Air pollution is a major worldwide concern, and exposure to particulate matter (PM) can increase the risks of pulmonary diseases. Normal human bronchial epithelial cells were applied to clarify the ...role of ultrafine PM (UFPM) in the pathogenesis of pulmonary toxic effects with realistic alveolar deposition doses. The UFPM used in this research originated from vehicular emissions and coal combustion. UFPM exposure of up to 72 h was found to induce significant time- and concentration-dependent decreases in cell viability. Exposure to UFPM increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation through heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) inhibition and induced massive oxidative stress that increased the interleukin-8 (IL-8) expression. UFPM also reduced the pulmonary trans-epithelial electrical resistance through the depletion of zonula occludens (ZO) proteins. Finally, UFPM decreased the α1-antitrypsin (A1AT) expression, which implies high risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The evidence demonstrates that exposure to UFPM, even at very low concentrations, may affect the functions of the respiratory system.
The aim of this study was to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the placement of multiple wearable sensors for the purpose of analyzing and classifying the gaits of patients with neurological ...disorders. Seven inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors were placed at seven locations: the lower back (L5) and both sides of the thigh, distal tibia (shank), and foot. The 20 subjects selected to participate in this study were separated into two groups: stroke patients (11) and patients with neurological disorders other than stroke (brain concussion, spinal injury, or brain hemorrhage) (9). The temporal parameters of gait were calculated using a wearable device, and various features and sensor configurations were examined to establish the ideal accuracy for classifying different groups. A comparison of the various methods and features for classifying the three groups revealed that a combination of time domain and gait temporal feature-based classification with the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) algorithm outperformed the other methods of feature-based classification. The classification results of different sensor placements revealed that the sensor placed on the shank achieved higher accuracy than the other sensor placements (L5, foot, and thigh). The placement-based classification of the shank sensor achieved 89.13% testing accuracy with the Decision Tree (DT) classifier algorithm. The results of this study indicate that the wearable IMU device is capable of differentiating between the gait patterns of healthy patients, patients with stroke, and patients with other neurological disorders. Moreover, the most favorable results were reported for the classification that used the combination of time domain and gait temporal features as the model input and the shank location for sensor placement.
Apoptosis and fibrosis play a vital role in myocardial infarction (MI) induced tissue injury. Although microRNAs have been the focus of many studies on cardiac apoptosis and fibrosis in MI, the ...detailed effects of miR‐26a is needed to further understood. The present study demonstrated that miR‐26a was downregulated in ST‐elevation MI (STEMI) patients and oxygen‐glucose deprivation (OGD)‐treated H9c2 cells. Downregulation of miR‐26a was closely correlated with the increased expression of creatine kinase, creatine kinase‐MB and troponin I in STEMI patients. Further analysis identified that ataxia–telangiectasia mutated (ATM) was a target gene for miR‐26a based on a bioinformatics analysis. miR‐26a overexpression effectively reduced ATM expression, apoptosis, and apoptosis‐related proteins in OGD‐treated H9c2 cells. In a mouse model of MI, the expression of miR‐26a was significantly decreased in the infarct zone of the heart, whereas apoptosis and ATM expression were increased. miR‐26a overexpression effectively reduced ATM expression and cardiac apoptosis at Day 1 after MI. Furthermore, we demonstrated that overexpression of miR‐26a improved cardiac function and reduced cardiac fibrosis by the reduced expression of collagen type I and connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) in mice at Day 14 after MI. Overexpression of miR‐26a or ATM knockdown decreased collagen I and CTGF expression in cultured OGD‐treated cardiomyocytes. Taken together, these data demonstrate a prominent role for miR‐26a in linking ATM expression to ischemia‐induced apoptosis and fibrosis, key features of MI progression. miR‐26a reduced MI development by affecting ATM expression and could be targeted in the treatment of MI.
Our study demonstrated that ataxia–telangiectasia mutated (ATM) is the target for miR‐26a. miR‐26a attenuated cardiac apoptosis and fibrosis by targeting ATM both in vitro and in vivo. Additionally, miR‐26a regulated the expression of collagen type I and connective tissue growth factor (CTGF). We elucidated the role and function of miR‐26a in cardiac apoptosis and fibrosis, suggesting that miR‐26a may lead to a new therapeutic intervention in heart disease.
