Search

The actual combustion rate of pulverized coal in the blast furnace tuyere is hard to be measured. In this research, the combustion rate of pulverized coal injected into oxygen blast furnace was obtained by a new equipment. This equipment can simulate the actual blast furnace well, and the relationship between pulverized coal injection (PCI) ratio and AO/C was established by mathematical deduction. The experimental results show that the best combustibility of the four pulverized coals is C, and when the coal injection ratio is 350 kg/tHM, the combustion rate can be reached 79%, while the combustion rate of B in the same case is only 45.6%. With the increase of AO/C, the relative amount of oxygen to coal increases, the combustion conditions become better, and combustion rate of the pulverized coal increases. In addition, under the condition of high temperature and rapid combustion, with the increase of coal’s volatile, the combustion rate increases and the corresponding PCI ratio is also increased. By using the new equipment, the unburned coal under the oxygen blast furnace conditions can be collected for further study.

Objectives: Dysregulated chondrocyte metabolism is closely associated with the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis (OA). Suppressing chondrocyte catabolism to restore cartilage homeostasis has been extensively explored, whereas far less effort has been invested toward enhancing chondrocyte anabolism. This study aimed to repurpose clinically approved drugs as potential stimulators of chondrocyte anabolism in treating OA.Methods: Screening of a Food and Drug Administration-approved drug library; Assays for examining the chondroprotective effects of digoxin in vitro; Assays for defining the therapeutic effects of digoxin using a surgically-induced OA model; A propensity-score matched cohort study using The Health Improvement Network to examine the relationship between digoxin use and the risk of joint OA-associated replacement among patients with atrial fibrillation; identification and characterisation of the binding of digoxin to low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 4 (LRP4); various assays, including use of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing to delete LRP4 in human chondrocytes, for examining the dependence on LRP4 of digoxin regulation of chondrocytes.Results: Serial screenings led to the identification of ouabain and digoxin as stimulators of chondrocyte differentiation and anabolism. Ouabain and digoxin protected against OA and relieved OA-associated pain. The cohort study of 56 794 patients revealed that digoxin use was associated with reduced risk of OA-associated joint replacement. LRP4 was isolated as a novel target of digoxin, and deletion of LRP4 abolished digoxin's regulations of chondrocytes.Conclusions: These findings not only provide new insights into the understanding of digoxin's chondroprotective action and underlying mechanisms, but also present new evidence for repurposing digoxin for OA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose Experimental Approach Key Results Conclusions and Implications Chaperone‐mediated autophagy (CMA) is a selective type of autophagy targeting protein degradation and maintains high activity in many malignancies. Inhibition of the combination of HSC70 and LAMP2A can potently block CMA. At present, knockdown of LAMP2A remains the most specific method for inhibiting CMA and chemical inhibitors against CMA have not yet been discovered.Levels of CMA in non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tissue samples were confirmed by tyramide signal amplification dual immunofluorescence assay. High‐content screening was performed based on CMA activity, to identify potential inhibitors of CMA. Inhibitor targets were determined by drug affinity responsive target stability‐mass spectrum and confirmed by protein mass spectrometry. CMA was inhibited and activated to elucidate the molecular mechanism of the CMA inhibitor.Suppression of interactions between HSC70 and LAMP2A blocked CMA in NSCLC, restraining tumour growth. Polyphyllin D (PPD) was identified as a targeted CMA small‐molecule inhibitor through disrupting HSC70–LAMP2A interactions. The binding sites for PPD were E129 and T278 at the nucleotide‐binding domain of HSC70 and C‐terminal of LAMP2A, respectively. PPD accelerated unfolded protein generation to induce reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation by inhibiting HSC70–LAMP2A–eIF2α signalling axis. Also, PPD prevented regulatory compensation of macroautophagy induced by CMA inhibition via blocking the STX17–SNAP29–VAMP8 signalling axis.PPD is a targeted CMA inhibitor that blocked both HSC70–LAMP2A interactions and LAMP2A homo‐multimerization. CMA suppression without increasing the regulatory compensation from macroautophagy is a good strategy for NSCLC therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To perform a bibliometric analysis in the field of primary angle-closure disease (PACD) research to characterize current global trends and compare contributions from different countries, institutions, journals, and authors., Methods: All PACD-related publications from 1991 to 2022 from the Web of Science Core Collection database were extracted. Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer were used to collect publication data, analyze publication trends, and visualize relevant results., Results: A total of 1721 publications with 34 591 citations were identified. China produced the most publications (554) while ranking third in citations (8220 times). The United States contributed the most citations (12 315 times) with publications (362) ranking second. The Investigative Ophthalmology Visual Science was the most productive journal concerning PACD, and Aung Tin was the author with the highest number of publications in the field. Keywords were classified into three clusters, epidemiology and pathogenesis research, optical coherence tomography (OCT) and other imaging examinations, and glaucoma surgery treatment. Genome-wide association, susceptibility loci, OCT, and combined phacoemulsification have become new hot research topics in recent years since 2015., Conclusion: China, the United States, and Singapore make the most outstanding contributions in the field of PACD research. OCT, combined phacoemulsification, and gene mutation-related study, are considered the potential focus for future research., (International Journal of Ophthalmology Press.)

