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Strokes are one of the leading causes of death and disability in the world. Previously we have found that conventional protein kinase Cγ (cPKCγ) plays neuroprotective role in ischemic strokes. Further, we found that cPKCγ knockdown increased the level of cleaved (cl)-Caspase-3. However, the precise mechanisms underlying cPKCγ-mediated neuronal death remain unclear. To this end, a model incorporating 1 h oxygen-glucose deprivation/24 h reoxygenation (1 h OGD/24 h R) was established in cortical neurons. We found that cPKCγ knockdown remarkably increased neuronal death after OGD. We also found that cPKCγ knockdown increased the level of cl-Caspase-3 through the upstream initiators Capsases-9 (not Caspase-8/12) in OGD-treated neurons. Overexpression of cPKCγ could decrease neuronal death and cl-Caspase-3 and -9 levels. Moreover, cPKCγ knockdown further reduced the phosphorylation levels of p38 MAPK, p90RSK, and Bad. In addition, the protein levels of Bcl-2 and Bcl-xl were decreased after cPKCγ knockdown, whereas that of Bax was increased. In conclusion, our results suggest that cPKCγ partly alleviates ischemic injury through activating the p38 MAPK-p90RSK-Bad pathway and inhibiting Caspase-9 initiated apoptosis. This may have potential as a therapeutic target for ischemic stroke.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has a wide range of applications, including human healthcare-associated treatments and bioactive compound discovery. However, complex chemical systems present a significant challenge for chemical-material-based research and quality control. For instance, Banlangen (BLG) granules is a well-acknowledged TCM preparation widely used in clinical treatment of virus infection. However, its chemical basis of anti-influenza efficacy remains unclear.In the present study, a systematic discovery strategy for identifying anti-influenza molecules based on biological activities and chemical analysis was established to contribute to the molecular elucidation of the anti-influenza material basis of Banlangen granules.Hemagglutinase inhibition (HAI) and neuraminidase inhibition (NAI) assays were used to compare the anti-influenza activities of different fractions of BLG granules against H1N1, H5N1 and H7N9 viruses. A comparative qualitative analysis of the chemical constituents in BLG granules and their fractions was performed using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole orbitrap mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-Exactive Orbitrap MS), in which a multiple mass spectrometry database platform and three compound identification strategies were used. The association between anti-influenza activities and chemical constituent characteristics was analyzed using multiple stoichiometries and data comparison strategies.The results showed that the chromatography fractions F3 and F4 of the BLG granules had the highest anti-influenza activity. A total of 88 compounds were identified in the BLG granules, including 31 alkaloids, 16 organic acids, 10 nucleosides, 8 phenylpropanoids, 6 sulfur-containing compounds, 5 amino acids, 4 aromatic compounds, 3 aldehydes and ketones, 2 flavonoids, 1 alcohol, 1 carbohydrate, and 1 aliphatic compound. Out of these, 31 characteristic compounds were identified in fractions F3-F4 as candidate compounds with anti-influenza activity. Additionally, 6-methoxyquinoline and 4-guanidinobutanal were identified in BLG granules and its raw material (Isatidis Radix) for the first time.In this study, we proposed a systematic discovery strategy to thoroughly investigate the anti-influenza activity, chemical identification, and constituents-activity relationship of BLG granules. These data not only provided a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanism of the activity of BLG granules, but also presented a basis for the discovery of potential novel drug candidates and quality evaluation and control of BLG granules.

Curcuma kwangsiensis S. K. Lee & C. F. Liang, a traditional herb in southern China, accumulates substantial amounts of active components, curcuminoids and volatile oil. However, the limited hereditary information and SSR markers have hindered its breeding program and genetic analysis. Here, we examined the transcriptome of C. kwangsiensis using next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology. A dataset with 8.17 Gb of raw reads was generated and assembled into 77,976 unigenes. Moreover, 11,678 EST-SSR markers were screened from transcriptome data. Of the 800 synthesized primer pairs, 486 (60.8%) exhibited successful amplification and 115 (23.7%) were polymorphic. A set of 24 selected markers showed high cross-species transferabilities among 13 Curcuma species. In total, 277 alleles (6–19 alleles per locus) were discovered, and the polymorphic information content (PIC) ranged from 0.496 to 0.905. Based on the results of cluster and structure analyses, the 75 accessions were classified into four major groups with some admixtures. Finally, a core collection (22 accessions) was identified, exhibiting Na, Ne, I, and PIC values with retention rates of 87.7%, 107.8%, 102.5% and 102%, respectively. All these unigenes and EST-SSRs will be useful for germplasm resource evaluation and for diversifying the potential of product derivatives from Curcuma.

