Search

To verify the efficacy of eye acupuncture combined with conventional acupuncture in the treatment of dry eye syndrome withA total of 90 patients with dry eye syndrome withThe subjective symptom scores in the three groups were lower than those before treatment (Eye acupuncture combined with conventional acupuncture can significantly improve the clinical symptoms of dry eye syndrome with

In this paper, we use GA to improve the D-S evidence theory, and apply the improved D-S evidence theory to VIP intelligent recognition and recommendation system. In the VIP intelligent recognition and recommendation system of clothes, there are three main evidences: body size, personal preferences, and purchase records. So collision often happens inevitable. This requirement asks us to find out a suitable method to identify the VIPs needs. D-S evidence theory can improve the rate of identification, but has no idea about the collision. The improved D-S evidence theory based on genetic algorithm can deal with the collision evidence and improve the rate of the identification and the stability. As such we can provide VIP more suitable recommendation. The experiment results of clothes recommendation demonstrate the flexibility of the improved method.

Membrane protein interactions are vitally important for every process in a living cell. Information about these interactions can improve our understanding of diseases and provide the basis to revolutionize therapeutic treatments. However, current experimental techniques for large-scale detection of protein-protein interactions are biased against membrane proteins, it is necessary to develop novel tools to deal with this kind of bio-network. To realize this, we construct membrane protein interaction network based on gene regulatory network model. Three model forms, basic form, non-dimensionalization form, and more complex form, are proposed to understand the dynamic and collective control of developmental process and the characters of membrane protein interaction network, including small-world network, scale free distributing and robustness, and its significance for biology. Four simulation examples are presented to illustrate the usefulness and flexibility of the GRN model method for the study of membrane protein interaction network. The results show that the proposed approach holds a high potential to become a useful tool in prediction of membrane protein interactions. Moreover, it has biological significance and value for biology and pharmacology.

According to the characteristic of GPS system fo intelligent garment, this paper presents a strategy of GPS data processing by removing redundant information and shifting the combination codes. Its compressed result is analyzed by comparing with direct data compression and Huffman coding. The above-mentioned strategy takes into account both the speed and the effect of the compression, and has a good performance in the compression rate. The non-destructive GPS data processing method has a positive and practical significance in the intelligent garment for efficient monitoring.

In this study, response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to optimize preparation of chitosan microspheres (CMs). Firstly, Plackett-Burman design (PBD) was applied to screen out the factors, which influence preparation of CMs significantly. The results showed that the concentration of chitosan and acetic acid as well as the volume of toluene were the key factors. Then, steepest ascent experiment and Box-Behnken design were introduced to optimize the levels of the key factors. As a result, the appropriate condi- tions of preparing CMs were chosen as follows: 2% (w/v) chitosan, 1.7% (v/v) acetic acid, 7 mL span-80, 488 mL toluene, 1100 rpm, 60 min (emulsification time), 10 mL formaldehyde, and 60 min (crosslinking time). Also, the morphology, size particle, and FTIR spectra of CMs were studied by scanning electron microscopy, small angle laser light scattering, and FTIR spectrometer. Results showed that CMs had quite smooth surface spherical and sharp size distribution, which indicated that the CMs were successfully prepared by W/O emulsi- fication crosslinking method using RSM. V C 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 127: 4433-4439, 2013

Protein–protein interactions (PPIs) are vitally important for every process in a living cell. Information about these interactions can improve our understanding of diseases and provide the basis to revolutionize therapeutic treatments. However, since PPIs are involved with extremely complicated biological processes, it is necessary to develop novel tools to deal with this kind of network systems. To realize this, a bio-entity network approach is introduced to show the topology structure of dynamic and collective performances of PPI networks and analyze the variance of the protein node that plays an important role in the PPI network. Also, spectrum analysis is used to capture the discrete and stochastic feature of PPIs. The yeast protein interaction network is considered as a paradigm. It is demonstrated that the proposed approach can easily and clearly identify the hub-proteins that have the most impact on the PPI system concerned. It is expected that the bio-entity network approach as presented in this paper might become a useful tool in system biology. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society

