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This article demonstrates that mannotriose effectively induces the differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells into neuron-like cells in vitro. Rat-derived mesenchymal stem cells were investigated on their potential to differentiate into neuron-like cells induced by mannotriose purified from Radix Rehmanniae Preparata in vitro. The percentage of the neuron-specific enolase positive cells and the Nissl positive cells after mannotriose treatment was increased. The mRNA levels of neurofilament medium and neuron-specific enolase were upregulated in the mannotriose group compared to the control. These findings demonstrate that mannotriose purified from Radix Rehmanniae Preparata can effectively induce differentiation of rat-derived mesenchymal stem cells into neuron-like cells.

Alcohol consumption increases the risk of liver disease. Here, the hepatoprotective effect of glycosylated zein peptides (GZPs) against acute alcohol-induced liver injury in mice was evaluated. GZPs were prepared by transglutaminase-induced D-glucosamine conjugation onto zein peptides. Compared with the alcohol model group, GZP (250 mg/kg·body weight) remarkably increased liver enzyme activities (including alcohol dehydrogenase, acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, and endogenous antioxidant enzymes) and glutathione levels; decreased serum triacylglycerol, tumor necrosis factor-α, liver malonaldehyde, ROS, lipopolysaccharide, and cytochrome P450 2E1 levels; and significantly reversed pathological changes in liver tissues. GZP protected against alcohol-induced increases in mRNA expression levels of toll-like receptor 4, myeloid differentiation primary response gene 88, sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1, and fatty acid synthetase, and upregulated the mRNA expression of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2. Thus, GZP exhibited a significant protective effect against alcohol- induced acute liver injury through its accelerating alcohol metabolism, antisteatosis, antioxidative, and anti-inflammatory responses.

The n-octanol–water partition coefficient (logP) is an important physicochemical parameter which describes the behavior of organic compounds. In this work, the apparent n-octanol/water partition coefficients (logD) of basic compounds were determined using ion-suppression reversed-phase liquid chromatography (IS-RPLC) on a silica-based C18 column. The quantitative structure–retention relationship (QSRR) models between logD and logkw (logarithm of retention factor corresponding to 100% aqueous fraction of mobile phase) were established at pH 7.0–10.0. It was found that logD had a poor linear correlation with logkw at pH 7.0 and pH 8.0 when strongly ionized compounds were included in the model compounds. However, the linearity of the QSRR model was significantly improved, especially at pH 7.0, when molecular structure parameters such as electrostatic charge ne and hydrogen bonding parameters A and B were introduced. External validation experiments further confirmed that the multi-parameter models could accurately predict the logD value of basic compounds not only under strong alkaline conditions, but also under weak alkaline and even neutral conditions. The logD values of basic sample compounds were predicted based on the multi-parameter QSRR models. Compared with previous work, the findings of this study extended the pH range for the determination of the logD values of basic compounds, providing an optional mild pH for IS-RPLC experiments.

Background: Medical image processing tasks represented by multi-object segmentation are of great significance for surgical planning, robot-assisted surgery, and surgical safety. However, the exceptionally low contrast among tissues and limited available annotated data makes developing an automatic segmentation algorithm for pelvic CT challenging. Methods: A bi-direction constrained dual-task consistency model named PICT is proposed to improve segmentation quality by leveraging free unlabeled data. First, to learn more unmarked data features, it encourages the model prediction of the interpolated image to be consistent with the interpolation of the model prediction at the pixel, model, and data levels. Moreover, to constrain the error prediction of interpolation interference, PICT designs an auxiliary pseudo-supervision task that focuses on the underlying information of non-interpolation data. Finally, an effective loss algorithm for both consistency tasks is designed to ensure the complementary manner and produce more reliable predictions. Results: Quantitative experiments show that the proposed PICT achieves 87.18%, 96.42%, and 79.41% mean DSC score on ACDC, CTPelvic1k, and the individual Multi-tissue Pelvis dataset with gains of around 0.8%, 0.5%, and 1% compared to the state-of-the-art semi-supervised method. Compared to the baseline supervised method, the PICT brings over 3–9% improvements. Conclusions: The developed PICT model can effectively leverage unlabeled data to improve segmentation quality of low contrast medical images. The segmentation result could improve the precision of surgical path planning and provide input for robot-assisted surgery.

