Aims
This study investigated the role of L‐3‐n‐Butylphthalide (NBP) in cardiac protection.
Methods
The left anterior descending coronary arteries (LAD) of the rats were occluded for 30 min following ...by 2‐h reperfusion to make the ischaemia/reperfusion models. Neonatal cardiomyocytes were cultured and subjected to hypoxia. L‐3‐n‐Butylphthalide was administered intraperitoneally 2 h before the surgery and right after the reperfusion in the in vivo experiments or added to the culture medium in vitro. Haemodynamic parameters were recorded to evaluate the cardiac functions, triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) and Evens blue staining were used to determine the area of risk and infarct area, apoptotic cell numbers were counted with terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labelling (TUNEL) staining. Western blotting was used to determine the apoptotic protein levels and immune staining to determine the translocation of Glyceraldehyde‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) protein.
Results
Our research showed for the first time that L‐3‐n‐Butylphthalide had great effects in improving cardiac hemodynamic function and decreasing cardiac infarct areas and apoptotic cell numbers in the peri‐infarct areas. The apoptotic signals investigation showed that L‐3‐n‐Butylphthalide affected the mitochondrial pathway including Bcl‐2 protein expression, inhibition of caspase 3 activation and cytochrome C releasing. Besides, Glyceraldehyde‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase protein translocation was inhibited by L‐3‐n‐Butylphthalide treatment, and this effect was mediated by endogenous reactive oxygen species (ROS).
Conclusion
L‐3‐n‐Butylphthalide protects cardiomyocytes from ischaemia/reperfusion‐induced apoptosis by antioxidant effect and affecting mitochondrial apoptotic pathway.
Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is effective in treating recurrent Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). Bacterial colonization in recipients after FMT has been studied, but little is known ...about the role of the gut fungal community, or mycobiota. Here, we show evidence of gut fungal dysbiosis in CDI, and that donor-derived fungal colonization in recipients is associated with FMT response. CDI is accompanied by over-representation of Candida albicans and decreased fungal diversity, richness, and evenness. Cure after FMT is associated with increased colonization of donor-derived fungal taxa in recipients. Recipients of successful FMT ("responders") display, after FMT, a high relative abundance of Saccharomyces and Aspergillus, whereas "nonresponders" and individuals treated with antibiotics display a dominant presence of Candida. High abundance of C. albicans in donor stool also correlates with reduced FMT efficacy. Furthermore, C. albicans reduces FMT efficacy in a mouse model of CDI, while antifungal treatment reestablishes its efficacy, supporting a potential causal relationship between gut fungal dysbiosis and FMT outcome.
Abstract
KAGRA is a newly built gravitational wave observatory, a laser interferometer with a 3 km arm length, located at Kamioka, Gifu, Japan. In this series of articles we present an overview of ...the baseline KAGRA, for which we finished installing the designed configuration in 2019. This article describes the method of calibration (CAL) used for reconstructing gravitational wave signals from the detector outputs, as well as the characterization of the detector (DET). We also review the physical environmental monitoring (PEM) system and the geophysics interferometer (GIF). Both are used for characterizing and evaluating the data quality of the gravitational wave channel. They play important roles in utilizing the detector output for gravitational wave searches. These characterization investigations will be even more important in the near future, once gravitational wave detection has been achieved, and in using KAGRA in the gravitational wave astronomy era.
Although severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infects gastrointestinal tissues, little is known about the roles of gut commensal microbes in susceptibility to and severity of ...infection. We investigated changes in fecal microbiomes of patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection during hospitalization and associations with severity and fecal shedding of virus.