Gastric cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. The correlation of Helicobacter pylori and the etiology of gastric cancer was substantially certain. Cholesterol-rich ...microdomains (also called lipid rafts), which provide platforms for signaling, are associated with H. pylori-induced pathogenesis leading to gastric cancer. Patients who have been prescribed statins, inhibitors of 3-hydroxy-3-methyl glutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase, have exhibited a reduced risk of several types of cancer. However, no studies have addressed the effect of statins on H. pylori-associated gastric cancer from the antineoplastic perspective. In this study, we showed that treatment of gastric epithelial cells with simvastatin reduced the level of cellular cholesterol and led to attenuation of translocation and phosphorylation of H. pylori cytotoxin-associated gene A (CagA), which is recognized as a major determinant of gastric cancer development. Additionally, a nationwide case-control study based on data from the Taiwanese National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) was conducted. A population-based case-control study revealed that patients who used simvastatin exhibited a significantly reduced risk of gastric cancer (adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 0.76, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.70-0.83). In patients exhibiting H. pylori infection who were prescribed simvastatin, the adjusted OR for gastric cancer was 0.25 (95% CI = 0.12-0.50). Our results combined an in vitro study with a nationwide population analysis reveal that statin use might be a feasible approach to prevent H. pylori-associated gastric cancer.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Twinning is demonstrated to be an effective way of enhancing efficiencies of metallic catalysts toward electrolytic water splitting. Dendritic Cu possessing dense coherent nanotwin (NT) boundaries ...(NTCu‐5nm) is successfully prepared with an organic‐assisted electrodeposition at high pulse current densities. NT boundaries significantly improve electrocatalytic efficiencies and stability of NTCu‐5nm over nanocrystalline Cu (NCCu), reducing overpotentials at 10 mA cm−2 for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) from 378 to 281 mV and from 235 to 88 mV for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), with a small chronoamperometric decay of 5% after 100 h continuous overall water splitting at an ultrahigh initial current density of 500 mA cm−2, largely outperforming the large chronoamperometric decay of 27% for only 1 h operation of the NCCu//NCCu couple. The defective twin boundaries enable formation of active CuIIIO2− at low overpotentials, thus enhancing OER performance. The synergistic geometric and electronic effects induced by the twin boundaries result in shifts in Gibbs free energies of hydrogen adsorption (ΔGH) toward the apex of a volcano plot of exchange current density versus ΔGH, leading to the remarkable improvement in HER activity.
Dendritic Cu, possessing abundant narrowly spaced coherent twin boundaries, demonstrates its remarkable catalytic performance toward electrolytic water splitting. The success is attributed to enhanced electrical and chemical properties of the twinned phase. The present work opens a new promising chapter for breakthrough catalyst design through 2D defect engineering, and can be extended to a wide range of catalytic processes.
Measuring the distance is one of the main objectives for sensor development. In this article, we present a new sensor system design for depth recovery. It is based on stereopsis with the integrated ...rotation of an image sensor. Different from conventional stereo vision systems with multiple cameras, the proposed rotational stereo configuration is built upon a single imaging device. By directing its lateral motion with a circular constraint, the visual parallax is generated from multiple viewpoints. The image pairs captured with the integrated sensor rotation are used for the correspondence matching and disparity computation. Moreover, a variation of multiple-baseline stereo with multiple base-angle implementation is proposed. It provides a flexible baseline setting to improve the depth measurement accuracy. The geometric formulation and computational algorithm are derived and developed. In the experiments, a prototype range sensing device is constructed. The results obtained from the real scene environment have demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed depth measurement approach.
A total of 47 marine aerosols collected from the East China Sea between the spring of 2005 and the spring of 2007 were analyzed for both the water-soluble and the total concentrations of 25 trace ...elements and phosphorus and the water-soluble major ions, organic carbon, as well as silicon. During the sampling periods, eight samples were significantly influenced by Asian dust events. The total concentrations of both the chemical species of dust origin and of anthropogenic origin were higher during the Asian dust period, suggesting that the Asian outflow of air pollutants often accompanies the Asian dust advection. Overall, the average solubilities were ≤
20% for Al, Fe, Ti, Cr, Y, Sn, Ba, Ni, Ga, and Mo; 20–40% for Co, Cs, Rb, Sb, and Pb; 40–60% for Mn, V, Cu, Ge, and P; and ≥
60% for Tl, Sr, As, Zn, Cd, and Se. The solubilities for many elements are lower in the high dust period than during the polluted northeasterly monsoon and the background summer period. A variety of controlling factors of the solubilities of the elements were discussed in this study. The relative importance could be concluded as follows: acid processing
>
chemical speciation
≈
aerosol source
>
dust loading. Finally, we estimated the dry depositional fluxes of soluble elements by assuming certain dry deposition velocities for each element. The fluxes were 39
±
50 µg/m
2/d for soluble Fe and 41
±74 µg/m
2/d for the combination of some bioavailable elements (e.g., Zn, Cu, Mn, Ba, Co, V, Ni, and Cd) during the northeasterly monsoon. Atmospheric deposition is an additional source of nutrient elements that may be important not only in the coastal/marginal sea, but also particularly in the remote open ocean because aerosol trace elements are associated mostly with fine mode particles that can be brought farther from the source regions.
Since the affirming of global warming, most wind energy projects have focused on the large-scale Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs). In recent years, the fast-growing wind energy sector and the ...demand for smarter grids have led to the use of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs) for decentralized energy generation systems, both in urban and remote rural areas. The goals of this study are to improve the Savonius-type VAWT’s efficiency and oscillation. The main concept is to redesign a Novel Blade profile using the Taguchi Robust Design Method and the ANSYS-Fluent simulation package. The convex contour of the blade faces against the wind, creating sufficient lift force and minimizing drag force; the concave contour faces up to the wind, improving or maintaining the drag force. The result is that the Novel Blade improves blade performance by 65% over the Savonius type at the best angular position. In addition, it decreases the oscillation and noise accordingly. This study achieved its two goals.
Diabetes mellitus is associated with a high risk of developing gastric cancer (GC). Metformin, which is conventionally used to treat type 2 diabetes, induces AMP-activated protein kinase signaling ...and suppresses gluconeogenesis. Recent studies have reported that metformin is associated with beneficial effects in cancer prevention and treatment owing to its anti-tumor effects. This makes metformin a potential medication for GC therapy. However, contradicting reports have emerged regarding the efficacy of metformin in reducing the risk of GC. This review summarizes the impact of metformin on mitigating GC risk by analyzing clinical databases. The mechanism underlying the anti-tumor effect of metformin on GC is also discussed.
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