Background:. Previously, we developed a novel Coronary Artery Tree description and Lesion EvaluaTion (CatLet©) angiographic scoring system, which was capable of accounting for the variability in the coronary anatomy and assisting in the risk-stratification of patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Our preliminary study revealed that the CatLet score better predicted clinical outcomes for AMI patients than the Synergy between Percutaneous Coronary Intervention with Taxus and Cardiac Surgery score. However, the reproducibility of the CatLet score in both inter- and intra-observer remains to be evaluated. Methods:. A total of 30 consecutive AMI patients, admitted in September of 2015, were independently assessed by two experienced interventional cardiologists to evaluate the inter-observer reproducibility of the CatLet score. Another set of 49 consecutive AMI patients, admitted between September and October in 2014, were assessed by one of the two interventional cardiologists on two occasions 3 months apart to evaluate the intra-observer reproducibility of the CatLet score. The weighted kappa was used to express the degree of agreement. Results:. The weighted kappa values (95% confidence interval) for the intra- and inter-observer reproducibility of the CatLet Score were 0.82 (0.59–1.00, Z = 7.23, P 22). Regarding the adverse characteristics pertinent to lesions and dominance parameters, the kappa values for the inter-observer variability were 0.80 (0.56–1.00, Z = 6.47, P

Background: The peri-crux area is an anatomical structure of the heart. Unfortunately, important information on this area mainly derives from autopsy heart with a small, under-representative sample size, resulting in limited clinical applications. Furthermore, little has been done to standardize the definition of the peri-crux area on coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) images or to investigate coronary artery anatomy wherein potential values are attracting experienced inventional cardiologists in terms of the revascularization strategies. The current study aimed to identify the peri-crux cordis area and to observe coronary artery anatomical distributions in this area on CCTA. Methods: A total of 1,006 consecutive patients undergoing CCTA exams were enrolled. We delineated the peri-crux cordis area based on the posterior interatrial sulcus, posterior interventricular sulcus (PIS), left and right posterior atrioventricular groove on the diaphragmatic surface of the heart. Then we observed the coronary artery distributions in the peri-crux cordis area in different sexes. Results: We have defined the peri-crux cordis area according to the anatomical landmarks on the diaphragmatic surface of the heart on CCTA images. We have observed 8 coronary artery distributions in the peri-crux cordis area. Right dominance has 4 types (types 1–4); left, 1 type (type 0) and balanced, 3 types (types 5–7). Out of the 1,006 cases, the type 1 is commonest with 834 cases (82.9%). There are no statistically significant differences in terms of coronary dominances and coronary artery distributions in the peri-crux cordis area between sexes (P>0.05). Conclusions: We have defined the peri-crux cordis area utilizing the anatomical landmarks of the heart on CCTA images, where 8 types of coronary artery distributions have been identified. The current study may provide interventional cardiologists with useful information on recognition of coronary artery dominance, use of collateral channels for revascularization of chronic total occluded lesions, and evaluation of prognosis in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD).