The aim of the study was to compare the clinical effects of carvedilol and trimetazidine for the treatment of alcoholic cardiomyopathy. A total of 60 patients diagnosed with alcoholic cardiomyopathy were enrolled in the study. The patients were randomly divided into the carvedilol (n=20), trimetazidine (n=20) and control (n=20) groups. The patients in the control, carvedilol and trimetazidine groups were treated with conventional drugs, conventional drugs + carvedil and conventional drugs + trimetazidine respectively, for 12 weeks. The patients were compared for their heart functions [left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), C-reactive protein (CRP) and 6 min walking], heart rate, blood pressure and heart enlargement (cardiothoracic proportion and left ventricular diameter) before and after treatment. The parameters studied for heart functions, heart rate, blood pressure, heart enlargement, clinical effects before and after treatment were statistically insignificant (p>0.05). After treatment, the carvedilol and trimetazidine groups showed higher LVEF and CRP, longer walking distance in 6 min, as well as lower heart rate and blood pressure (both systolic and diastolic) compared to the control group. Similarly, the cardiothoracic proportion and left ventricular internal diameter for the carvedilol and trimetazidine groups was lower than those of the control group, with better clinical effects (p<0.05). In conclusion, the curative effects of the carvedilol and trimetazidine groups of alcoholic myocardiopathy similar. Both are safe agents that may improve the cardiac function and heart expansion of patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper by adding the factors of disease relapse and vaccination in the space hetero-geneous environment, we establish and discuss a class of reaction-diffusion SVIR model with relapse and a varying external source in spatial heterogeneous environment. By applying a different method than the Lyapunov function, we study the long-term dynamic behavior of this model by means of global exponential attractor theory and gradient flow method. The global asymptotic stability and the persistence of epidemic are proved. To test the validity of our theoretical results, we choose some specific epidemic disease with some more practical and more definitive official data to simulate the global stability and exponential attraction of the model. The simulation results showed that the factors of disease relapse, vaccination and spatial heterogeneity had a great influence on the persists uniformly of the disease.

In this paper, we firstly introduce a new notion of inverse Ck−class functions which extends the notion of inverse C−class functions introduced by Saleem et al., 2018. Secondly, some common fixed point theorems are stated under some compatible conditions such as weak semicompatible of type A, weak semicompatibility, and conditional semicompatibility in metric spaces. Moreover, we introduce a new kind of compatibility called Sτ−compatibility which is weaker than E.A. property and also present a common fixed point theorem in metric spaces via inverse Ck−class functions. Some examples are provided to support our results.

New glycosylated zein peptides (GZP) were produced by transglutaminase-induced d-glucosamine conjugation onto zein peptides. GZP’s antagonistic effects on alcohol-induced liver injury in rats were evaluated. Compared with the alcohol model group, GZP (250 mg/kg·bw) remarkably increased alcohol dehydrogenase, acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, endogenous antioxidant enzymes activities, and GSH levels in liver, decreased serum triacylglycerol, tumor necrosis factor-α, liver malonaldehyde, reactive oxygen species, and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) levels, and significantly reversed pathological changes in liver tissues. These results indicate that low-dose GZP administration can alleviate alcohol-induced liver injury by accelerating alcohol metabolism, reversing hepatic redox status, and attenuating LPS-mediated inflammation responses. GZP is a potential alcohol metabolism promoter and liver-protective agent.

In this paper, first, we introduce a new type of S∗−fuzzy metric space which is a generalization of fuzzy metric spaces. Second, we study the topological properties of S∗−fuzzy metric spaces. Finally, we extend Kannan-type mappings to generalized Kannan-type mappings under ϕ−gauge functions introduced by Fang in S∗−fuzzy metric spaces and prove the existence and uniqueness of fixed point for this kind of mappings. Furthermore, we also obtain the common fixed point theorems for weak compatibility along with E.A. property or CLRg property. Our results extend and improve very recent theorems in the related literature.

