Tel/Fax +86-10-53912122, Email shuofengzhang@sina.com; yizhang714@163.comPurpose: Sichen (SC) formula is a classic prescription of Tibetan medicine. Due to its potential anti-inflammatory effect, the SC formula has been clinically used to treat respiratory diseases for many years in the Chinese Tibet region. The present study aimed to investigate the anti-inflammatory effect of SC and explore the underlying mechanisms.Methods: SC formula was characterized by HPLC analysis. The acute lung injury (ALI) mouse model was induced by direct intratracheal lipopolysaccharide (LPS) instillation, and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and lung tissues were collected. Meanwhile, RAW264.7 macrophages were stimulated by LPS. The contents of inflammatory mediators in the culture medium were determined by ELISA. Protein levels were determined by immunohistochemical staining or Western blotting. Nuclear localization of NF-κB, AP-1, and IRF3 was performed using immunofluorescence and Western blotting.Results: In the LPS-induced ALI mouse model, SC treatment suppressed the secretion of inflammatory mediators (TNF-α, IL-6, IL-1β, MCP-1, MIP-1α, and RANTES) in BALF. SC treatment hindered the recruitment of macrophages. SC treatment also inhibited the expression of CD68, p-p65, and TLR4 in the lung tissue. In the LPS-exposed RAW264.7 cells, the cell viability was not changed up to 400 μg/mL of SC. SC concentration-dependently suppressed the production of nitric oxide, prostaglandin E2, TNF-α, IL-6, MCP-1, MIP-1α, and RANTES in LPS-challenged RAW264.7 cells. The expression levels of iNOS, COX-2, p-p38, p-JNK, p-ERK, p-TBK1, p-IKKα/β, p-IκB, p-p65, p-c-Jun, and p-IRF3 were decreased after SC treatment. Moreover, the nuclear translocation of p65, c-Jun, and IRF3 was also blocked by SC treatment.Conclusion: SC treatment inhibited the inflammatory responses in LPS-induced ALI mouse model/RAW264.7 macrophages. The underlying mechanism of this action may be closely associated with the suppression of TLR4 signaling pathways. These research findings provide further pharmacological justifications for the medicinal use of SC in the management of respiratory diseases.Keywords: Sichen formula, acute lung injury, RAW264.7 macrophages, lipopolysaccharide, TLR4 signaling pathways

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a major health issue among hip fracture patients. This study aimed to develop an information platform based on a mobile application and then evaluate whether information platform-based nursing could improve patient's drug compliance and reduce the incidence of VTE in hip fracture patients.This study retrospectively analyzed hip fracture patients who were treated with conventional prevention and intervention methods for VTE (control group) between January 2008 and November 2012, and prospectively analyzed hip fracture patients who were treated with nursing intervention based on the information platform (study group) between January 2016 and September 2017. All the patients included in the both groups were hip fracture patients who had an age over 50 years, treated with surgery, and hospitalized ≥ 48 h. Patients were excluded if they admitted to hospital due to old fractures, had a severe bleeding after 72 h of admission, diagnosed with any type of VTE, or refused to participate in the study. The information platform was divided into medical, nursing, and patient interface. Based on the information platform, medical practitioners and nurses could perform risk assessments, monitoring management and early warnings, preventions and treatments, health educations, follow-up, and other aspects of nursing interventions for patients. This study compared essential characteristics, drug compliance, VTE occurrence, and mean length of hospitalization between the two groups. Besides, a subgroup analysis was performed in the study group according to different drug compliances. SPSS 18.0 software (IBM Corp., NY, and USA) was used for statistical analysis.Altogether 1177 patients were included in the control group, and 491 patients in the study group. Regarding baseline data, patients in the study group had more morbidities than those in the control group (p 0.05). The difference of drug compliance between the two groups was statistically significant (p 0.001): 761 (64.7%) of the patients in the control group and only 30 (6.1%) patients in the study group had poor drug compliance. In terms of VTE, 10.7% patients (126/1177) in the control group had VTE, and the rate in the study group was 7.1% (35/491), showing a statistically significant difference (p = 0.02). Moreover, the average length of hospitalization in the study group was also significantly lower than that in the control group (10.4 days vs. 13.7 days, p 0.001). Subgroup analyses of the study group showed that the incidence of VTE in patients with poor, partial, and good compliances were 56.7% (17/30), 5.8% (10/171), and 2.8% (8/290), respectively, revealing a significantly huge difference (p 0.001).Poor drug compliance leads to higher VTE occurrence. The information platform-based nursing can effectively improve the compliance of hip fracture patients and thus considerably reduce the incidence of VTE. The mobile application may be an effective tool to prevent VTE in hip fracture patients.