We performed shotgun metagenomic sequencing analyses of fecal samples from 15 patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Hong Kong, from February 5 through March 17, 2020. Fecal samples were collected 2 or 3 times per week from time of hospitalization until discharge; disease was categorized as mild (no radiographic evidence of pneumonia), moderate (pneumonia was present), severe (respiratory rate ≥30/min, or oxygen saturation ≤93% when breathing ambient air), or critical (respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation, shock, or organ failure requiring intensive care). We compared microbiome data with those from 6 subjects with community-acquired pneumonia and 15 healthy individuals (controls). We assessed gut microbiome profiles in association with disease severity and changes in fecal shedding of SARS-CoV-2.
Patients with COVID-19 had significant alterations in fecal microbiomes compared with controls, characterized by enrichment of opportunistic pathogens and depletion of beneficial commensals, at time of hospitalization and at all timepoints during hospitalization. Depleted symbionts and gut dysbiosis persisted even after clearance of SARS-CoV-2 (determined from throat swabs) and resolution of respiratory symptoms. The baseline abundance of Coprobacillus, Clostridium ramosum, and Clostridium hathewayi correlated with COVID-19 severity; there was an inverse correlation between abundance of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii (an anti-inflammatory bacterium) and disease severity. Over the course of hospitalization, Bacteroides dorei, Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, Bacteroides massiliensis, and Bacteroides ovatus, which downregulate expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in murine gut, correlated inversely with SARS-CoV-2 load in fecal samples from patients.
In a pilot study of 15 patients with COVID-19, we found persistent alterations in the fecal microbiome during the time of hospitalization, compared with controls. Fecal microbiota alterations were associated with fecal levels of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 severity. Strategies to alter the intestinal microbiota might reduce disease severity.
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A series of optical and one near-infrared nebular spectra covering the first year of the Type Ia supernova SN 2011fe are presented and modelled. The density profile that proved best for the early ...optical/ultraviolet spectra, ‘ρ-11fe’, was extended to lower velocities to include the regions that emit at nebular epochs. Model ρ-11fe is intermediate between the fast deflagration model W7 and a low-energy delayed-detonation. Good fits to the nebular spectra are obtained if the innermost ejecta are dominated by neutron-rich, stable Fe-group species, which contribute to cooling but not to heating. The correct thermal balance can thus be reached for the strongest Fe ii and Fe iii lines to be reproduced with the observed ratio. The 56Ni mass thus obtained is ∼0.47 ± 0.05 M⊙. The bulk of 56Ni has an outermost velocity of ∼8500 km s−1. The mass of stable iron is ∼0.23 ± 0.03 M⊙. Stable Ni has low abundance, ∼10−2 M⊙. This is sufficient to reproduce an observed emission line near 7400 Å. A sub-Chandrasekhar explosion model with mass 1.02 M⊙ and no central stable Fe does not reproduce the observed line ratios. A mock model where neutron-rich Fe-group species are located above 56Ni following recent suggestions is also shown to yield spectra that are less compatible with the observations. The densities and abundances in the inner layers obtained from the nebular analysis, combined with those of the outer layers previously obtained, are used to compute a synthetic bolometric light curve, which compares favourably with the light curve of SN 2011fe.
Reversible reactions exhibit considerable potential for thermal energy storage because of their high energy density and capability for long-term storage at ambient temperature. This paper presents ...the research progress on gas–solid thermochemical heat storage reactors and their corresponding systems. The comprehensive state-of-the-art knowledge on gas–solid thermochemical reactors, namely, packed bed, continuous, and direct-type reactors, for high-temperature heat storage applications is reviewed. Up till now, the performance of packed bed reactors has been extensively investigated. However, the intrinsic drawbacks of packed bed reactors limit their applications. Continuous and direct-type reactors can efficiently store heat, but studies on these reactors are still on the stage of material characterization and prototype designing. Various numerical studies have successfully predicted the reaction trends in the three reactors to elucidate their performances and features. In these studies, porous thermochemical materials are studied on the scale of representative element volume. So far, numerical or experimental approaches have been rarely used to investigate physical and chemical processes at the particle scale. Energy and exergy analyses on conceptual thermochemical heat storage systems came into existence recently. In the future, more efficiency analyses based on practical experimental results are required.
