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Purpose: To determine the mechanism involved in pregabalin-induced alleviation of postherpetic neuralgia in a rat model.Methods: Ninety-sixty healthy Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were assigned to sham, model andpregabalin groups (32 rats per group). A model of postherpetic neuralgia (PN) was established. The expressions of IL-1β and TNF-α in spinal cord tissue were determined 7 days after administration of treatments. The proportions of fluorescence areas in astrocytes in the dorsal horn, prefrontal lobe and hippocampus, and level of spinal cord TRPV1 channel protein in each group were evaluated.Results: Relative to model rats, IL-1β and TNF-α in spinal cord of pregabalin rats were significantly reduced (p < 0.05). The areas of fluorescence in astrocytes in dorsal horn of spinal cord, prefrontal lobe and hippocampus of model group were significantly increased, relative to sham, but were decreased in rats in pregabalin group (p < 0.05).Conclusion: Pregabalin significantly alleviates postherpetic neuralgia via mechanisms which may be related to the inflammatory response of spinal dorsal horn and downregulation of TRPV1 channel protein expression. This finding may be useful in developing new drugs for alleviating postherpetic neuralgia.

In this paper, a method of extracting phenols from coal tar by amines aqueous solution was proposed. The effects of various amines on the extraction properties of phenols in coal tar were researched from the views of molecular structure. The parameters such as molar ratio, concentration, extraction time and temperature for the extraction of coal tar by the monoethanolamine and ethylenediamine aqueous solution were examined. The results show that the organic amine with more amino groups, hydroxyl structure and strong electronegativity exhibited better extraction performance. Under the optimal conditions, the extraction yields of phenols in coal tar by the monoethanolamine or ethylenediamine aqueous solution are above 80%, and the recovery yields of amines reach 99%. Furthermore, the probable geometries of complexes formed by the combination of phenols and organic amines were calculated by density function theory. In addition, several thermodynamic models were evaluated through comparing the relative deviation of simulation results by ASPEN PLUS to the experimental ones, which provide feasibility thermodynamic models for the simulation of extraction process. The present work affords a mild, efficient and green approach for the extraction of phenols from coal tar by an aqueous solution of amines in industry application.

Insulators and bushings are necessary equipment in transmission lines, and their normal operation plays a key role in the safety and stability of power system. Therefore, fast and accurate positioning and identification of insulators and bushings in aerial images has become a crucial link in the inspection of power system. This paper introduces an improved YOLOv3-spp algorithm based on YOLOv3. The algorithm introduces the SPP module to increase the accuracy of location recognition. In addition, the identification accuracy of YOLOv3 and YOLOv3-spp was compared and analyzed in this paper. The experiment showed that the mAP of YOLOv3-spp was 81.4% when the training times were 10,000 times, which was 1.3 percentage points higher than that of YOLOv3. This indicates that YOLOv3-spp can locate the insulator and bushings in aerial images more accurately, which has certain engineering significance.

The relevance of stem cell-derived exosomes has been implicated in necrotizing enterocolitis, while the involvement of serum-derived exosomes from children with Hirschsprung-associated enterocolitis (HAEC) in pathogenesis of HAEC remains unclear. This study set to identify the roles of exosomal microRNA (miR)-18a-5p from sera of HAEC patients in human-derived colonic epithelial NCM460 cells and in mice with HAEC. Exosomes were isolated from the sera of healthy children (Healthy-exo), patients with Hirschsprung's disease (HSCR) (HSCR-exo) or HAEC (HAEC-exo). A microarray analysis of miRNAs was implemented to assess the enrichment of miRNAs in these exosomes. HAEC-exo was significantly enriched in miR-18a-5p. HAEC-exo led to the generation of a pro-inflammatory microenvironment, inhibition of cellular DNA synthesis, and promotion of apoptosis in NCM460 cells. Mechanistically, miR-18a-5p targeted and repressed retinoid-related orphan receptor α (RORA) expression, thereby regulating the Sirtuin 1 (SIRT1)/nuclear factor-kappa B (NFκB) pathway. Overexpression of RORA ameliorated inflammatory damage in NCM460 cells caused by exosomal miR-18a-5p. HAEC-exo exacerbated inflammatory damage in HAEC mice, and this facilitation was reversed after RORA overexpression. Collectively, exosomal miR-18a-5p was a promoter of HAEC, which induces the intestine cell apoptosis and inflammatory responses through the inhibition of SIRT1/NFκB pathway by targeting RORA.

In the insulation design inside the vacuum interrupters, a traditional method is to evaluate the dielectric strength through the experiments. For the design of the vacuum interrupter with a large size, the experimental method requires lots of cost and time. The objective of this paper is to determine the breakdown characteristics of the vacuum gaps with geometrically similar structures under the lightning impulse voltage. A negative standard lightning impulse voltage was applied to a pair of copper sphere-plane electrodes. The diameter of sphere electrode varied from 14 to 30 mm. The vacuum gaps with geometrically similar structures were achieved by keeping the ratio of the diameter of sphere electrode to the gap distance at 9.0. The results revealed that, when the sphere diameter varied as 14, 18, 24 and 30 mm, the 50% breakdown voltage of the vacuum gap with a geometrically similar structure was 62.84, 71.46, 92.13, 116.6 kV, respectively. With increasing the size of the similar structure, the maximum electric field strength decreased, while the geometric enhancement factor was nearly constant. The breakdown voltage of a large-sized vacuum gap could be well estimated by using the breakdown field strength of a small-sized gap with a similar structure.