Background
Modern pharmacological research found that the chemical components of
Curcuma longa L.
are mainly curcumin and turmeric volatile oil. Several recent randomized controlled trials (RCT) have ...shown that curcumin improves symptoms and inflammation in patients with arthritis.
Methods
Pubmed, Cochran Library, CNKI, and other databases were searched to collect the randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Then, the risk of bias of RCTs were assessed and data of RCTs were extracted. Finally, RevMan 5.3 was utilized for meta-analysis.
Results
Twenty-nine (29) RCTs involving 2396 participants and 5 types of arthritis were included. The arthritis included Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS), Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Osteoarthritis (OA), Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and gout/hyperuricemia. Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract were administered in doses ranging from 120 mg to 1500 mg for a duration of 4-36 weeks. In general, Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract showed safety in all studies and improved the severity of inflammation and pain levels in these arthritis patients. However, more RCTs are needed in the future to elucidate the effect of Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract supplementation in patients with arthritis, including RA, OA, AS and JIA.
Conclusion
Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract may improve symptoms and inflammation levels in people with arthritis. However, due to the low quality and small quantity of RCTs, the conclusions need to be interpreted carefully.
Objective
To evaluate the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract in the treatment of autoimmune diseases.
Methods
Databases such as Embase, Web of Science, PubMed ...and The Cochrane Library were searched from the database establishment to February 2022 to collect RCTs of Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract in the treatment of autoimmune diseases. Then the literature was screened and the data were extracted. Meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3 software.
Results
A total of 34 records were included, involving 31 RCTs and 10 types of autoimmune disease. Among them, ankylosing spondylitis (AS) involves one RCT, Behcet ‘s disease (BD) involves one RCT, Crohn ‘s disease involves two RCTs, multiple sclerosis (MS) involves two RCTs, oral lichen planus involves six RCTs, psoriasis involves two RCTs, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) involves five RCTs, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) involves two RCTs, arteritis involves one RCT, ulcerative colitis (UC) involves nine RCTs. Among them, most of the RCTs of ulcerative colitis (UC), oral lichen planus, RA showed that curcumin and curcumin extracts improved clinical or laboratory results. Crohn ‘ s disease, MS, SLE, psoriasis included two RCTs; they all showed improvements (at least one RCT reported improvements in clinical outcomes). AS, BD and arteritis included only one RCT, and the clinical results showed improvement. However, due to the small number of RCTs and the small number of patients involved in each disease, there is still a need for more high-quality RCTs.
Conclusion
Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract had good clinical efficacy in the treatment of Psoriasis, UC and RA, so Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract could be used in the treatment of the above diseases in the future. The results of Meta-analysis showed that Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract did not show efficacy in the treatment of oral lichen planus, while Takayasu arteritis, SLE, MS, AS, BD and CD did not report sufficient clinical data for meta-analysis. Therefore, large-sample, multi-center clinical trials are still needed for revision or validation.
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•Water in GO/CSH interlayer weakens the interaction between CaCSH and OGO.•Water in GO/CSH interlayer weakens structural H-bond.•The connection between interlayer Ca and COO− group is ...the most stable.•Tensile strength of GO/CSH composite is reduced with moisture content increasing.
Molecular dynamics is utilized to investigate the effect of moisture content on the molecular structure and bonding in the interlayer region between calcium silicate hydrate (CSH) and graphene oxide sheet functionalized by deprotonated carboxyl (COO), hydroxyl (COH), epoxy (COC) group. The interfacial bonding is dependent on CaOCOO, CaOCOH, and CaOCOC bond as well as H-bond. These interlayered chemical bonds are sensitive to interlayer water and both of them can be degraded by moisture content increasing, resulting in a decrease in failure strength of GO/CSH composite. Among these interlayer chemical bonds, CaOCOO bond possesses the highest strength and stability.
