Increasing concentrations of atmospheric particulate matter (PM) can cause a serious threat to urban air quality and human health. To reduce PM pollution in urban environments, pragmatic screening ...and planting of tolerant tree species can be effective and sustainable ways. However, our understanding of the effects of the capture ability of PM2.5 on plant tolerance, and efforts to devise explicit assessment tools for suitability analysis for urban green belt plantations, are still inadequate. In this study, six common green tree species (Pinus tabuliformis, Abies holophylla, Juniperus chinensis, Salix babylonica, Robinia pseudoacacia, and Populus alba) from three pollution sites in Shenyang City, China, were collected in order to assess their PM2.5 capture ability, biochemical characteristics, leaf microstructures, and air pollution tolerance index (APTI). The results revealed that different sites and tested plant species can significantly affect the amount of PM2.5 retained by leaf surfaces. The PM2.5 retention amount of Abies holophylla was the highest at the SFH site and 1.41–8.89 times that of other tested species (p < 0.05). Morphological plant attributes, such as leaf surface roughness (r = 0.52 **) and contact angle (r = −0.57 **), were strongly related to the PM2.5 retention amount. The PM2.5 retention amount per unit leaf area had the strongest and most significant negative influence on total chlorophyll content (r = −0.743 **), indicating that the accumulation of leaf PM2.5 reduced the photosynthetic efficiency of the plants. Among the tested plants, Robinia pseudoacacia had the highest APTI value and was identified as the most resilient plant at all three sites, whereas Juniperus chinensis had the lowest APTI at all study sites. However, the integration of PM2.5 capture ability with APTI showed Pinus tabuliformis to be the best species for the construction of urban green belts in Shenyang City.
A search for new resonances in events with at least one isolated charged lepton (e or µ) and two jets is performed using 139 fb−1 of √s=13 TeV proton-proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS ...detector at the LHC. Deviations from a smoothly falling background hypothesis are tested in three-and four-body invariant mass distributions constructed from leptons and jets. The inclusion of leptons in dijet invariant masses provides two main benefits. Firstly, lepton triggers can be used to search for resonance masses starting from 500 GeV, as the transverse momentum thresholds on lepton triggers can be as low as 24 GeV, while inclusive dijet searches are limited to resonance masses greater than 1 TeV due to jet-based triggers which have a minimum jet transverse momentum of about 400 GeV. Secondly, this search in new final states provides sensitivity to new signal models.The search presented in this thesis considers four different search channels in invariant mass distributions composed of two jets and two leptons, as well as two jets plus one lepton where either zero, one or both jets are identified as originating from bottom quarks. The largest deviation between the observed data and the estimated Standard Model background was found in the two jet plus one lepton channel at a invariant mass of 1.3 TeV with a global statistical significance of 1.5 standard deviations. In the absence of a statistically significant deviation from the background estimate, upper exclusion limits are set at a 95% confidence level in each signal channel on generic Gaussian-shaped resonances with different widths and masses, as well as in the context of four new signal models.
Uveitis is an inflammatory and heterogeneous ocular disorder and has a profound impact on patients' life, work and family. There are substantial costs to the countries and individuals associated with ...treatment of the complications of uveitis and blindness. Conventional therapies did not lead to satisfactory outcomes for uveitis and are associated with substantial adverse events (AEs). Emerging evidences have proved the important value and potential prospect of Chinese medicines and its compound in uveitis. However, although Chinese medicines are widely used in uveitis, its therapeutic effect and safety are still controversial. It is, therefore, timely to perform an objective and normative systematic review to assess the efficacy and safety of Chinese medicines in treating uveitis on current research.
The systematic review will include all of the randomized controlled trials (RCT) on the efficacy and safety of Chinese medicines for uveitis. A relevant literature search by sensitive search strategies was conducted using the following electronic databases from their inception to September 30, 2019: PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Database, China Science and Technology Journal database (VIP) and Chinese Biomedical Literature database (CBM). The strategy combines treatment terms and disease: that is, "Medicine, Chinese Traditional" (e.g., "Medicine, Chinese Traditional", TCM, Traditional Chinese medicine, Zhong Yi Xue) and uveitis. We will also search registers of clinical trials, potential gray literature, and conference abstracts. There are no limits on language and publication status. The literature screening, data extraction, and quality assessment will be conducted by 2 reviewers independently. The reporting quality and risk of bias will be assessed by other two researchers. Best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and improvement in disease activity were assessed as the primary outcome. The secondary outcomes will include laboratory efficacy indexes, score changes in the National Eye Institute Visual Functioning Questionnaire 25 (NEI-VFQ 25), uveitis-related tissue damage or complications, concurrent requirement of corticosteroids, immunosuppressive drugs or biologics, and AEs of treatment. Meta-analysis will be performed using RevMan5.3 software provided by the Cochrane Collaboration.
This study will provide a comprehensive review based on current evidence of Chinese medicines treatment for uveitis in several aspects, including BCVA and improvement in disease activity, laboratory efficacy indexes, score changes in the NEI-VFQ 25, uveitis-related tissue damage or complications, etc. CONCLUSION:: The conclusion of this study will provide evidence to determine whether Chinese medicines are an effective and safe intervention for patients with uveitis.