In this paper, we propose and study a diffusive HIV infection model with infected cells delay, virus mature delay, abstract function incidence rate and a virus diffusion term. By introducing the reproductive numbers for viral infection R0 and for CTL immune response number R1, we show that R0 and R1 act as threshold parameter for the existence and stability of equilibria. If R0≤1, the infection-free equilibrium E0 is globally asymptotically stable, and the viruses are cleared; if R1≤11, the CTL-activated equilibrium E2 is globally asymptotically stable, and the infection is chronic with persistent CTL response. Next, we study the dynamic of the discreted system of our model by using non-standard finite difference scheme. We find that the global stability of the equilibria of the continuous model and the discrete model is not always consistent. That is, if R0≤1, or R1≤11, the global stability of the two kinds model is not consistent. Finally, numerical simulations are carried out to illustrate the theoretical results and show the effects of diffusion factors on the time-delay virus model.

In this study, we evaluated effect of glycyrrhizin on immunity function in allergic rhinitis (AR) mice. The AR mice model were induced by dripping ovalbumin in physiological saline (2 mg mL-1, 10 μL) into the bilateral nasal cavities using a micropipette. After the AR model was induced, mice were randomly divided into six groups: the normal control, model, lycopene 20 mg kg-1 (as positive control drug) group, and glycyrrhizin 10, 20, 30 mg kg-1 groups. After the sensitization day 14, lycopene (20 mg/kg BW) and glycyrrhizin (10, 20 and 30 mg/kg BW) were given orally for 20 days once a day. Mice in the normal control and model groups were given saline orally once a day for 20 days. Results showed that glycyrrhizin treatment could dose-dependently significantly reduce blood immunoglobulin E (IgE), interleukin-4 (IL-4), interleukin-5 (IL-5), interleukin-6 (IL-6), nitrous oxide (NO), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) levels and nitrous oxide synthase (NOS) activity and enhance blood immunoglobulin A (IgA), immunoglobulin G (IgG), immunoglobulin M (IgM), interleukin-2 (IL-2) and interleukin-12 (IL-12) levels in AR mice. Furthermore, glycyrrhizin treatment could dose-dependently significantly enhance acetylcholinesterase (AchE) activity and reduce substance P (SP) level in peripheral blood and nasal mucosa of AR mice. We conclude that glycyrrhizin can improve immunity function in AR mice, suggesting a potential drug for the prevention and therapy of AR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new type of contraction for several self-mappings of a metric space, called FM-contraction, is introduced. This extends the one presented for a single map by Wardowski [Fixed points of a new type of contractive mappings in complete metric spaces, Fixed Point Theory Appl., 2012:94, 2012]. Coincidence and common fixed point of eight self mappings satisfying FM-contraction conditions are established via common limit range property without exploiting the completeness of the space or the continuity of the involved maps. Coincidence and common fixed point of eight self-maps satisfying FM-contraction conditions via the common property (E.A.) are also studied. Our results generalize, extend and improve the analogous recent results in the literature, and some examples are presented to justify the validity of our main results.

The spectral characteristics of strong Langmuir turbulence in weakly relativistic plasma is analyzed. The temporal evolutions of the turbulence energy density spectra are obtained by perfoyming the fast Fourier transformations on weakly relativistic Zakharov equations. The relativity parameter significantly influenced the Langmuir turbulence, in that a decrease in the relativity parameter lengthened the action time of wave-wave and wave-particle interactions, which is useful for studying the particles acceleration problem.

The anatomical organization of distinct regions in the insect brain often reflects their functions. In the present study, the brain structure of Apolygus lucorum was examined by using immunolabeling and three-dimensional reconstruction. The results revealed the location and volume of prominent neuropils, such as the antennal lobes (AL), optic lobes (OL), anterior optic tubercles (AOTU), central body (CB), lateral accessory lobes (LAL), mushroom lobes, and distinct tritocerebral neuropils. As expected, this brain is similar to that of other insects. One exception, however, is that the antennal lobes were found to be the most prominent neuropils. Their size relative to the entire brain is the largest among all insect species studied so far. In contrast, the calyx, a region getting direct input from the antennal lobe, has a smaller size relative to the brain than that of other species. These findings may suggest that olfaction plays an essential role for A. lucorum.