Alpinia katsumadai (A. katsumadai), Alpinia oxyphylla (A. oxyphylla) and Alpinia pumila (A. pumila), which belong to the family Zingiberaceae, exhibit multiple medicinal properties. The chloroplast genome of a non-model plant provides valuable information for species identification and phylogenetic analysis. Here, we sequenced three complete chloroplast genomes of A. katsumadai, A. oxyphylla sampled from Guangdong and A. pumila, and analyzed the published chloroplast genomes of Alpinia zerumbet (A. zerumbet) and A. oxyphylla sampled from Hainan to retrieve useful chloroplast molecular resources for Alpinia. The five Alpinia chloroplast genomes possessed typical quadripartite structures comprising of a large single copy (LSC, 87,248&ndash, 87,667 bp), a small single copy (SSC, 15,306&ndash, 18,295 bp) and a pair of inverted repeats (IR, 26,917&ndash, 29,707 bp). They had similar gene contents, gene orders and GC contents, but were slightly different in the numbers of small sequence repeats (SSRs) and long repeats. Interestingly, fifteen highly divergent regions (rpl36, ycf1, rps15, rpl22, infA, psbT-psbN, accD-psaI, petD-rpoA, psaC-ndhE, ccsA-ndhD, ndhF-rpl32, rps11-rpl36, infA-rps8, psbC-psbZ, and rpl32-ccsA), which could be suitable for species identification and phylogenetic studies, were detected in the Alpinia chloroplast genomes. Comparative analyses among the five chloroplast genomes indicated that 1891 mutational events, including 304 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 118 insertion/deletions (indels) between A. pumila and A. katsumadai, 367 SNPs and 122 indels between A. pumila and A. oxyphylla sampled from Guangdong, 331 SNPs and 115 indels between A. pumila and A. zerumbet, 371 SNPs and 120 indels between A. pumila and A. oxyphylla sampled from Hainan, and 20 SNPs and 23 indels between the two accessions of A. oxyphylla, were accurately located. Additionally, phylogenetic relationships based on SNP matrix among 28 whole chloroplast genomes showed that Alpinia was a sister branch to Amomum in the family Zingiberaceae, and that the five Alpinia accessions were divided into three groups, one including A. pumila, another including A. zerumbet and A. katsumadai, and the other including two accessions of A. oxyphylla. In conclusion, the complete chloroplast genomes of the three medicinal Alpinia species in this study provided valuable genomic resources for further phylogeny and species identification in the family Zingiberaceae.

The genus Curcuma is widely recognized for its diversity of medicinal and culinary uses yet metabolomic differences among Curcuma species are largely unknown, due to the lack of broadly targeted analytical studies. Here, Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry/Mass Spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) analysis was employed to interrogate the metabolomes of five Curcuma species which are commonly used in Chinese herbal medicine (C. aromatica, C. elata, C. longa, C. caesia and C. phaeocaulis). By processing these results through a pathway enrichment analysis, 432 metabolites (some associated with the curcumin pathway) were identified that varied by species. The quantity of curcuminoids in C. longa were found to be higher than that in the other four Curcuma species analyzed in this study. In addition, C. longa was found to have a greater diversity of phenolic acids, amino acid derivatives, and flavonoids associated with the curcumin biosynthesis pathway. However, medicinal compounds such as 6-gingerol were found in lower quantities in C. longa compared to all other species in this study. This study provides new insights into Curcuma phytochemical pathways and allows for the development of functional foods tailored to specific needs from these species.

The effects of [001] uniaxial strain on the stable structures and structural evolution of vacancy clusters in fcc metals, Cu, Ni, Al and Fe, have been studied and compared. Under uniaxial strain, the clusters in all these metals tend to align parallel or perpendicular to the strain axis under tensile or compressive strain. Moreover, both the body cluster and the {001} planar cluster become the dominant types. In addition, the stacking fault tetrahedron cluster becomes another dominant type in Al under compressive strain. The cluster structures in Fe are disordered under strain possibly because the pure fcc Fe is thermodynamically unstable under the current simulation condition.

Celosia cristata is an important economic plant with ornamental, ecological, and medicinal functions. The complete chloroplast genome of C. cristata ‘Xiaguang’ was sequenced and analyzed in...

According to the characteristics of the "Fundamentals of Electronic Circuits" course for the specialties related to electronic information engineering and considering the gist and key points of the course, we adopted a number of teaching reform measures that are introduced in details by some instances. Teaching practices show that the measures can cause good teaching effects and are recommended for teaching.