More attention has been paid to DNA computing for Knapsack Problem (KP). The authors realized the biological experiment of parallel searching to solve KP, and used the most optimized method to select items within a limited knapsack. The DNA fragments designing is based on reactions and the computational procedure is high-efficiency DNA ligation. Two methods were used to detect the results. They are PCR (quantitative analysis) and sequencing (qualitative analysis). It is suitable to the optimization of multiple restriction conditions.

Inspired by the systemic emergence and self-evolution of the neuroendocrine-immune system, we have developed a bio-network architecture and built a novel bio-network platform for complex services on next-generation Internet. Since stability analysis is an important issue in complex networks, we discuss the evolutionary stability of the bio-network architecture based on energy design. We build a stability model of energy flow in the bio-network system. Considering that the stability model of energy flow is similar to the common market equilibrium model, we propose the measurement of energy entropy and global stability based on the Nash equilibrium game. The reinforcement learning of stability strategy based on the improved differential evolution algorithm is applied to solve the problem with global stability optimization. The simulation results of energy stability are provided to validate the proposed method.

AIM: To investigate the protective effect of bifidobacterium in endotoxin-induced intestinal injury in preweaning rats. METHODS: Preweaning rats were randomly divided into three groups (n = 40 for each): a control group (group C), a model group (group E) and a treatment group (group T). Both groups E and T were intraperitoneally injected with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) at a dose of 5 mg/kg (5 mg/L in normal saline), and group T was intragastrically administrated with bifidobacterium suspension (2.0 × 109 CFU/mL, 0.5 mL each time, twice a day, until the end of the experiment) 7 d before LPS administration. Group C was intraperitoneally injected with normal saline. After intraperitoneal injection and intragastric administration, the rats were placed back to the initial cage to receive breast feeding. The rats were killed at 2, 6, 12, 24 or 72 h, respectively, after endotoxin or physiological saline injection to collect serum and ileal tissue samples. Myeloperoxidase (MPO) contents in serum and ileum were detected at different times, and expression of ileal defensin-5 mRNA was evaluated by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS: Serum and ileal MPO contents in group E were significantly higher than those in group C (serum contents: 107.50 ± 17.70 vs 157.14 ± 24.67, P < 0.05; ileal contents: 1.03 ± 0.21 vs 1.57 ± 0.33, P < 0.05), which peaked at 12 h and 6 h, respectively. MPO contents in group T were significantly lower than those in group E (serum contents: 114.38 ± 24.56 vs 145.25 ± 23.62, P < 0.05; ileal contents: 1.25 ± 0.24 vs 1.57 ± 0.33, P < 0.05). The expression of defensin-5 mRNA in group E was significantly higher than that in group C (0.953 ± 0.238 vs 0.631 ± 0.146, P < 0.05), which peaked at 2 h, and then decreased gradually. The expression of defensin-5 mRNA in group T was significantly lower than that in group E (0.487 ± 0.149 vs 0.758 ± 0.160, P < 0.05) apparently in 24 h. The expression of defensin-5 mRNA at 2 h in group T was significantly higher than that in group C (0.824 ± 0.158 vs 0.631 ± 0.146, P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: MPO and defensin-5 mRNA increase in preweaning rats with LPS-induced intestinal injury. Bifidobacterium protects the gut by inhibiting MPO activity, not by increasing defensin-5 secretion.