Keloid (KD) is a complex fibroproliferative disease, but the exact mechanisms underlying keloid pathogenesis remain to be elucidated. The primary keloid fibroblasts (KFs) culture in vitro has always been a fundamental measure to study the pathogenesis of keloid. However, the traditional primary culture methods have some limitations, such as a long culture cycle, low specimen utilization rate and so on.Improve the keloid explants culture method sts.We proposed an improved new "explants multiple culture method"-reusing keloid explants for primary culture and harvesting the primary KFs in specific culture times. Meanwhile, the purity, proliferation, apoptosis, migration, invasion, extracellular matrix synthesis, and some fibrosis and inflammation-related proteins of KFs obtained from the first, fifth, and tenth explants cultures were detected.The results showed that the culture cycle of this new method (Cell Isolation: 2.67 ± 0.86 days, Explants removal: 8.83 ± 0.79 days, Cell Passage: 15.17 ± 1.39 days) was significantly shorter than that of the traditional method (Cell Isolation: 8.67 ± 1.84 days, Explants removal: 17.67 ± 2.17 days, Cell Passage: 22.67 ± 1.84 days). No significant difference was observed between the phenotypes of the fibroblasts obtained from the first explants culture and cultures less than 10 times (p 0.05).Taken together, this study provides an effective method for the primary culture of KFs with a higher specimen utilization rate and shorter culture cycle.This method breaks through the limitation of traditional explants culture requiring a large number of keloid specimens and provides a rich source of KFs for the study of keloid.

Direct canopy uptake of atmospheric reactive nitrogen (ARN) is an important process, but the magnitude of ARN assimilation in agricultural ecosystems is unclear. We used a combination of a water-culture rice-growing system with a

Heteroatom doping can effectively tune the electronic structure of an electrocatalyst to accelerate the adsorption/desorption of reaction intermediates, which sharply increases their intrinsic electroactivity. Herein, we successfully prepare iron (Fe)-doped cobalt phosphide (CoP) nanohoops (Fe/CoP NHs) with different Fe/Co atomic ratios as highly active electrocatalysts for the nitrate electrocatalytic reduction reaction (NIT-ERR). Electrochemical measurements reveal that appropriate Fe doping can improve the electroactivity of cobalt phosphide nanohoops for the NIT-ERR. In a 1 M KOH electrolyte, the Fe/CoP NHs with the optimized chemical composition can achieve an efficient ammonia (NH

The major tenets of beat-frequency/coincidence-detection models of reward-related timing are reviewed in light of recent behavioral and neurobiological findings. This includes the emphasis on a core timing network embedded in the motor system that is comprised of a corticothalamic-basal ganglia circuit. Therein, a central hub provides timing pulses (i.e., predictive signals) to the entire brain, including a set of distributed satellite regions in the cerebellum, cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus that are selectively engaged in timing in a manner that is more dependent upon the specific sensory, behavioral, and contextual requirements of the task. Oscillation/coincidence-detection models also emphasize the importance of a tuned ‘perception’ learning and memory system whereby target durations are detected by striatal networks of medium spiny neurons (MSNs) through the coincidental activation of different neural populations, typically utilizing patterns of oscillatory input from the cortex and thalamus or derivations thereof (e.g., population coding) as a time base. The measure of success of beat-frequency/coincidence-detection accounts, such as the Striatal Beat-Frequency model of reward-related timing (SBF), is their ability to accommodate new experimental findings while maintaining their original framework, thereby making testable experimental predictions concerning diagnosis and treatment of issues related to a variety of dopamine-dependent basal ganglia disorders, including Huntington’s and Parkinson’s disease.