Cardiac arrest (CA), if untreated for more than 5 min, can induce severe brain damage, the underlying mechanism of which is still unclear. Previous studies have indicated that high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1), a nuclear protein implicated in several inflammatory disorders, is involved in the inflammatory processes following brain ischemia. However, the role of HMGB1 in brain dysfunction after CA is yet to be determined. In a rat CA model, HMGB1 protein expression was higher at 1, 3, and 7 days post-CA, compared to that in naïve and sham-treated rats. Following injection of HMGB1 antibody (anti-HMGB1) into the cerebral ventricles, neurological deficit scores were significantly decreased in the CA group as compared to that in the naïve and sham group. Nissl staining showed significant neuronal loss in the hippocampal CA1 region following CA, which was significantly attenuated by anti-HMGB1-treatment (10 and 50 μg) in comparison with the vehicle-injected control. CA induced a significant increase in the levels of the cytokine interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) in the hippocampus as revealed by real-time polymerase chain reaction and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Treatment with anti-HMGB1 significantly inhibited IL-1β and TNF-α expression. Our study suggests that HMGB1 contributes significantly to CA-induced brain dysfunction and that inhibiting HMGB1 function and expression may be an effective therapeutic approach to CA-induced ischemic brain injury.

The effects of [0 0 1] uniaxial strain on the energetics, stable structures, and structural evolution of vacancy clusters with different structure and orientation characteristics in copper have been studied by molecular statics simulation. The dependence of binding energies as functions of strain for different cluster types, including linear, planar, and body types, shows complicated behavior. The binding energies of both linear and planar clusters monotonously vary with the strain from −10% to 10%, while those of body clusters decrease with increasing both tensile and compressive strain. According to the variation of the binding energies, it has been suggested that the linear and planar clusters tend to align parallel (perpendicular) to the strain axis under tensile (compressive) strain. Moreover, both the {0 0 1} planar cluster and body cluster become the dominant types when the clusters grow under high strain. Then, a mechanism that the local structure around a vacancy cluster tends to approach the ideal lattice structure without defects and strain has been applied to explain the effects of the uniaxial strain on the relative stability of the vacancy clusters. This tendency is closely tied to the level of the atomic relaxation which can be measured by the average atomic displacement of the nearest-neighbor atoms surrounding the vacancy cluster.

Zingiber montanum (Z. montanum) and Zingiber zerumbet (Z. zerumbet) are important medicinal and ornamental herbs in the genus Zingiber and family Zingiberaceae. Chloroplast-derived markers are useful for species identification and phylogenetic studies, but further development is warranted for these two Zingiber species. In this study, we report the complete chloroplast genomes of Z. montanum and Z. zerumbet, which had lengths of 164,464 bp and 163,589 bp, respectively. These genomes had typical quadripartite structures with a large single copy (LSC, 87,856-89,161 bp), a small single copy (SSC, 15,803-15,642 bp), and a pair of inverted repeats (IRa and IRb, 29,393-30,449 bp). We identified 111 unique genes in each chloroplast genome, including 79 protein-coding genes, 28 tRNAs and 4 rRNA genes. We analyzed the molecular structures, gene information, amino acid frequencies, codon usage patterns, RNA editing sites, simple sequence repeats (SSRs) and long repeats from the two chloroplast genomes. A comparison of the Z. montanum and Z. zerumbet chloroplast genomes detected 489 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 172 insertions/deletions (indels). Thirteen highly divergent regions, including ycf1, rps19, rps18-rpl20, accD-psaI, psaC-ndhE, psbA-trnK-UUU, trnfM-CAU-rps14, trnE-UUC-trnT-UGU, ccsA-ndhD, psbC-trnS-UGA, start-psbA, petA-psbJ, and rbcL-accD, were identified and might be useful for future species identification and phylogeny in the genus Zingiber. Positive selection was observed for ATP synthase (atpA and atpB), RNA polymerase (rpoA), small subunit ribosomal protein (rps3) and other protein-coding genes (accD, clpP, ycf1, and ycf2) based on the Ka/Ks ratios. Additionally, chloroplast SNP-based phylogeny analyses found that Zingiber was a monophyletic sister branch to Kaempferia and that chloroplast SNPs could be used to identify Zingiber species. The genome resources in our study provide valuable information for the identification and phylogenetic analysis of the genus Zingiber and family Zingiberaceae.