PM2.5 was sampled from commercial, industrial and residential areas in Chongqing urban city from 2nd May to 10th May 2012 in order to find out characteristics and sources of carbon in PM2.5. Eight kinds of carbons were analyzed by the TOR method. Characteristics of carbon pollution in PM2.5 from three kinds of functional areas and six kinds of sources, including coal-combustion, exhausts (vehicle, boat and construction machine), biomass burning, cooking smoke, were analyzed. Based on carbon source profiles, local indicating components of carbon sources in PM2.5 were obtained used the chemical mass balance (CMB) model. Contribution rate of different sources to PM2.5 carbon were parsed out by factor analysis. The results showed the OC/EC of coal-combustion, vehicle exhausts, boat exhausts, construction machine exhausts, biomass burning and cooking smoke were 6.3, 3.0, 1.9, 1.4, 12.7 and 31.3, respectively. High loads of EC2 and EC3 indicated diesel vehicle exhaust emissions, high loads of OC2, OC3, OC4 and OPC indicated coal-combustion emissions, OC1, OC2, OC3, OC4 and EC1 indicated gasoline vehicle exhaust emissions, OC3 indicated cooking emissions, and OPC indicated biomass burning emissions. OC/PM2.5, EC/PM2.5, secondary organic carbon (SOC)/OC in the commercial area were 17.4%, 6.9% and 40.0%, respectively. OC/PM2.5, EC/PM2.5 and SOC/OC in the industrial area were 15.5%, 6.6% and 37.4%, respectively. OC/PM2.5, EC/PM2.5 and SOC/OC in the residential area were 14.6% 5.6% and 42.8%, respectively. In the industrial area, the main sources of carbon in PM2.5 were coal combustion, gasoline vehicle exhausts and diesel exhaust. In the commercial area, the main sources of carbon were gasoline vehicle exhausts, diesel exhausts and cooking. In the residential area, the main sources of carbon were gasoline vehicle exhausts, cooking smoke and diesel exhausts.

Cyclin-dependent kinase 10 (CDK10) is a cell cycle regulating protein kinase, which has just been discriminated in recent years. In this paper, mRNA and protein expression of CDK10 were first investigated by a comparative study between 23 human keloid tissue samples and their adjacent normal skin. To further address its potential as a therapeutic target in the treatment of keloid, a plasmid expressing the CDK10 gene was transfected into keloid fibroblast. The effects on tamoxifen-induced apoptosis were then investigated using Western blot assay and flow cytometry. Results showed that there is a generally down-regulated expression of CDK10 in keloid compared to normal skin samples. Transfection with the recombinant CDK10 plasmid significantly decreased the viability of cells and increased the apoptosis rates. Tamoxifen sensitivity in keloid fibroblasts was observed after treatment with the recombinant CDK10 plasmid. The results suggested that CDK10 may play an important role in enhancement of tamoxifen efficiency, and its expression may have a synergistic effect on keloid treatments.

Future Internet should be capable of extensibility, survivability, mobility, and adaptability to the changes of different users and network environments, so it is necessary to optimize the current Internet architecture and its applications. Inspired by the resemble features between the immune systems and future Internet, the authors introduce some key principles and mechanisms of the immune systems to design a bio-network architecture to address the challenges of future Internet. In the bio-network architecture, network resources are represented by various bioentities, while complex services and application can be emerged from the interactions among bio-entities. Also, they develop a bio-network simulation platform which has the capability of service emergence, evolution, and so forth. The simulation platform can be used to simulate some complex services and applications for Internet or distributed network. The simulators with different functions can be embedded in the simulation platform. As a demonstration, this chapter provides two immune network computation models to generate the emergent services through computer simulation experiments on the platform. The experimental results show that the bio-entities on the platform provide quickly services to the users’ requests with short response time. The interactions among bio-entities maintain the load balance of the bio-network and make the resources be utilized reasonably. With the advantages of adaptability, extensibility, and survivability, the bio-network architecture provides a novel way to design new intelligent Internet information services and applications.

