Abstract Background and purpose: the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet has multifunctional health benefits. We evaluated the effects of low-sodium salt applied to Chinese modified DASH diet on arterial stiffness in older patients with hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Methods: sixty-one older adults with hypertension and type 2 diabetes were randomly allocated to low sodium salt group (n = 31) or normal sodium salt group (n = 30). They were given the Chinese modified DASH diet plus low-sodium salt (52 % sodium chloride) or same diet plus regular salt (99 % sodium chloride) for eight weeks, respectively. Brachial and ankle pulse wave conduction velocity, ankle brachial index and atherosclerosis-related indices were measured at baseline and week 8. In addition, 24-hour urine and blood samples were measured at baseline, the 4th week and the end of the intervention. Results: as compared with the baseline, the low sodium salt group significantly decreased in ankle brachial index (-0.09 ± 0.11, p < 0.001) and brachial and ankle pulse wave conduction velocity (-133.07 ± 265.99 cm/s, p = 0.010) at week 8 while the normal sodium salt group only decreased significantly in ankle brachial index (-0.06 ± 0.12, p = 0.010) at week 8. Conclusion: the low-sodium salt applied to Chinese modified DASH diet may improve arterial stiffness in patients with hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Further research with an extended follow-up is needed.

Resumen Antecedentes y propósito: la dieta DASH (del inglés Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) tiene beneficios multifuncionales para la salud. Evaluamos los efectos de una sal baja en sodio aplicada a la versión modificada china de la dieta DASH sobre la rigidez arterial en pacientes mayores con hipertensión y diabetes tipo 2. Métodos: sesenta y un adultos mayores con hipertensión arterial y diabetes tipo 2 fueron asignados al azar al grupo de sal baja en sodio (n = 31) o al grupo de sal con contenido normal de sodio (n = 30). Se les administró la versión china modificada de la dieta DASH más sal baja en sodio (52 % de cloruro de sodio) o la misma dieta más sal con la cantidad normal de sodio (99 % cloruro de sodio) durante ocho semanas, respectivamente. Se midieron la velocidad de onda de pulso brazo-tobillo, el índice brazo-tobillo y los índices relacionados con la aterosclerosis al inicio del estudio y a la semana 8. Se recogieron muestras de orina y sangre de 24 horas al inicio, a la cuarta semana y al final de la intervención. Resultados: en comparación con el estado inicial, el grupo de sal baja en sodio disminuyó significativamente el índice brazo-tobillo (-0,09 ± 0,11, p < 0,001) y la velocidad de onda de pulso brazo-tobillo (-133,07 ± 265,99 cm/s, p = 0,010) en la semana 8, mientras que el grupo de sal con contenido normal de sodio solo disminuyó significativamente en el índice brazo-tobillo (-0,06 ± 0,12, p = 0,010) en la semana 8. Conclusión: la sal baja en sodio aplicada a la versión china modificada de la dieta DASH puede mejorar la rigidez arterial en pacientes con hipertensión y diabetes tipo 2. Se necesitan más investigaciones con un seguimiento prolongado.

ABSTRACT This study investigates the feasibility of low-grade hard asphalt in high-temperature regions. We conducted an analysis of the high-temperature rheological properties of asphalt before and after short-term and long-term aging using the dynamic shear rheological (DSR) test and multi-stress creep recovery (MSCR) test. Additionally, the road performance of the asphalt mixture was studied by rutting test and low temperature beam bending test. The results indicate that the 30# asphalt demonstrates superior anti-rutting performance compared to the 50# asphalt. Furthermore, the rutting factor and fatigue factor of the 30# asphalt during aging are significantly higher than those of the 50# asphalt. With increasing temperature, stress level, and stress action time, the strain of the asphalt gradually increases. The unrecoverable creep compliance of the 50# asphalt exceeds that of the 30#. Although the high-temperature performance of the 30# asphalt mixture outperforms that of the 50# asphalt mixture, it exhibits lower flexural tensile strength and deformation ability at low temperatures compared to the 50# asphalt mixture. Overall, low-grade asphalt demonstrates relatively stable stress variations and exhibits good high-temperature stability.

