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Objective: Sepsis can have severe implications on lung function, leading to acute lung injury (ALI), a major contributor to sepsis-related mortality. Anisodamine hydrobromide (Ani HBr), a bioactive constituent derived from the root of Scopolia tangutica Maxim, a plant endemic to China, has demonstrated efficacy in treating septic shock. We aim to explore whether Ani HBr can alleviate sepsis-triggered ALI and elucidate the fundamental mechanisms involved. Materials and method: The protective effects of Ani HBr were assessed in two models: in vitro, lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW264.7 cells, and in vivo, cecal ligation puncture (CLP)-induced sepsis. To measure the cell viability of RAW264.7 cells after Ani HBr treatment, we used the CCK-8 assay. We quantified the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines expression using ELISA. We also measured the expression of pyrotosis indicators by quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), Western blotting, and immunofluorescence. Results: Our study demonstrates that Ani HBr can alleviate pulmonary edema, bleeding, and excessive inflammation induced by CLP. Additionally, it exhibits protective effects against cytotoxicity induced by LPS in RAW264.7 macrophage cells. Furthermore, Ani HBr downregulates the mRNA and protein levels of NLRP3, Caspase-1, GSDMD, IL-18, and IL-1β in both animal models and cell cultures, thereby inhibiting pyroptosis in a similar mechanism to AC-YVAD-CMK (AYC)'s blockade of Caspase-1. Moreover, Ani HBr suppresses the production and release of proinflammatory cytokines. Conclusion: These findings suggest that Ani HBr could serve as a protective agent against sepsis-induced ALI by suppressing pyroptosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human vision system remains alert for dangers and adopts high‐speed and low‐power coding methods to convert the image information to spike signals. To meet the demand for danger alert in machine vision, it is important to design intelligent sensors to integrate the functions of image perception and high‐efficiency coding for high‐priority analysis. Inspired by the human visual system, a MoS2 phototransistor is introduced on SiNx substrate enabling simultaneous image perception and time‐to‐first‐spike (TTFS) coding. The device demonstrates exceptional performance in encoding 3‐bit grayscale images, achieving a low mean squared error of 0.008 and a high structural similarity index of 0.9784. Spiking neural networks (SNN) with TTFS coding achieve high recognition accuracy (98.86%) while reducing spike count by 75%. The device array also perceives motion direction and object states by converting data temporally. This work establishes a hardware foundation to promote the performance of SNNs in efficiently identifying crucial information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Porosity and particle arrangement are important parameters affecting soil tortuosity, so it is of great significance to determine the intrinsic relationship between them when studying soil permeability characteristics. Theoretical derivation and geometric analysis methods are used to derive a two-dimensional geometric tortuosity model. The model is a function of particle arrangement parameters (m and θ) and porosity. An analysis of the model and its parameters shows that: (1) The arrangement of particles is one of the reasons for the different functional relationship between tortuosity and porosity, which proved that the tortuosity is not only related to the porosity but also affected by the particle arrangement. (2) The greater the anisotropy parameter m is, the greater the tortuosity is, indicating m varies when fluid passes through the soil from different sides resulting in different values of permeability. (3) The tortuosity increases with the increase in the blocking parameters θ. (4) With increasing porosity, the influence of the parameters m and θ on the tortuosity gradually decreases, suggesting that the influence of particle arrangement on tortuosity gradually decreases. The results presented here increase the understanding of the physical mechanisms controlling tortuosity and, hence, the process of fluid seepage through soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]