1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 [1,25(OH)2D3] is a potent inducer of differentiation in myeloid leukemia cells, but its clinical use is limited due to its hypercalcaemic effect and resistance. Carnosic acid is a plant-derived polyphenol food preservative with chemoprotective effects against carcinogens. Recent research has shown that carnosic acid potentiates the effects of 1,25(OH)2D3 on differentiation of human leukemia cells. This study examined the effects of 1,25(OH)2D3 in combination with carnosic acid on monocytic differentiation as well as intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) and Ca2+ levels in human leukemia HL-60 cells.HL-60 cells were randomly treated with 1 nmol/L 1,25(OH)2D3, 100 nmol/L 1,25(OH)2D3, 10 micromol/L carnosic acid, a combination of 1 nmol/L 1,25(OH)2D3 and 10 micromol/L carnosic acid or placebo. Cell growth was observed by MTT assay for 72 hrs at an interval of 24 hrs. Cells were harvested after 72 hrs of culture. Morphologic features of the cells were observed by microscopy. Flow cytometry was used to detect cell cycle, monocytic differentiation marker CD14 expression, and intracellular ROS and Ca2+ levels.A combination of 1 nmol/L 1,25(OH)2D3 and 10 micromol/L carnosic acid resulted in greater proliferation inhibition (Ab: 0.56 0+/- 0.020 vs 1.482 +/- 0.327; P0.01), mature monocytic features, G0 /G1 cell arrest, higher CD14 expression (57.62 +/- 0.817% vs 2.76 +/- 0.828%; P0.01), lower intracellular ROS levels (52.67 +/- 10.76% vs 86.46 +/- 40.52%; P0.01 and similar intracellular Ca2+ levels in HL-60 cells when compared with the placebo group. The ability of a combination of 1 nmol/L 1,25(OH)2D3 and 10 micromol/L carnosic acid to inhibit the proliferation and induce the differentiation of HL-60 cells was similar to that of 100 nmol/L 1,25(OH)2D3, while the intracellular Ca2+ level (115.64 +/- 17.74 nmol/L vs 185.75 +/- 27.38 nmol/L) was significantly lower than that in the 100 nmol/L 1,25(OH)2D3 group.Low concentration of 1,25(OH)2D3 combined with 10 micromol/L carnosic acid can produce enhanced differentiation, proliferation inhibition and antioxidant effects of HL-60 cells. The combination of the two inducers dose not increases intracellular Ca2+ levels.

We propose a new approach to DNA-based genetic algorithms (DNA-GA) to optimize the design parameters for a class of general Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy controllers. The optimized design parameters are the input fuzzy sets and the linear consequent of the rules. The DNA-GA uses virus DNA encoding method stemmed from the structure of the biological DNA. Specifically, we use the frameshift decoding method of the virus DNA to encode the design parameters of the fuzzy controllers. The genetic operators of the method are based on the DNA genetic operations. Another novel aspect of our method is the introduction of an adaptive mutation rate, which is tuned by using a fuzzy logic technique. Our encoding method can significantly shorten the code length of DNA chromosomes and is suitable for complex knowledge representation. In addition, the method allows for easy implementation of the genetic operations at the gene level in the DNA-GA. As a demonstration, we show how to implement the new method to optimize the design parameters of the TS fuzzy controller. Computer simulation indicates that the designed fuzzy controller is satisfactory in control of a nonlinear system.

In this paper, we focus on design of the efficient algorithms and tools for search and retrieval of documents on Internet. We propose an Internet information retrieval model based on mobile agent technique, fuzzy index algorithm, and genetic search methods. The whole work frame and the structure of the model are discussed. Mobile agents can be used to optimize network traffic for distributed applications. Efficient search of documents can be done with genetic algorithm that exploits the principles of temporal and spatial locality. Fuzzy index algorithm is used to intelligently evaluate the importance of the information searched on Internet. We have also implemented a software platform for experimenting with intelligent information retrieval on Internet using Java language. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our model.

In the title compound, C14H13BrO2, the phenyl ring is oriented at a dihedral angle of 72.6 (3)° with respect to the bromomethoxyphenyl ring. The crystal structure is stabilized by weak intermolecular C—H...O interactions.