Abstract The study investigated that clinic significance and molecular mechanism of Plin5 in spinal cord injury (SCI). Serum levels of Plin5 was down-regulated and there is a negative correlation between Plin5 and IL-1β levels in patients with SCI,. Human Plin5 protein could reduce inflammation, and prevented spinal cord injury in rat model of SCI. Over-expression of Plin5 reduced inflammation divisors via activation of SIRT1 and suppression of NLRP3 in vitro model of SCI; down-regulation of Plin5 promoted inflammation divisors via inactivation of SIRT1 and induction of NLRP3 in vitro model of SCI. SIRT1 is important targets of Plin5 in inflammation divisors of SCI. The inhibition of SIRT1 reduced the effects of Plin5 on inflammation divisors of SCI. The activation of NLRP3 also reduced the effects of Plin5 on inflammation divisors of SCI. We concluded that clinic Serum levels of Plin5 is therapeutic target of SCI and Plin5 reduced inflammation in SCI via SIRT1 dependent suppression of NLRP3 Inflammasome.

Abstract Black tea has a long history in China, but in export trade, pesticide residues often exceed the standard. To obtain a rapid, accurate, and non-destructive identification method of pesticide residues on black tea, the fluorescence hyperspectral data of dry black tea sprayed with distilled water and six pesticides were collected in this study. The spectra were preprocessed by multiplicative scatter correction (MSC) and standard normal variate (SNV). Then the uninformative variable elimination (UVE), successive projections algorithm (SPA), competitive adaptive re-weighted sampling (CARS), UVE-SPA, and CARS-SPA were used to feature extraction. This study proposes a machine learning model composed of a one-dimensional convolutional neural network backbone (1D CNN backbone) and a random forest classifier (RF classifier) to identify pesticide residues on black tea, and the 1D CNN-RF model was compared with three other machine learning models (support vector machine, RF, and 1D CNN). The results show that MSC-CARS-SPA-1D CNN-RF is the best model for identifying pesticide residues on black tea in which the accuracy of the test set is 99.05%. Combined with fluorescence hyperspectral technology, the proposed 1D CNN-RF model has great potential in the non-destructive identification of pesticide residues on black tea.

Abstract Salidroside (SAL) has been confirmed to have some protective effects against inflammatory injury. However, little information was established as to the mechanism of these protective effects. To this effect, we designed this study to explore the protective effects and mechanisms of SAL against myocardial infarction (MI). A rat MI model was established and divided into five groups (n = 6): sham, MI, MI+SAL, MI+ LY294002 (PI3K inhibitor), and MI+SAL+ LY294002. The cardiac function and histological pathology were analyzed with a color Doppler ultrasonic diagnostic instrument. Anti-oxidative enzyme activities and the production of inflammatory media were assayed by biochemical kits and ELISA. MI size and fibrosis were assayed by Masson’s trichrome staining while Bax/Bcl-2 and PI3K/Akt/Nrf2/HO-1 were assayed by Western blotting and immunofluorescence. The results showed that SAL significantly improved the left ventricle ejection fraction and fractional shortening, decreased the MI size and fibrosis, inhibited apoptosis and promoted blood vessel formation. SAL promoted anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory abilities. Moreover, SAL enhanced PI3K/ Akt/Nrf2/HO-1 expression. To this effect, we designed this study suggested that SAL induced repair of MI via PI3K/A kt/ Nrf2/HO-1.

OBJECTIVES: This study intended to explore the effect of T regulatory cells (Tregs) in the perinatal liver against LPS-induced inflammation in a preterm birth mouse model. Moreover, the role of adoptive Tregs on the inflammatory response induced by LPS was also studied. METHODS: Female BALB/C mice were injected intraperitoneally (IP) with LPS dissolved in normal saline solution at a dose of 50 µg/kg. Spleens from pregnant mice were used to obtain Tregs. The expression of Forkhead family transcription factor-3 (Foxp3), Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR-4), and Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) were assessed from fetal liver tissues by polymerase chain reaction and western blotting. RESULTS: LPS administered to mice induced an inflammatory response in the perinatal liver, and this inflammatory response was negatively regulated by Tregs in the experimental group. Maternal-fetal tolerance was maintained by Tregs. Transmission of Tregs was estimated in different experimental groups based on the mRNA expression of TLR-4, IL-6, HO-1, and Foxp3. CONCLUSIONS: After analysis of the experimental data, it was determined that Tregs exhibited regulatory potential against LPS-induced inflammatory response. Further, it was concluded that the transmission of Tregs improved the mother’s immune tolerance against LPS-induced inflammation in the fetal liver.