New glycopeptides were generated by proteolysis from corn gluten meal (CGM) followed by transglutaminase (TGase)-induced glycosylation with glucosamine (GlcN). The glycopeptides exhibited desirable antioxidant and intracellular ROS-scavenging properties. The amount of conjugated GlcN quantified by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was 23.0 g/kg protein. The formed glycopeptides contained both glycosylated and glycation types, as demonstrated by the electrospray ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (ESI-TOF MS/MS). The glycopeptides exhibited scavenging capabilities against free radical diphenylpicrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and hydroxyl radicals by reducing their power. The potential protection of glycopeptides against ethanol-induced injury in LO2 cells was assessed In Vitro based on methyl thiazole tetrazolium (MTT) testing and intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging capacity, respectively. Glycopeptide cytoprotection was expressed in a dose-dependent manner, with the glycopeptides exhibiting good solubility ranging from 74.8% to 83.2% throughout a pH range of 2–10. Correspondingly, the glycopeptides showed good emulsifying activity (36.0 m2/g protein), emulsion stability (74.9%), and low surface hydrophobicity (16.3). These results indicate that glycosylation of CGM significantly improved its biological and functional properties. Glycopeptides from CGM could be used as potential antioxidants as well as comprising a functional food ingredient.

We study the existence and uniqueness of common coupled fixed point of four self-mappings for Geraghty-type contraction using weakly compatible mappings in partially ordered metric spaces with common limit range property (denoted by (CLRST)), the property of E.A, and so on. It is noted that the continuity of mappings and completeness of spaces can be removed. Our results improve, extend, complement, and generalize several existing results in the literature. Also, some examples are provided to illustrate the usability of our results.

Wireless body area networks(WBAN)were expecting to play an essential role for healthcare,sports,leisure,and all the aspect of our daily life.The purpose was to solve two key issues of WBAN.The first issue was which sensor should transmit during each time slot in order to maximize the lifetime as well as maintaining fairness performance.The second issue was which transmit power level should be chosen for the purpose of energy saving without degrading reliability.For the first problem,a distributed scheduling algorithm was proposed to balance lifetime and fairness for WBAN.For the second issue,a modified transmission power control algorithm was presented to adjust transmit power adaptively.Simulation results are presented to demonstrated efficacy of the proposed algorithm.

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of different initial pH on the storage characteristics and shelf life of liquid diet. 45 polypropylene bags were allotted to treatments 1, 2 and 3 on average, 100 g diet and 200 g water were placed into each polypropylene bag, food-grade DL-lactic acid was added to each bag at a rate of 0.0 mL in treatment 1, 1.2 mL in treatment 2 and 4.7 mL in treatment 3, air was artificially expelled from each bag prior to heat-sealing. All bags were placed into a cage, cooked with steam at 90°C for 30 min under normal pressure, then taken out and stored from day 0 to 60 at room temperature. Results indicated that liquid diet in treatment 3 achieved the highest total sensory scores, the pH value had a tendency to decrease and the bacteria count had a tendency to increase in the liquid diet with the advancing of storage time with the advancing of storage time, lowering the initial pH of liquid diet decreased the bacteria count, the AFB1 and ZEN concentrations and increased the starch gelatinization degree from day 30 to 60, liquid diet in treatment 3 had a lower (P

The main aim of this paper is to establish some coupled common fixed point theorems under a Geraghty-type contraction using mixed weakly monotone property in partially ordered S-metric space. Also, we give some sufficient conditions for the uniqueness of a coupled common fixed point. Some examples are provided to demonstrate the validity of our results.

