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Knowing the spatial structure of traditional villages is required to promote and preserve these villages. These traditional villages are an essential part of China's farming legacy and hold substantial historical and cultural significance. Therefore, this article analyzed 30 nationally recognized traditional villages in Liaoning Province, selected from the 6819 traditional villages in the province, as samples. These were divided into three types based on elevation: plain-type (below 200 m above sea level), hilly-type (200–500 m), and mountain-type (above 500 m) villages. Two villages of each type were selected for a total of six villages as the study objects; for these, quantitative comparative research on the spatial structure of these villages was carried out. The results of the study show that: (1) plain-type traditional villages are little affected by the terrain, the overall presentation of the surface space, the village traffic is well developed, able to form a commercial street as the core of the road interruptions in the head of the road more; (2) hilly-type traditional villages are influenced by mountains and water systems, forming a linear space with main roads as the core and crossroads, their core areas are more remote and lack space for public activities, and the villages rely on religious venues or the former residences of celebrities to attract tourists; (3) mountain-type villages are greatly influenced by the mountains, making it difficult to form a commercial area, the distribution of each natural town is relatively scattered and forms a point-like space, each point is developed with public space as the core, and there is a lack of characteristics within the village. The above quantitative characteristics are compared and three targeted conservation strategies for national-level traditional villages in Liaoning are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renal ischemia–reperfusion injury (IRI) is an integral process in renal transplantation, which results in compromised graft survival. Macrophages play an important role in both the early inflammatory period and late fibrotic period in response to IRI. In this study, we investigated whether scutellarin (SCU) could protect against renal IRI by regulating macrophage polarization. Mice were given SCU (5–50 mg/kg) by gavage 1 h earlier, followed by a unilateral renal IRI. Renal function and pathological injury were assessed 24 h after reperfusion. The results showed that administration of 50 mg/kg SCU significantly improved renal function and renal pathology in IRI mice. In addition, SCU alleviated IRI‐induced apoptosis. Meanwhile, it reduced macrophage infiltration and inhibited pro‐inflammatory macrophage polarization. Moreover, in RAW 264.7 cells and primary bone marrow‐derived macrophages (BMDMs) exposed to SCU, we found that 150 μM SCU inhibited these cells to polarize to an inflammatory phenotype induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ). However, SCU has no influence on anti‐inflammatory macrophage polarization in vivo and in vitro induced by in interleukin‐4 (IL‐4). Finally, we explored the effect of SCU on the activation of the mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway both in vivo and in vitro. We found that SCU suppressed the activation of the MAPK pathway, including the extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK), Jun N‐terminal kinase (JNK), and p38. Our results demonstrated that SCU protects the kidney against IRI by inhibiting macrophage infiltration and polarization toward pro‐inflammatory phenotype via the MAPK pathway, suggesting that SCU may be therapeutically important in treatment of IRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Soil is increasingly recognized as an important source in the transmission of Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii). The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of T. gondii in the soil and to grasp the relationships between the contamination of soil and chicken infections. Methods PCR method based on T. gondii-conserved gene internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS-1) as target gene and ELISA method (sGRA8-ELISA) using the recombinant protein of shortened GRA8 gene of T. gondii as antigen were developed and applied. From April 2013 to March 2014, a total of 700 soil samples were collected at various sites located in thirty farms categorized as free range farm and scale farm in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, in different seasons. Additionally, a total of 350 sera of chickens were collected from free range farms to determine the presence of antibodies against T. gondii using sGRA8-ELISA. Results The serological results showed that, antibodies were found in 194 of 250 (67.14%) samples from farms with T. gondii positive in soil and 41 of 100 samples from farms with T. gondii negative in soil (41.00%) (P

The strength of crumb rubber mortars can be improved by the addition of basalt fibers. However, limited studies have been conducted on basalt fiber crumb rubber mortars (BF-CRM), and the constitutive model is still very immature. In this paper, uniaxial compressive stress-strain curves are obtained for several groups of BF-CRM specimens with different contents. By comparison with the GZH model, modified GZH parameters that can be used in a BF-CRM constitutive model are obtained. Then, taking the support scheme of the main substation of a mine as the background, FLAC3D is used to simulate the roadway support, BF-CRM replaces the ordinary mortars in the original support, and triaxial compression tests are performed at different confining pressures. In this way, the application of BF-CRM in roadway support is studied and analyzed.