OBJECTIVES: Minimally invasive paracentetic suprapubic cystostomy is a technique that should be learned by all surgical trainees and residents. This study aimed to develop a self-made training model for paracentetic suprapubic cystostomy and placement of the suprapubic catheter and then to evaluate its effectiveness in training fourth-year medical students. METHODS: Medical students were divided into an experimental group receiving comprehensive training involving literature, video, and model use and a control group receiving all the same training protocols as the experimental group except without hands-on practice using the model. Each student’s performance was video-recorded, followed by subjective and objective evaluations by urology experts and statistical analysis. RESULTS: All students completed the surgical procedures successfully. The experimental group’s performance scores were significantly higher than those of the control group (median final performance scores of 91.0 vs. 86.8, respectively). Excellent scores were achieved by more students in the experimental group than in the control group (55% vs. 20%), and fewer poor scores were observed in the experimental group than in the control group (5% vs. 30%). CONCLUSIONS: Based on its cost-effectiveness, reusability, and training effectiveness, this paracentetic suprapubic cystostomy training model is able to achieve goals in teaching practice quickly and easily. Use of the model should be encouraged for training senior medical students and resident physicians who may be expected to perform emergent suprapubic catheter insertion at some time.

Abstract In the article, a new approach considering structural local failure for topology optimization of continuum structure is proposed. It aims at not only lowering the risk of local failure in the concerned structural regions, but also ensuring a good stiffness of the structure. The local failure may be caused by the structural uncertainties or possible structural fatigue. To this end, a criterion to evaluate the effect of one local failure on the structure is introduced. This criterion is minimized to reduce the probability of structural damage based on an initialized structure whose compliance is optimized. Solid Isotropic with Material Penalization (SIMP) method and Optimality Criteria (OC) method are combined to solve the design problem. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is verified by a series of numerical examples. Furthermore, experiments merging with additive manufacturing technique are taken to prove the practical ability of the method in actual engineering.

ABSTRACT We compared the morphology of the erythrocytes of five anurans, two toad species - Bufo gargarizans (Cantor, 1842) and Duttaphrynus melanostictus (Schneider, 1799) and three frog species - Fejervarya limnocharis (Gravenhorst, 1829), Microhyla ornata (Duméril & Bibron, 1841), and Rana zhenhaiensis (Ye, Fei & Matsui, 1995). We then reconstructed the ancestral state of erythrocyte size (ES) and nuclear size (NS) in amphibians based on a molecular tree. Nine morphological traits of erythrocytes were all significantly different among the five species. The results of principal component analysis showed that the first component (49.1% of variance explained) had a high positive loading for erythrocyte length, nuclear length, NS and ratio of erythrocyte length/erythrocyte width; the second axis (28.5% of variance explained) mainly represented erythrocyte width and ES. Phylogenetic generalized least squares analysis showed that the relationship between NS and ES was not affected by phylogenetic relationships although there was a significant linear relationship between these two variables. These results suggested that (1) the nine morphological traits of erythrocytes in the five anuran species were species-specific; (2) in amphibians, larger erythrocytes generally had larger nuclei.

The antifungal properties of eugenol were tested against ten plant pathogenic fungal species and detailed studies were conducted regarding in vitro activity of eugenol on Botrytis cinerea. The EC50 value of eugenol on mycelial radial growth of B. cinerea was 38.6 μg/mL; however, eugenol had no bioactivity against conidia germination. B. cinerea hyphae treated with eugenol showed strong propidium iodide fluorescence in the cytosol. Eugenol increased the concentration of potassium ion and cellular materials in the medium. Furthermore, light and scanning electron microscopy observations on hyphae exposed to eugenol revealed considerable morphological alterations in hyphae, such as cytoplasmic coagulation, vacuolation, and hyphal shriveling. Eugenol induced the generation of H2O2 and increased free Ca2+ in the cytoplasm. These results strongly support the idea that the antifungal activity of eugenol is due to membrane binding and permeability alteration, leading to destabilization and disruption of the plasma membrane.