In this paper, a novel method of ultra-lightweight convolution neural network (CNN) design based on neural architecture search (NAS) and knowledge distillation (KD) is proposed. It can realize the automatic construction of the space target inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) image recognition model with ultra-lightweight and high accuracy. This method introduces the NAS method into the radar image recognition for the first time, which solves the time-consuming and labor-consuming problems in the artificial design of the space target ISAR image automatic recognition model (STIIARM). On this basis, the NAS model's knowledge is transferred to the student model with lower computational complexity by the flow of the solution procedure (FSP) distillation method. Thus, the decline of recognition accuracy caused by the direct compression of model structural parameters can be effectively avoided, and the ultra-lightweight STIIARM can be obtained. In the method, the Inverted Linear Bottleneck (ILB) and Inverted Residual Block (IRB) are firstly taken as each block's basic structure in CNN. And the expansion ratio, output filter size, number of IRBs, and convolution kernel size are set as the search parameters to construct a hierarchical decomposition search space. Then, the recognition accuracy and computational complexity are taken as the objective function and constraint conditions, respectively, and the global optimization model of the CNN architecture search is established. Next, the simulated annealing (SA) algorithm is used as the search strategy to search out the lightweight and high accuracy STIIARM directly. After that, based on the three principles of similar block structure, the same corresponding channel number, and the minimum computational complexity, the more lightweight student model is designed, and the FSP matrix pairing between the NAS model and student model is completed. Finally, by minimizing the loss between the FSP matrix pairs of the NAS model and student model, the student model's weight adjustment is completed. Thus the ultra-lightweight and high accuracy STIIARM is obtained. The proposed method's effectiveness is verified by the simulation experiments on the ISAR image dataset of five types of space targets.

To characterise the distribution, classification, and quantity of foamy macrophages (FMs) in tuberculous wound tissue and the relationship between FM and delayed healing of tuberculous wounds. Morphological studies were performed to explore the distribution of FM and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) in tuberculous wounds, with acute and chronic wounds included for comparison. Phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate stimulation-differentiated THP-1 cells were treated with Mtb to induce their differentiation into FM with oxidised low-density lipoprotein treatment serving as a control. Relative cytokine levels were determined by quantitative PCR and Western blotting. Varied co-culture combinations of Mtb, THP-1, FM, and fibroblasts were performed, and proliferation, migration, ability to contract collagen gel, and protein levels of the chemokines in the supernatants of the fibroblasts were assessed. The differentially expressed genes in human skin fibroblasts (HSFs) after co-culture with or without FM were identified using microarray. Many FM were found in the tissues of tuberculous wounds. The FM that did not engulf Mtb (NM-FM) were mainly distributed in tissues surrounding tuberculous wounds, whereas the FM that engulfed Mtb (M-FM) were dominantly located within granulomatous tissues. Co-culture experiments showed that, with the Mtb co-culture, the portions of NM-FM in the total FM grew over time. The migration, proliferation, chemokine secretion, and the ability of fibroblasts to contract collagen gel were inhibited when co-cultured with Mtb, FM, or a combination of the two. Further investigation showed that the TLRs/NF-κB signalling pathway is involved in fibroblast function under the stimulation of FM. TLRs and NF-κB agonists could reverse the phenotypic changes in HSFs after co-culture with FM. The tuberculous wound microenvironment composed of Mtb and FM may affect wound healing by inhibiting the functions of fibroblasts. FM potentially inhibit fibroblasts' function by inhibiting the TLRs/NF-κB signalling pathway in tuberculous wounds.