It is not necessary to obtain ethical approval for this study, given that this protocol is for a systematic review. The systematic review will be published in a peer-reviewed journal, presented at conferences and will be shared on social media platforms.
PROSPERO CRD42020153620.
This work studies the near-field localization problem using a symmetry uniform linear array (ULA). To decouple the range and direction of arrival (DOA), by exploiting the symmetry property of the ...array, two spatial correlation sequences are constructed, where each sequence only corresponds to one parameter, i.e., DOA or range. After decoupling, an attractive property is that the resulting sequences still share the similar ULA spatial structure. To perform DOA estimation, two approaches have been developed. The first one is based on the power of R (POR) method, which obtains the noise subspace without the eigendecomposition and prior information of the number of sources. The second one is developed using atomic norm minimization, which eliminates the off-grid issue. For range estimation, since the constructed sequence that corresponds to the range parameter shares the same spatial structure with the DOA sequence, the developed approaches are readily applied to obtain the range estimates. The proposed approach is also studied under one-bit measurement to show its robustness. The numerical studies including simulation and real-world data demonstrate the performance of the proposed method.
Increasing concentrations of atmospheric particulate matter (PM) can cause a serious threat to urban air quality and human health. To reduce PM pollution in urban environments, pragmatic screening ...and planting of tolerant tree species can be effective and sustainable ways. However, our understanding of the effects of the capture ability of PMsub.2.5 on plant tolerance, and efforts to devise explicit assessment tools for suitability analysis for urban green belt plantations, are still inadequate. In this study, six common green tree species (Pinus tabuliformis, Abies holophylla, Juniperus chinensis, Salix babylonica, Robinia pseudoacacia, and Populus alba) from three pollution sites in Shenyang City, China, were collected in order to assess their PMsub.2.5 capture ability, biochemical characteristics, leaf microstructures, and air pollution tolerance index (APTI). The results revealed that different sites and tested plant species can significantly affect the amount of PMsub.2.5 retained by leaf surfaces. The PMsub.2.5 retention amount of Abies holophylla was the highest at the SFH site and 1.41–8.89 times that of other tested species (p < 0.05). Morphological plant attributes, such as leaf surface roughness (r = 0.52 **) and contact angle (r = −0.57 **), were strongly related to the PMsub.2.5 retention amount. The PMsub.2.5 retention amount per unit leaf area had the strongest and most significant negative influence on total chlorophyll content (r = −0.743 **), indicating that the accumulation of leaf PMsub.2.5 reduced the photosynthetic efficiency of the plants. Among the tested plants, Robinia pseudoacacia had the highest APTI value and was identified as the most resilient plant at all three sites, whereas Juniperus chinensis had the lowest APTI at all study sites. However, the integration of PMsub.2.5 capture ability with APTI showed Pinus tabuliformis to be the best species for the construction of urban green belts in Shenyang City.
Previous studies used the temperature-related variables from model outputs (e.g., 2-m temperature) for precipitation phase determination (i.e., rain-snow separation). This study presents a new idea ...for precipitation phase determination using brightness temperatures (TBs) from Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS). It is found that TB-based phase discrimination shows comparable determination performance to that from model outputs over land. In contrast, TB-based phase discrimination over the ocean performs noticeably worse than that from model outputs. Further analyses reveal that the phase determination performance over land from TBs slightly depends on the satellite's local zenith angle. However, the determination performance over the ocean strongly depends on the satellite's local zenith angle, with the skill score decreasing sharply from 0.74 near the nadir to 0.55 near the edge. These results imply that over land, TBs may be used directly for phase determination, which can be extended to other operational and future microwave sounders with similar channels available.
Antiangiogenesis is an effective strategy for cancer treatment because uncontrolled tumor growth depends on tumor angiogenesis and sufficient blood supply. Great progress has been made in developing ...a “molecular” form of angiogenesis inhibitors; however, the narrow inhibition spectrum limits anticancer efficacy as those inhibitors that usually target a few or even a single angiogenic factor among many angiogenic factors might initially be effective but ultimately lead to the failure of the treatment due to the induction of expression of other angiogenic factors. In this work, we report that with a multiple hydroxyl groups functionalized surface, the Gd@C82(OH)22 fullerenic nanoparticles (f-NPs) are capable of simultaneously downregulating more than 10 angiogenic factors in the mRNA level that is further confirmed at the protein level. After studying this antiangiogenesis activity of the f-NPs by cellular experiment, we further investigated its anticancer efficacy in vivo. A two-week treatment with the f-NPs decreased >40% tumor microvessels density and efficiently lowered the speed of blood supply to tumor tissues by ∼40%. Efficacy of the treatment using f-NPs in nude mice was comparable to the clinic anticancer drug paclitaxel, while no pronounced side effects were found. These findings indicate that the f-NPs with multiple hydroxyl groups serve as a potent antiangiogenesis inhibitor that can simultaneously target multiple angiogenic factors. We propose that using nanoscale “particulate” itself as a new form of medicine (particulate medicine) may be superior to the traditional “molecular” form of medicine (molecular medicine) in cancer treatment.