Sheath blight, a disease caused by the fungus Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn (anamorph), has been the most economically significant disease of rice. It was frequently reported that the disease was well-controlled in integrated rice-duck system without the employment of fungicides. However, the effecting factors behind this phenomenon were rarely reported. In this research, experiment was carried out between two treatments, rice combined with ducks (RD) and conventional rice field without ducks rearing (CK) in early season rice paddy, to investigate the variations of sclerotia in floodwater and on rice plant, microclimate 10 cm above the waterline in rice paddy and activity of protective enzymes in rice plants. The results showed that the floating sclerotia in floodwater in RD was 86-91% lower than that in CK, and adhering sclerotia in rice plant in RD was 67-78% lower than that in CK. The relative humidity tested significantly lower and light intensity tested significantly higher in RD. The temperature in the early rice growth stages in RD was slightly lower than that in CK, but it was significantly higher (32.3–36.5°C) in the middle stage rice growth stages. The polyphenoloxidase (PPO) activity in RD were lower than that in CK, but the enhanced activity of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL), peroxidase (POD) and Chitinase was observed in different stages of rice growth in RD, especially the Chitinase which showed higher activity in all investigating days.

RNA silencing (or RNA interference, RNAi) plays direct roles in plant host defenses against viruses. Viruses encode suppressors of RNAi (VSRs) to counteract host antiviral defenses. The generation of transgenic plants expressing VSRs facilitates the understanding of the mechanisms of VSR-mediated interference with the endogenous silencing pathway. However, studying VSRs independent of other viral components simplifies the complex roles of VSRs during natural viral infection. While suppression of transgene silencing by the VSR 2b protein encoded by cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) requires 2b-small RNA (sRNA) binding activity, suppression of host antiviral defenses requires the binding activity of both sRNAs and AGOs proteins. This study, aimed to understand the functions of 2b in the context of CMV infection; thus, we performed genome-wide analyses of differential DNA methylation regions among wild-type CMV-infected, CMVΔ2b-infected, and 2b-transgenic Arabidopsis plants. These analyses, together with transcriptome sequencing and RT-qPCR analyses, show that while the majority of induced genes in 2b-transgenic plants were involved in extensive metabolic pathways, CMV-infection 2b-dependent induced genes were enriched in plant immunity pathways, including salicylic acid (SA) signaling. Together with infection with CMV mutants that expressed the 2b functional domains of sRNA or AGO binding, our data demonstrate that CMV-accelerated SA signaling depends on 2b-sRNA binding activity which is also responsible for virulence.

Sunflower proteins were hydrolyzed with Flavourzyme for the production of antioxidant peptide. DEAE-Sepharose Fast Flow, Sephadex G-25 gel filtration chromatography and reversed-phase HPLC were consecutively employed to purify a novel sunflower antioxidant peptide, and the ability to inhibit the autoxidation of pyrogallol was expressed as the antioxidative activity of the peptide. The amino acid sequence was identified as Ala-Cys-Ala-His-Asp-Lys-Val by a Q-Tof2 mass spectrometer. This novel peptide exhibited a high antioxidative activity of 79.42 U/mL, which is expected to protect against oxidative damage in living systems in relation to aging and carcinogenesis. Higher antioxidative activities were presumed mainly due to the presence of hydrophobic amino acids in its sequence.

In an asymmetric unit of the title compound, C8H12N2S4, there are two crystallographically independent half molecules lying on inversion centers. One of the molecules is disordered over two positions with relative occupancies of 82.0 (2) and 18.0 (2) for the major and minor components. In the crystal structure, molecules are linked into a three-dimensional framework via intermolecular C—H...N hydrogen-bonding interactions.

Let H be a real Hilbert space and let F:H→H be a boundedly Lipschitzian and strongly monotone operator. We design three hybrid steepest descent algorithms for solving variational inequality VI(C,F) of finding a point x∗∈C such that 〈Fx∗,x−x∗〉≥0, for all x∈C, where C is the set of fixed points of a strict pseudocontraction, or the set of common fixed points of finite strict pseudocontractions. Strong convergence of the algorithms is proved.

In the title compound, [Fe(C5H5)(C14H10NO3)], one cyclopentadiene ring is substituted and one is unsubstituted. The two rings are almost parallel and are eclipsed and ordered. The conjugated substituent is slightly twisted with respect to the cyclopentadiene ring. The crystal structure contains four intermolecular C—H...O hydrogen-bonds in the range 3.324 (3)–3.539 (3) Å and one π(aryl ring)–π (Cp ring) stacking interaction with a ring–centroid distance of 3.894 (2) Å.