Internal implants are widely used in most orthopedic surgeries, of which titanium and its alloys are most widely used owing to the excellent corrosiveness resistance, low elastic modulus and good biocompatibility. However, implant failure still occurs for that titanium and its alloys themselves do not own antibacterial and osteogenic properties. In this work, we successfully fabricated berberine-loaded graphene oxide (GO) on the surface of biomedical titanium and systematically investigated its capabilities of antibacteria and osteogenesis. In vitro results showed that berberine had low antibacterial activity, but GO loaded with berberine on titanium (Ber&GO@Ti) exhibited superior antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) with the synergistic effect of GO and berberine. Meanwhile, Ber&GO@Ti performed satisfactory cytocompatibility and was capable of promoting osteogenic differentiation of MC3T3-E1 cells. In the vivo experiment, Ber&GO@Ti showed excellent antibacterial properties and inflammatory cells e.g., neutrophils had seldom been found. No visceral toxicity had been found. This multifunctional coating showed great potential in orthopedic implants.

Aiming at the laborious process in motor structure modeling for acoustic noise calculation, an improved stator structure modeling scheme is proposed, which includes stator structure simplification and equivalent material parameters identification. The stator assembly is modeled as a homogeneous solid with the same size as the stator core, and the influence of model simplification is compensated by orthotropic equivalent material parameters. The equivalent material parameters are acquired through an optimization algorithm by minimizing the error between FEM calculated modal frequencies and the modal tested results. With the stator assembly model, the motor assembly model is built, and the constrained modal characteristics of the motor assembly are verified by comparing the modal frequencies to the resonance bands in the vibration acceleration spectrum. Finally, the motor structure model is used to calculate the electromagnetic noise of an induction motor. As the calculated result matches well with the tested data, the applicability of the proposed motor structure modeling scheme for electromagnetic noise calculation is validated. The proposed method can greatly reduce the workload in motor structure modeling without sacrificing the accuracy and applicability of the model.

The acoustic muffler is one of the practical solutions to reduce the noise in ducts. The acoustic and aerodynamic performances are two critical indices of one muffler for the air intake system of a hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV). In this study, the concept of phononic crystal is applied to design the muffler to obtain superior acoustic performance. One duct with periodic and compact resonator-type mufflers is designed for broadband noise attenuation. The two-dimensional (2D) transfer matrix method and bandgap theory are employed to calculate the transmission loss (TL) and acoustic bandgap. It is numerically and theoretically demonstrated that broadband noise attenuation could be acquired from 500Hz to 3500Hz. Afterwards, the three-dimensional (3D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach is applied to predict the pressure distribution. The results indicate that the proposed hybrid muffler and the phononic crystal duct possess low pressure loss values. Furthermore, the influence of inlet flow velocity and air temperature on the transmission loss and pressure drop are investigated through a systematic study. The two factors primarily work on sound attenuation in the high-frequency range. The increase of the inlet flow velocity might cause the TL amplitude to decrease around the peaks, while the enhancement of the inlet air temperature might make the TL curve move towards the high-frequency domain. It shows that acoustic resonator-type mufflers are conducive to broad noise attenuation with the low-pressure loss and a compact structure. It provides one avenue to control the noise in the duct.

This paper aims at the problem that the sideband vibration noise of induction motor caused by inverter pulse width modulation (PWM). The frequency distribution characteristics of the induction motor with 36 stator slots and 32 rotor slots (36/32 IM) are analyzed. Based on that, a frequency width selection method for the periodic signal-based modulation considering the characteristics of sideband electromagnetic force. Results show that this method can effectively reduce the peak value of the sound power level (SWL) of sideband noise of IM at different speeds. This method is also applicable to IMs with different pole-slot match.