To compare the levels of plasma IL-1beta,TNFalpha in aggressive periodontitis (AgP) patients and periodontally healthy subjects.
Venous blood samples were collected from 56 AgP patients and 39 ...periodontally healthy controls. Clinical examination consisted of bleeding index (BI), probing depth(PD)attachment loss measurements (AL) and percentage of severe sites. Plasma levels of IL-1beta and TNF-alpha were determined using a high-sensitivity ELISA assay.
The concentrations of IL-1beta in AgP patients were significantly higher than those in healthy controls (7.23 ng/L vs 3.52 ng/L, P=0.003), which were positively correlated with BI, PD, AL and the percentage of severe sites (r=0.170, P=0.038; r=0.175, P=0.033; r=0.168, P=0.040; r=0.236, P=0.004). The difference between the levels of TNF-alpha in AgP patients and healthy controls was not observed (1.07 ng/L vs 1.06 ng/L, P=0.437). No correlations between the plasma level of TNF-alpha and the periodontal parameters were detected (r=0.023, P=0.808; r=0.025, P=0.782
Background: It has been suggested that aggressive periodontitis (AgP) has a genetic basis, but this theory has not been confirmed. The intent of this investigation was to study whether specific ...interleukin (IL)‐1 genotypes and/or alleles could be used to predict susceptibility to generalized AgP (GAgP) in Chinese.
Methods: The GAgP group consisted of 122 patients, and the control group included 95 healthy subjects. Single nucleotide polymorphisms at IL‐1A (+4845) and IL‐1B (–511, +3954) were analyzed by standard polymerase chain reaction‐restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR‐RFLP) assay. The polymorphism of a variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) in intron 2 of IL‐1RN was detected by PCR amplification and fragment size analysis.
Results: There was no significant association of IL‐1 polymorphisms with GAgP in the unstratified subjects. However, when cases were stratified by gender, the frequencies of A2+ genotype and allele 2 at IL‐1A +4845 were significantly increased in male patients compared to male controls (genotype: odds ratio OR 5.58, 95% confidence interval CI: 1.09 to 28.68, P = 0.039; allele: OR 4.97, 95% CI: 1.01 to 24.50, P = 0.049; adjusted for age and smoking status). The frequency of IL‐1B –511 A1/A2 heterozygote was significantly increased in male GAgP group compared to male controls (adjusted OR 3.16, 95% CI: 1.01 to 9.89, P = 0.048). In females, no significant differences were found between patients and controls in corresponding analyses at all polymorphic loci. A possible combined effect of IL‐1B –511 polymorphism and smoking on the elevated risk to GAgP was observed. The OR of GAgP for combined A2+ genotype and smoking was 12.45 (95% CI: 1.43 to 108.06, P = 0.022), and for combined allele 2 and smoking was 18.25 (95% CI: 2.32 to 143.86, P = 0.006).
Conclusions: The polymorphisms of IL‐1A +4845 and IL‐1B –511 may play an important role in determining GAgP susceptibility in Chinese males. Furthermore, a possible combined effect of the polymorphism of IL‐1B –511 and smoking on GAgP susceptibility was suggested. J Periodontol 2004;75:1627‐1635.
Background: Excessive scarring of filtering blebs is the main cause of surgical failure in glaucoma. Previous studies have highlighted the role of chloride channels (ClCs) in scar formation, whereas ...the role of ClCs in scarring of filtering blebs has not been studied. Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of the chloride channel 2 (ClC-2) on scar formation of filtering blebs after glaucoma filtering surgery. Methods: ClC-2 siRNA-transfected human conjunctival fibroblasts (HConFs) were cultured in type 1 collagen gels in the presence of transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta1. Collagen gel contraction was evaluated based on the gel area. 3D-cultured HConFs were treated with the ClC blocker NPPB in the presence of TGF-beta1, and cell proliferation collagen synthesis and contractility were measured. The expression levels of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs) in HConFs were assessed by Western blotting and qPCR. Results: TGF-beta1 induced cell proliferation, cell cycle progression, collagen synthesis, and collagen gel contraction in HConFs. TGF-beta1 increased MMP-2 and MMP-9 levels but inhibited the expression of TIMPs. NPPB and ClC-2 siRNA transfection inhibited TGF-beta2-induced cell proliferation, cell cycle progression, collagen synthesis, and collagen gel contraction, mediated by HConFs. TGF-beta2-induced increases in MMP-2 and MMP-9 were also inhibited by NPPB and ClC-2 siRNA transfection, but TIMP expression was increased by NPPB and ClC-2 siRNA transfection. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that ClC-2 ClCs modulate TGF-beta1-induced cell proliferation, collagen synthesis, and collagen gel contraction of HConFs by attenuating MMP-2 and MMP-9 production and by stimulating TIMP1 production. NPPB may therefore prove to be of clinical value for the inhibition of scar formation of filtering blebs. Keywords: Chloride channel 2, Conjunctival fibroblasts, Transforming growth factor-beta1, Wound healing
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