Objectives: Dysregulated chondrocyte metabolism is closely associated with the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis (OA). Suppressing chondrocyte catabolism to restore cartilage homeostasis has been extensively explored, whereas far less effort has been invested toward enhancing chondrocyte anabolism. This study aimed to repurpose clinically approved drugs as potential stimulators of chondrocyte anabolism in treating OA., Methods: Screening of a Food and Drug Administration-approved drug library; Assays for examining the chondroprotective effects of digoxin in vitro; Assays for defining the therapeutic effects of digoxin using a surgically-induced OA model; A propensity-score matched cohort study using The Health Improvement Network to examine the relationship between digoxin use and the risk of joint OA-associated replacement among patients with atrial fibrillation; identification and characterisation of the binding of digoxin to low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 4 (LRP4); various assays, including use of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing to delete LRP4 in human chondrocytes, for examining the dependence on LRP4 of digoxin regulation of chondrocytes., Results: Serial screenings led to the identification of ouabain and digoxin as stimulators of chondrocyte differentiation and anabolism. Ouabain and digoxin protected against OA and relieved OA-associated pain. The cohort study of 56 794 patients revealed that digoxin use was associated with reduced risk of OA-associated joint replacement. LRP4 was isolated as a novel target of digoxin, and deletion of LRP4 abolished digoxin's regulations of chondrocytes., Conclusions: These findings not only provide new insights into the understanding of digoxin's chondroprotective action and underlying mechanisms, but also present new evidence for repurposing digoxin for OA., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Objective: To investigate the disease spectrum and predominant diseases treated by abdominal acupuncture by data mining and analysis of journal articles on abdominal acupuncture, and to provide a reference for clinical diagnosis and treatment., Methods: Based on the database of abdominal acupuncture established by the research group, the data mining technique was used for the analysis and extraction of the articles on abdominal acupuncture included in this study., Results: A total of 788 original journal articles were included. Six departments and 96 disease categories, among which there were 45 internal diseases (46.84%) and 18 surgical diseases (18.75%) were involved. As for the diseases involved, cervical spondylosis had the highest frequency of 84, followed by low back and leg pain with a frequency of 77 and stroke sequela with a frequency of 67. Of all 788 studies, 519 (65.86%) used abdominal acupuncture combined with other therapies with a total frequency of 552, among which acupuncture had the highest frequency of 135 (24.46%), followed by oral administration of traditional Chinese medicine with a frequency of 81 (14.67%) and moxibustion with a frequency of 80 (14.49%). Abdominal acupuncture had a marked clinical effect in the treatment of various diseases, with the highest effective rate of 95.10% in surgical diseases., Conclusion: Abdominal acupuncture has a wide disease spectrum and is most frequently used for the treatment of cervical spondylosis, with a marked clinical effect. Abdominal acupuncture has unique therapeutic characteristics and advantages, but it can achieve a better clinical effect when combined with other therapies.

Objective: To study the corneal permeability of three different pirenzepine eye-drop solutions and provide reference for further clinical use., Methods: Sixty-three New Zealand white rabbits were divided into three groups. Each group of rabbits received 2% pirenzepine (pirenzepine group), 2% pirenzepine with 0.1% hyaluronic acid (hyaluronic acid group), or 2% pirenzepine with 0.1% azone (azone group). One drop eye-drops was applied to conjunctive sac every 5 min for six times. Aqueous samples were obtained from each group at 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0, 8.0, 12.0, 24.0 h after the last drop, respectively. Concentration of pirenzepine in these samples was determined by the HPLC (high pressure liquid chromatography). Stimulation symptom of rabbit eyes was also observed., Results: The concentrations of pirenzepine in aqueous humor were (0.40 +/- 0.06) microg/ml at 0.5 h, (0.53 +/- 0.03) microg/ml at 1.0 h, (1.52 +/- 0.33) microg/ml at 2.0 h and (0.15 +/- 0.02) microg/ml at 4.0 h in pirenzepine group. Aqueous humor concentration of pirenzepine in both 2% pirenzepine with 0.1% azone and 2% pirenzepine with 0.1% hyaluronic acid were significantly higher than that of single pirenzepine application, and their bioavailability in the groups with combinations of pirenzepine with 0.1% azone or 0.1% hyaluronic acid were 23.0 times and 3.4 times higher than that of single pirenzepine usage. No obvious irritate symptom was found in rabbit of all three groups after eye-drop applying., Conclusions: The combination application of pirenzepine with azone or hyaluronic acid has higher corneal permeability compared with pirenzepine alone. This result indicates that azone and hyaluronic acid could be used in pirenzepine eye-drop solution to increase corneal permeability.