Enterocytozoon hepatopenaei(EHP) is a shrimp pathogen that causes huge economic losses. In the present study, the hosts of EHP were investigated using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in an aquaculture farm located in Maoming, China. EHP was detected inLitopenaeus vannamei,Penaeus monodon, crab, false mussel, and three dragonfly species (Anax parthenope,Pantala flavescens, andIschnura senegalensis). In the histopathological examination using hematoxylin–eosin staining, EHP spores were found in nymphs and adult dragonflies naturally infected with EHP that were collected from the shrimp farm. Fluorescence in situ hybridization results showed a positive signal for EHP infection in the fat body of dragonfly nymphs. Immature and mature microsporidian spores and late sporogonial plasmodium were observed in the cytoplasm of dragonfly nymphs using transmission electron microscopy. The transmission of EHP from shrimp to dragonfly nymphs was confirmed via cohabitation challenge experiments in which EHP-free dragonfly nymphs were cohabited with EHP-infected shrimp, and the transmission of EHP from dragonfly nymphs to shrimp was demonstrated via the cohabitation of EHP-infected dragonfly nymphs with EHP-free shrimp and oral administration challenge experiments. This study confirms that dragonflies can act as natural EHP hosts, and a novel EHP horizontal transmission route exists between dragonflies and shrimp.Author summaryTo the authors’ knowledge, this study presents the first report of microsporidia (EHP) infecting both crustaceans and insects (A. parthenope,P. flavescens, andI. senegalensis). The horizontal transmission of EHP between dragonfly nymphs and shrimp was confirmed through cohabitation and oral administration challenge experiments. EHP has become a globally significant threat to shrimp aquaculture. The findings of the present study will help to design prevention strategies, such as the use of nets to prevent dragonflies from entering shrimp ponds.

Mushroom spine loss and calcium dyshomeostasis are early hallmark events of age-related neurodegeneration, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), that are connected with neuronal hyperactivity in early pathology of cognitive brain areas. However, it remains elusive how these key events are triggered at the molecular level for the neuronal abnormality that occurs at the initial stage of disease. Here, we identify downregulated miR-339-5p and its upregulated target protein, neuronatin (Nnat), in cortex neurons from the presenilin-1 M146V knockin (PSEN1-M146V KI) mouse model of familial AD (FAD). Inhibition of miR-339-5p or overexpression of Nnat recapitulates spine loss and endoplasmic reticulum calcium overload in cortical neurons with the PSEN1 mutation. Conversely, either overexpression of miR-339-5p or knockdown of Nnat restores spine morphogenesis and calcium homeostasis. We used fiber photometry recording during the object-cognitive process to further demonstrate that the PSEN1 mutant causes defective habituation in neuronal reaction in the retrosplenial cortex and that this can be rescued by restoring the miR-339-5p/Nnat pathway. Our findings thus reveal crucial roles of the miR-339-5p/Nnat pathway in FAD that may serve as potential diagnostic and therapeutic targets for early pathogenesis.

Using rodent models to explore the motivation of helping behaviors has become a new trend in recent years. Empathy, the alleviation of personal distress, and desire for social contact have been considered motivations for rodents to engage in helping behaviors. We used 108 Sprague-Dawley rats as subjects and modified the two-chambered helping behavior experimental setup in Carvalheiro and colleagues’ study to explore the main motivations of helping behavior in rodents through three experiments. The findings suggest that (1) the desire for social contact and pursuit of an interesting environment are the primary motivations for helping behavior, regardless of the presence of a dark chamber, and (2) the alleviation of personal distress and prior experience of social contact rather than distress experience contribute to the onset and persistence of helping behavior.

Rh–Co ABM is synthesized by the cyanogel self-reduction strategy and exhibits high activity for C1 molecule electrooxidation.

Ultrafine Pd@PdPt nanowires with a Pd–Pt single atom alloy shell achieve significantly enhanced electrocatalytic performance towards the formate oxidation reaction.