In the title compound, [Fe(C5H5)(C15H13O2)], a conjugated substituent group bridges a five-membered η5-C5H4 ring and a benzene ring. In the ferrocene unit, the substituted (Cps) and unsubstituted (Cp) cyclopentadienyl rings are eclipsed and almost parallel [Cps—Fe—Cps angle = 176.1 (2)°]. The molecule is linked into an S(5) motif via intramolecular C—H...O hydrogen bonds. The molecules are arranged into a three-dimensional framework by five intermolecular C—H...O hydrogen bonds and one intermolecular C—H...π(Cps) interaction.

The molecule of the title compound, C11H11N3O5, exists as the E isomer as it is stabilized by an intramolecular hydrogen bond. Except for the methyl H atoms, all atoms lie in special positions on a mirror plane and form a large conjugated system; the methyl H atoms are disordered about the mirror plane. In the crystalline state, bifurcated intra- and intermolecular N—H...O hydrogen bonds and four intermolecular C—H...O hydrogen bonds link the molecules into large perfectly planar sheets. Along the c axis, the N—N bond center approaches the phenyl-ring centroids of its neighbouring molecules above and below to give π–π overlap (at a distance of ca 3.57 Å), thus fusing the molecules into a three-dimensional framework.

The title compound, [Fe(C5H5)(C14H11O)], exists as the E isomer, and the substituent is fully conjugated with the attached five-membered ring. In the ferrocene unit, the substituted cyclopentadienyl ring (Cps) plane and unsubstituted cyclopentadienyl ring (Cp) plane are almost parallel, and the C atoms in Cp and Cps are in an eclipsed conformation. In the crystal structure, molecules are linked into C(5) chains via intermolecular C—H...O hydrogen bonds, and neighbouring chains are assembled into sheets by intermolecular C—H...π(arene) hydrogen bonds along the c axis.

Molecules of the title compound, C18H16N2S2, exist as the (2E, 1′Z)-isomer. The 1,3-dithiolane ring has an envelope conformation; the atoms of the C—C bond are disordered over two positions with occupancies of 0.47 (7) and 0.53 (7). The structure exhibits intermolecular C—H...S and C—H...À(arene) hydrogen bonds.

The title compound, C12H11N4OS2, has been synthesized by the condensation reaction of 3-oxo-2-(phenylhydrazono)butanate and S-methyldithiocarbazate. The hydrazine unit and the pyrazole ring are coplanar [dihedral angle 3.8 (4)°] due to extensive conjugation and the N—H...O=C intramolecular hydrogen bond. Two adjacent molecules form dimers due to short C—H...O=C [R22 (18)] and C—H...S=C [R22 (22)] intermolecular interactions. C—H...S—C [R22 (14)] interactions link these dimers into ribbons in the [011] direction.

In the title compound, [Fe(C5H5)(C23H21N2S2)], the cyclopentadienyl rings of the ferrocenyl unit deviate slightly from the eclipsed form. In the pyrazoline ring, the N atom bonded to S-benzyl dithiocarbazate exhibits unconventional sp2-hybrid character in order to form an extended conjugated system. The pyrazoline ring displays an envelope conformation. The molecules are linked into chains along the b axis via C—H...S intermolecular hydrogen bonds.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common malignancies with high prevalence and low 5-year survival. CRC is a heterogeneous disease with a complex, genetic and biochemical background. It is now generally accepted that a few important intracellular signaling pathways, including Wnt/β-catenin signaling, Ras signaling, and p53 signaling are frequently dysregulated in CRC. Patients with mutant p53 gene are often resistant to current therapies, conferring poor prognosis. Tumor suppressor p53 protein is a transcription factor inducing cell cycle arrest, senescence, and apoptosis under cellular stress. Emerging evidence from laboratories and clinical trials shows that some small molecule inhibitors exert anti-cancer effect via reactivation and restoration of p53 function. In this review, we summarize the p53 function and characterize its mutations in CRC. The involvement of p53 mutations in pathogenesis of CRC and their clinical impacts will be highlighted. Moreover, we also describe the current achievements of using p53 modulators to reactivate this pathway in CRC, which may have great potential as novel anti-cancer therapy.