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Purpose: To explore the effect of calcium dobesilate combined with hypoglycemic drugs in the treatment of cataract complicated with non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) and its effects on fundus microcirculation, intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1), monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1), and macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF). Methods: From March 2019 to January 2021, A total of 114 patients with cataract and NPDR were included, and the patients were assigned into the control and the observation groups by random number table method, with 57 cases/group. The control was given hypoglycemic drugs, and the observation was given calcium dobesilate combined therapy. The therapeutic efficacy, blood glucose and blood lipid levels, fluorescein fundus angiography results, fundus microcirculation indexes, retinal neovascularization-related factors, and ICAM-1, MCP-1, and MIF levels before and after treatment were compared between the two groups. Results: The total effective rate of treatment in the observation was higher vs. the control (P < 0.05); Fasting blood glucose (FBG), 2 h postprandial blood glucose (2hPG), glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1C), triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC) and low density lipoprotein (LDL) in the observation after treatment were reduced vs. the control (P < 0.05); The number of micro-hemangiomas in the observation after treatment was less vs. the control, and the area of hemorrhage, the area of exudation and the thickness of the yellow plate were smaller vs. the control (P < 0.05); The resistance index (RI) value of the observation after treatment was lower than the control, and the end-diastolic blood flow velocity (EDV) and the peak systolic blood flow velocity (PSV) of the observation were higher vs. the control (P < 0.05). ICAM-1, MCP-1, MIF, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in the observation after treatment were reduced vs. the control, but pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) were higher vs. the control (P < 0.05); one case of gastrointestinal reaction took place in the observation, but no adverse reaction occurred in the control, and no clear difference exhibited in the incidence of adverse reactions between the two groups (P > 0.05). Conclusion: Calcium dobesilate combined with hypoglycemic drugs has good clinical efficacy in the treatment of cataract complicated with NPDR, which can effectively reduce the level of blood glucose and blood lipids, reduce inflammation, and mitigate the microcirculation of branch retinal vein occlusion lesions.

Chromatographic retention index (RI) is an important parameter for describing the retention behavior of substances in chromatographic analysis. Experimentally determining the RI values of different aldehyde and ketone compounds in all kinds of polar stationary phases is expensive and time consuming. Quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) is an important chemometric technique that has been widely used to correlate the properties of chemicals to their molecular structures. Irrespective of whether the properties of a molecule have been experimentally determined, they can be calculated using QSAR models. It is therefore necessary and advisable to establish the QSAR model for predicting the RI value of aldehydes and ketones. Hologram QSAR (HQSAR) is a highly efficient QSAR approach that can easily generate QSAR models with good statistics and high prediction accuracy. A specific fragment of fingerprint, known as a molecular hologram, is proposed in the HQSAR approach and used as a structural descriptor to build the proposed QSAR model. In general, individual HQSAR models are built in QSAR researches. However, individual QSAR models are usually affected by underfitting and overfitting. The ensemble modeling method, which integrate several individual models through certain consensus strategies, can overcome the shortcomings of individual models. It is worth studying whether ensemble modeling can improve the prediction ability of the HQSAR method in order to build more accurate and reliable QSAR models. Therefore, this study investigates the QSAR model for chromatographic RI of aldehydes and ketones using ensemble modeling and the HQSAR method. Two individual HQSAR models comprising 34 compounds in two stationary phases, DB-210 and HP-Innowax, were established. The prediction ability of the two established models was assessed by external test set validation and leave-one-out cross validation (LOO-CV). The investigated 34 compounds were randomly assigned into two groups. Group Ⅰ comprised 26 compounds, and Group Ⅱ comprised 8 compounds. In the validation of the external test set, Group Ⅰ was employed to manually optimize the two fragment parameters (fragment distinction (FD) and fragment size (FS)) and build the HQSAR models. Group Ⅱ was used as the test set to assess the predictive performance of the developed models. For the DB-210 stationary phase, the optimal individual HQSAR model was obtained while setting the FD and FS to "donor/acceptor atoms (DA)" and 1-9, respectively. For the HP-Innowax stationary phase, the optimal individual HQSAR model was obtained by setting the FD and FS to "DA" and 4-7 respectively. The squared correlation coefficient of cross validation ( [Formula: see text] for predicting the RI values of the DB-210 and HP-Innowax stationary phases were 0.927 and 0.919, 0.956 and 0.979, 0.929 and 0.963, 0.927 and 0.958, and 0.935 and 0.963, respectively. Compared to the individual HQSAR models, the established ensemble HQSAR models show better robustness and accuracy, thus establishing that ensemble modeling is an effective approach. The combination of HQSAR and the ensemble modeling method is a practicable and promising method for studying and predicting the RI values of aldehydes and ketones.

This paper explores the extent to which commodity prices can predict GDP growth rates of various countries using indices of 27 commonly traded commodity futures. Commodity returns can strongly predict the next quarter's GDP growth, while the basis shows a reasonable level of predictive power. Overall, commodity prices can be considered a leading indicator of economic growth; increasing commodity prices and basis values indicate a stronger future economy.

A quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) study on the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of 120 Gemini surfactants was performed with hologram quantitative structure-activity relationship (HQSAR) technique. In the proposed HQSAR model, three fragment parameters, fragment distinction, fragment size and fragment length, were set to “A, B, C and D”, “7–10” and “307” respectively. Two conventional validation techniques, external test set validation and leave-one-out cross-validation (LOO-CV), were utilized to evaluate the forecasting accuracy of as-proposed model. As the result, the Q F 3 2 , concordance correlation coefficient, root mean squared error, r ¯ m 2 and Δr m2 of external test set validation is 0.9799, 0.9803, 0.1757, 0.9429 and 0.0100, respectively. The root mean squared error, r ¯ m 2 and Δr m2 of LOO-CV is 0.2734, 0.9296 and 0.0436, respectively. It is demonstrated that the HQSAR model built in this work is available and accurate for preliminarily studying and predicting the CMC of Gemini surfactants. Moreover, HQSAR is shown to be a promising approach for building up QSPR model in relation to the CMC of Gemini surfactants.

Planting of forage can alleviate grazing pressure on natural ecosystems. In the Inner Mongolian environment, higher forage yields can be expected under irrigation because water is a key factor that limits plant growth. Lower grass yield caused by land degradation and climatic change highlight the potential importance of irrigated forage for maintaining livestock production in this environment. The present study in the Xilingol area of Inner Mongolia aimed to identify forage varieties producing high-yielding, quality forage. Three lucerne (alfalfa) varieties (Medicago sativa L. cvv. Aohan and Zhaodong, Medicago varia Martyn) and a grass (Elymus nutans Griseb) were assessed. Irrigation commenced when soil moisture at 10 cm depth reached the wilting coefficient, and ceased when soil reached field capacity. After 4 months, irrigation had significantly increased specific leaf area, tiller numbers and yield under irrigation (P