Aiming to characteristics of structure and transmitting medium of gas pipe with high temperature and high pressure, considering the coupling effect of static pressure and temperature, the thermal structure coupling model based on steady-state heat conduction is established according to the finite element theory. So method and process of numerical simulation on thermal structure coupling analysis are proposed. Simulation analysis is carried out for the gas pipe of a dry-gas compressor. The variation characteristic of inner-outer wall is revealed under the different temperature. The results indicate that the numerical modeling and simulation of thermal structure coupling of gas pipe with high temperature and high pressure can be realized. It can provide valuable reference opinions for site construction, real-time monitoring and safety analysis of pipe.

A series of novel (+/-)-3-substituted fluorene-imidazolium/triazolium salt derivatives has been prepared and evaluated in vitro against a panel of human tumor cell lines. The results suggest that the existence of 2-methyl-benzimidazole or 5,6-dimethyl-benzimidazole rings and substitution of the imidazolyl/triazolyl3/4-position with a naphthylacyl or 4-methoxyphenacyl group were important for modulating cytotoxic activity. Compounds 37 and 42 were found to be the most potent derivatives with IC50 values of 0.51-2.51 mu M and exhibited cytotoxic activities selectively against myeloid leukaemia (HL-60), liver carcinoma (SMMC-7721) and lung carcinoma (A549). Compound 37 can remarkably induce the G2/M phase cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in SMMC-7721 cells. Additionally, compound 30 exhibited selective cytotoxicity to some extent between cancer cells (A549) and normal cells (BEAS-2B).

Background: The incidence of autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, and primary biliary cirrhosis has increased significantly in China. Information about the susceptibility or potential of autoimmune diseases in the general population is lacking. Objective: To explore the prevalence of antinuclear antibody (ANA) and its specificities in the general population in China. Methods: Twenty thousand nine hundred seventy sera samples were taken from the physical examination center in Baoding, China. Indirect immunofluorescence and line immunoassays were used to detect ANA and its specificities, respectively. Results: Samples from females had a higher prevalence of ANA than samples from males (χ2 = 278.55; P < 0.01). For both sexes, the prevalence of ANA positively correlated with age and there were significant differences among different age groups at 10-year intervals, except the 80 years group (P < 0.05). One thousand two hundred forty-three ANA-positive samples were further analyzed with line immunoassays. There was a significant difference among age groups and between sex groups in terms of the specific autoantibodies (P < 0.01). The autoantibodies with the top-3 positive frequencies were anti-Ro-52, anti-M2, and anti-SSA. Conclusions: There was a high prevalence of ANA positivity in the general Chinese population that seemed to be influenced by sex and age and correlated with specific autoantibodies.

CAN bus was widely used in embedded system development, but most embedded processors without CAN bus controller, need to extend external CAN bus interface through external bus. In order to send and receive the CAN bus data by S3C2440 chip, interface function of S3C2440 was extended by MCP2515 chip in the paper, which was used the SPI interface to extend CAN bus interface. The design of CAN bus hardware interface was described in the paper. The design of CAN device drive program on the embedded Linux operating system was specified in detail.

This paper introduces a kind of digital deep underground multi-point temperature and humidity detection device. The system consists of detecting casing, temperature and humidity acquisition ring and control system. Detection of casing pipe wall is provided with a plurality of fixed temperature, humidity collecting ring installation wiring hole. Temperature, humidity collecting ring comprises an annular casing, is located in the annular casing digital temperature acquisition board, digital humidity acquisition board, circular shell inner wall is provided with a threading hole, an air hole wall. The control system comprises the control switch, display, channel switching buttons and interface socket, arranged inside the shell. The power supplies module and the control processor. Compared with the existing technology, the system can be more accurate, convenient to complete the deep underground temperature, humidity signal acquisition, and it is more easy to change the signal acquisition position, at the same time, the system has low equipment cost, easy to assemble and use, has very high practicability.

