Silver film is commonly used to examine the structure and composition of molecules due to its surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) effect. A simple method for preparing SERS silver films is proposed in this paper by electrodeposition in an amide-based liquid mixture (urea-acetamide-LiBr). The electrochemical behavior of silver in urea-acetamide-LiBr mixture was studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperometry. It was found that the nucleation mechanism of silver shifts to instantaneous nucleation under diffusion control with increasing overpotential and temperature. The energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) investigations confirmed that the obtained deposits are pure silver. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis showed that the morphology of the silver deposits depends on the deposition potential and temperature. Rhodamine 6G was used as probe molecules for SERS experiments, showing that these new active substrates have high sensitivity to SERS response with high enhancement factors, of approximately 107, and enable Raman scattering even for diluted solutions. surfaceenhanced surface enhanced (SERS effect amidebased amide based ureaacetamideLiBr. ureaacetamideLiBr urea acetamide LiBr . (urea-acetamide-LiBr) CV (CV chronoamperometry temperature EDS (EDS Xray X ray XRD (XRD SEM (SEM G experiments factors 107 solutions (urea-acetamide-LiBr 10 1

Abstract To analyze the clinical value of turbidity-elimination gout soup combined with external application of traditional Chinese medicine to improve pain and the volume of tophi in patients with gout. A total of 94 patients with gout were selected as the study samples. They were randomly divided into control group treated with colchicine tablets and observation group treated with turbidity-elimination gout soup combined with external application of traditional Chinese medicine. Two groups of patients were compared before and after treatment in terms of pain, volume of tophi, score of TCM symptoms and laboratory indicators. There was no significant difference in NRS score, volume of tophi, redness and swelling of joints, heat and pain and other laboratory indicators between the two groups before treatment (P>0.05); NRS score, tophi, the integral of symptoms and other symptoms, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate, white blood cell count, blood uric acid level and etc. laboratory indexes of patients in the observation group were lower than those of the control group after treatment (P<0.05). Combination will effectively reduce the pain of patients with gout, reduce the volume of tophi, correct clinical symptoms and improve the level of laboratory indicators, with clinical reference and implementation efficiency.

Hypertrophic scar (HS) formation is a common complication that develops after skin injury; however, there are few effective and specific therapeutic approaches for HS. Emodin has previously been reported to inhibit mechanical stress-induced HS inflammation. Here, we investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying the inhibitory effects of emodin on HS formation. First, we conducted in vitro assays that revealed that emodin inhibited M1 and M2 polarization in rat macrophages. We subsequently established a combined rat model of tail HS and dorsal subcutaneous polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) sponge-induced wounds. Rats were treated with emodin or vehicle (DMEM). Tail scar specimens were harvested at 14, 28, and 42 days post-incision and subjected to H&E staining and Masson's trichrome staining. Histopathological analyses confirmed that emodin attenuated HS formation and fibrosis. Macrophages were separated from wound cells collected from the PVA sponge at 3 and 7 days after implantation. Flow cytometry analysis demonstrated that emodin suppressed in vivo macrophage recruitment and polarization at the wound site. Finally, we explored the molecular mechanisms of emodin in modulating macrophage polarization by evaluating the expression levels of selected effectors of the Notch and TGF-β pathways in macrophages isolated from PVA sponges. Western blot and qPCR assays showed that Notch1, Notch4, Hes1, TGF-β, and Smad3 were downregulated in response to emodin treatment. Taken together, our findings suggested that emodin attenuated HS formation and fibrosis by suppressing macrophage polarization, which is associated with the inhibition of the Notch and TGF-β pathways in macrophages.

A simple and effective salting-out method was developed for the purification of the metallo-β-lactamase CcrA from Bacteroides fragilis based on the plasmid pMSZ02, in which the crude protein secreted into growth medium was precipitated by 80% sulfate saturation of the medium and purified with Q-Sepharose to offer pure CcrA with yield of 20.1 mg per litter medium. The dependence of the amount of protein precipitation on sulfate saturation was investigated, which showed that more than 80% sulfate saturation resulted the maximum protein precipitated. The purified CcrA was evaluated by steady-state kinetics using penicillin G and cephalothin V as substrates, which showed the Km values of 68±2 and 17±2 µM and Kcat values of 63±1 and 102±3 S-1, respectively. The comparison with the data of the protein from literature method showed that the salting-out method was viable, and it could be useful for the purification of other proteins secreted into growth medium.

A compact CPW-fed ultra-wideband antenna with dual band-notch characteristic is presented. Two notched frequency bands are obtained by embedding two U-shaped slots in the radiation patch and a rectangle slot in the ground plane. The two notched bands can be controlled by adjusting the length of the responding slots. The proposed antenna is successfully simulated, fabricated and tested. Experimental and numerical antenna shows that the proposed antenna with compact size of 21×28mm2, has an impedance bandwidth range from 3.1GHz to more than 11.0GHz for voltage standing-wave ratio less than 2, expect two notch band frequency 5GHz-6GHz for WLAN and 7.7GHz-8.5GHz for X-band for satellite communications in China.