•Packed bed, continuous, and direct-type reactors are reviewed.•An overview of available heat storage systems for different reactors is given.•Various numerical studies for different reactors are discussed.•Energy and energy efficiencies for different systems are analyzed.•Feasible reactors for various high-temperature gas–solid reactions are evaluated.
This study presents a model for the early identification of students who are likely to fail in an academic course. To enhance predictive accuracy, sentiment analysis is used to identify affective ...information from text‐based self‐evaluated comments written by students. Experimental results demonstrated that adding extracted sentiment information from student self‐evaluations yields a significant improvement in early‐stage prediction quality. The results also indicate the limited early‐stage predictive value of structured data, such as homework completion, attendance, and exam grades, due to data sparseness at the beginning of the course. Thus, applying sentiment analysis to unstructured data (e.g., self‐evaluation comments) can play an important role in improving the accuracy of early‐stage predictions. The findings present educators with an opportunity to provide students with real‐time feedback and support to help students become self‐regulated learners. Using the exploring results for improvement in teaching and learning initiatives is important to maintain students' performances and the effectiveness of the learning process.
Lay Description
What is already known about this topic:
The impact of emotional state on academic performance
Early intervention is a key factor in preventing academic failure by at‐risk students.
What this paper adds:
Apply sentiment analysis to enhance predictive accuracy in early stage.
Built a Chinese affective resource with valence ratings for each affective word, and use it to automatically extract emotions from self‐evaluation comments.
Implications for practice and/or policy:
Point out the limited early‐stage predictive ability of structured data and using unstructured data to bridge the gap.
Using information visualization to build self‐regulated system by structured and unstructured data. For educators, easy to recognize students' emotion during the class; for students, easy to understand how well they are performing in a class in a timely manner.
We present results on light weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) searches with annual modulation (AM) analysis on data from a 1-kg mass p-type point-contact germanium detector of the CDEX-1B ...experiment at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory. Datasets with a total live time of 3.2 yr within a 4.2-yr span are analyzed with analysis threshold of 250 eVee. Limits on WIMP-nucleus (χ-N) spin-independent cross sections as function of WIMP mass (m_{χ}) at 90% confidence level (C.L.) are derived using the dark matter halo model. Within the context of the standard halo model, the 90% C.L. allowed regions implied by the DAMA/LIBRA and CoGeNT AM-based analysis are excluded at >99.99% and 98% C.L., respectively. These results correspond to the best sensitivity at m_{χ}<6 GeV/c^{2} among WIMP AM measurements to date.
The combination of comprehensive surface passivation and effective interface carriers transfer plays a critical role in high‐performance perovskite solar cells. A 2D structure is an important ...approach for surface passivation of perovskite film, however, its large band gap could compromise carrier transfer. Herein, we synthesize a new molecule 2‐thiopheneethylamine thiocyanate (TEASCN) for the construction of bilayer quasi‐2D structure precisely on a tin‐lead mixed perovskite surface. This bilayer structure can passivate the perovskite surface and ensure effective carriers transfer simultaneously. As a result, the open‐circuit voltage (Voc) of the device is increased without sacrificing short‐circuit current density (Jsc), giving rise to a high certified efficiency from a credible third‐party certification of narrow band gap perovskite solar cells. Furthermore, theoretical simulation indicates that the inclusion of TEASCN makes the bilayer structure thermodynamically more stable, which provides a strategy to tailor the number of layers of quasi‐2D perovskite structures.
TEASCN (2‐thiopheneethylamine thiocyanate) was synthesized to construct a bilayer structure on a Sn‐Pb perovskite surface, which can passivate perovskite and ensure effective carrier transfer, enabling the device to reach a certified efficiency of 21.1 %. The mechanism for the growth of the uniform bilayer structure is revealed by simulation based on density functional theory.
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