The paper presents the design and application of the beverage automatic filling system based on Siemens S7-300 PLC and MP277 touch screen. Photoelectric sensor was used to precisely detect positions of the beverage bottle, which it arrives the fixed position, servo motor will control it stop. The Siemens S7-300 PLC was designed by the software of Siemens STEP 7 5.4. Touch Screen was designed by the software of WinCC Flexible 2008, which it and PLC communicated by DP lines. The beverage automatic filling system can real-time display the state and set up the parameters of the object. It was proved by practice that beverage automatic filling system reduces labor intensity and operational cost, increases automation degree, and improves production efficiency.

A novel method for multi-feature fusion is proposed in this paper. Spectral curve is used to represent spectral feature. Run-length is redefined to describe texture. Surface integral is introduced to express spatial feature. The fuzzy fusion theory is adopted to integrate a variety of features so as to identify remote sensing images. SPOT5 multi-spectral images were used as experimental data. Qingdao Agricultural University and its surrounding were selected as the study area. Experimental results show that the proposed method has good performance for green land, building, shadow and water, but the recognition rate of bare ground and road is not high. The even classification accuracy is satisfactory about 79.5%.

The underground pipe network identification system based on RFID technology is introduced. The research involves the embedded technology, radio frequency identification technology and communication technology. The system is composed of intelligent passive electronic tags and detector. Electronic tags are able to receive the transmitted signal of the detector, and then transmit their own information. Detector uses low power embedded system, with Chinese interface, communicate with computer. The information is written to the buried depth of 0.3 meters, and is read to 1.3 meters.Three meters in diameter of the circular area can be detected.

Color is the most widely used visual feature in content based image retrieval. The visual coherence color space, HSV, is adopted to represent image. Hue component is used to denote color. Hue difference statistic is proposed to extract color change information as supplement to color feature. The image is divided into sub images equally. Color and change information is extracted in each region. After feature vector clustering and coding, image content can be expressed as vector codes. The text based analysis technology is used for image retrieval. Experiments show that the proposed method can realize efficient retrieval for unconstrained scene images.

The civil engineers' structure of quality is mainly consisting of three levels which are the knowledge, ability and quality. The rich and three-dimensional of knowledge structure, the ability of engaging in engineering design, organizing, managing and solving technical problems in engineering constructions, excellent humanities, scientific quality, and engineering quality are necessary for a civil engineer. Therefore, aiming to achieve innovation and development of civil engineering personnel training, the comprehensive curriculum system, diverse methods and paths of training is to be developed in higher education.

Multispectral remote sensing images are used as research objects for different band images are highly complementary. Pixel is the basic element for image classification. Spectral information and two order invariant moments are proposed to describe pixel characteristics. The self-organizing feature map neural network is used to realize an unsupervised classification. A fringe area of Qingdao is studied and its classification map is obtained using this method. Experimental results show that the classification accuracy is satisfactory by the proposed method.

The type of land cover is principally determined by spectral reflectance of land. Different surface features have distinct absorption and reflection properties on different bands. The characteristic is used to identify land cover type from multi-spectral images. Reflectance coefficients and spectral differences are extracted as feature vector to represent each pixel. Self-Organizing Feature Map neural network is adopted for feature classification. A semi-supervised correction strategy is proposed to amend the classification errors. The images of Qingdao Agricultural University campus acquired by SPOT5 were selected as experimental data. The results show that the overall classification accuracy of samples is up to 83%, moreover, the proposed method is helpful in solving the phenomena of same object with different spectrums or different objects with same spectrum.

With the analysis of traditional power quality monitor system, this paper introduces the system built by virtual instrument technology. From the power quality indicators and the measuring principles, we designed a data acquisition hardware based on the USB bus and developed the monitoring system applications using LabVIEW software. Comparing with conventional power quality monitoring system, the system overcomes the weaknesses of huge analog test devices. In this system, the intuitive interface makes operation simple with rapid response and small errors. In addition, statements and automatic alarm function is added to the software programming, which will be a great practical significance of the realization of automated monitoring.

In the present work, the dispersion polymerization of 2-hydroxypropyl methacrylate (HPMA) was carried out in No. 120 gasoline/n-pentanol medium using azobisisobutyronitrile as initiator and a comb-structured amphipathic polymer as dispersant. The effects of many factors such as the type, structure and concentration of dispersants, and the reaction temperature, on the reaction and the morphology of the polymer microspheres obtained were investigated. It is proposed that the dispersion polymerization of HPMA has two nucleation mechanisms, homogeneous nucleation and inverse mini-emulsion nucleation. Furthermore, the kinetic of HPMA dispersion polymerization was also studied. © 2001 Society of Chemical Industry

Capsaicin (trans-8-methy-N-vanilly-6-nonenamide, CAP), the main ingredient responsible for the hot pungent taste of chilli peppers. However, little is known about the metabolic interactions between CAP and clinically used drugs. This study attempted to investigate the effect of CAP on the pharmacokinetics of simvastatin (SV), a cytochrome P450 (CYP) 3A substrate and an important cholesterol-lowering agent. CAP (3, 8 or 25 mg/kg), ketoconazole, dexamethasone or 5% CMC-Na was given to rats for seven consecutive days and on the seventh day SV (80 mg/kg) was administered orally. The results showed that when a single dose of SV was administered to rats fed with CAP over one week, AUC(0→∞), C(max) of SV and its acid metabolite was significantly decreased in comparison to the control treatment. Pretreatment of rats with CAP resulted in an decrease in the AUC(0-∞) of SV of about 67.06% (CAP 3 mg/kg, P

A substitution-diffusion based image cipher using chaotic standard and logistic maps was proposed recently. However, the cipher can be broken with a simple method by using only one known plain and cipher image pair. The attacking process need not to be complex because of the two vital defects of the encryption algorithm. Suggestions for improving the security of the algorithm are also provided.

A cryptosystem based on multiple chaotic maps is proposed. It is composed of a function f(times), a 2D chaotic map and two cascaded chaotic subsystems. The iteration times of the cascaded subsystem constructed by simple chaotic maps are changed with the outputs of the 2D chaotic map. Plaintext and the outputs of the cascaded subsystems are handled by the function f(times) to generate ciphertext. Simulation tests and security analyses indicate that the proposed cryptosystem is featured by large key space, high sensitivity to key, and resistance to statistical attacks and differential attacks.

This paper introduces the principle of the fiber bragg gratings (FBG) sensor and basis of temperature analysis. According to the key technology for the fiber grating sensor which is used to detect the temperature to low-voltage circuit breaker, the technical architecture of an on-line temperature monitoring system in intelligence electric apparatus is put forward. And then, using the finite element analysis software Ansoft Maxwell, a model for the arc-extinguishing chamber of low-voltage circuit breaker was established. The temperature field was analyzed and the figures of temperature field distribution in the arc-extinguishing chamber were obtained.

To explore the effect of extracted liquid from Qianlietongyu on the proliferation or apoptosis on prostatic smooth muscle cells in vitro.After extracted liquid from Qianlietongyu treated the cultured prostatic smooth muscle cells, the anti proliferative and apoptotic indices were assessed by MTT assy and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) respectively.There was a significant dose-effect relationship between the concentration of extracted liquid from Qianlietongyu and the antiproliferative index on prostatic smooth muscle cells in vitro (P0.01), but there was no markedly difference in the apoptosis index between the group of extracted liquid from Qianlietongyu and control group ( P0.05).Extracted liquid from Qianlietongyu may show significant antiproliferative effect on prostatic smooth muscle cells in vitro, without inducing apoptosis.

Nitrogen and silica co-doped graphene nanosheets (NSi-GNS) have been prepared via high-temperature annealing of N and Si-containing graphene oxide–ionic liquid (GO–IL) composite. As a p-type semiconductor, the as-synthesized NSi-GNS shows excellent NO2 gas sensing ability with high response value.