Background In recent years, hyperthermia has been widely applied as a novel strategy for cancer treatment due to its multiple antitumour effects. In particular, the potential influences of ...hyperthermia on the tumour immune microenvironment may improve the efficacy of immunotherapies. However, the effect of hyperthermia on renal cell carcinoma (RCC) has not been well characterized until now. Methods In the present study, we primarily evaluated the effects of hyperthermia on cellular function via cellular proliferation, migration, invasion and apoptosis assays. In addition, the influence of hyperthermia on the immunogenicity of RCC cells was analysed using flow cytometry analysis, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and immunofluorescent (IF) staining. Results Our results demonstrate that hyperthermia significantly inhibits RCC cell proliferation, migration, and invasion and promotes cell apoptosis. In addition, we verified that hyperthermia improves the immunogenicity of RCC cells by inducing immunogenic cell death. Conclusion Our findings suggest that hyperthermia is a promising therapeutic strategy for RCC. Keywords: Renal cell carcinoma, Hyperthermia, Immunogenic cell death, Immune microenvironment
This work investigates a self-tuning resonator composed of a slender clamped–clamped steel beam and a freely movable slider. The clamped–clamped beam exhibits hardening nonlinearity when it vibrates ...in large amplitude, providing a broad bandwidth of dynamic response. The moving slider changes the mass distribution of the whole structure, and provides a passive self-tuning approach for capturing the high-energy orbit of the structure. In the case without inclination, adequate inertial force that mainly depends on the vibration amplitude of the beam and the position of the slider can drive the slider to move from the side toward the centre of the beam. This movement amplifies the beam response when the excitation frequency is below 37 Hz in our prototyped device. In the multi-orbit frequency range (28–37 Hz), the self-tuning and magnification of beam response can be achieved when the slider is initially placed in an appropriate position on the beam. Once the beam is disturbed, however, the desired response in the high-energy orbit can be lost easily and cannot be reacquired without external assistance. In an improved design with a small inclination, the introduced small gravitational component enables the slider to move from the higher side toward the lower side when the beam amplitude is small. This property sacrifices the less efficient self-tuning region below 25 Hz, but can enable the beam to acquire and maintain the high-energy orbit response in the multi-orbit frequency range (28–39 Hz), which is resistant to disturbance. The proposed resonator in this paper not only broadens the frequency bandwidth of dynamic response, but also enables capture and maintenance of the high-energy orbit in a completely passive way. Such a passive self-tuning structure presents an advantage in the design of broadband vibration energy-harvesting systems.
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•The full-scale pore size distribution of tight volcanic is manifested in a wide size range of 3 nm to 120 μm.•Movable fluid saturation increases with permeability and is related to ...the development of pore-fractures.•Fractures had less flow resistance and were more conducive to water flow than small pores.•The negative effect of the intragranular pores on fluid mobility outweighed the positive effect.
Pore-fracture structure characterization and fluid mobility analysis are key to the effective development of tight reservoirs. However, it is difficult to accurately characterize the pore-fracture structure of tight volcanic rocks using a single method, and the mechanisms of fluid mobility are not fully understood. A combination of X-ray diffraction, casting thin section observations, scanning electron microscopy, high-pressure mercury injection, constant-speed mercury injection, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), X-ray computed tomography, and the advanced mathematical algorithms in the AVIZO visualization software was used to analyze the Permian tight volcanic rock in the ZhongGuai area of the Junggar Basin to investigate its overall pore-fracture structure characteristics. On this basis, NMR centrifugation experiments were conducted to monitor the fluid migration dynamics in the tight volcanic rocks, and the mobile fluid migration characteristics were studied based on the NMR T2 spectra. The results show that the porosity and permeability of the samples are 0.2–18.7 % (avg. of 8.3 %) and 0.001–6.680 × 10−3μm2 (avg. of 1.602 × 10−3μm2), respectively, and the various pore types are due to the differences in cementation and compaction. The distribution of the pore throats are mainly contiguous and isolated, and the connected pores are mainly distributed in enriched bands, which is due to the interconnection of gas pores, intergranular pores, and dissolution fractures; while the disconnected pores are mainly isolated, which is related to the development of inter-gravel dissolved pores and matrix dissolution pores. In addition, the contribution of the pore connectivity to seepage is greater than that at the pore scale. The pores in the tight volcanic rock have a wide range of sizes, from 3 nm to 120 μm, and are dominated by Gaussian and bimodal distribution patterns. The micron-scale pore radius in this area is mainly 4.47–31.56 μm. Also, the fractures can be divided into three types according to their occurrence and openings. They are mainly high-angle structural fractures and vertical fractures; the pore-fracture structures have strong heterogeneity, and the fractures play a larger role on the seepage of oil and gas. The connectivity of the pore throats in the tight matrix is poor, and the pore throat structure has a great influence on fluid mobility. Subsequently, the movable fluid saturation increases with increasing permeability, and the fractures and micropores have less flow resistance and are more conducive to water flow than small pores. This study provides new insights for the exploitation of similar tight reservoirs.
Research on the static connectivity of reservoirs is of great significance for predicting the lateral continuity of sandstone bodies and determining the field development strategy. The main impacts ...of static connectivity are geometry, stacking pattern and distribution of fluvial sandstone bodies, which are controlled by changes in base level. This study addresses the static connectivity of fluvial sandstones of the Yangdachegnzy reservoir in the Yushulin oilfield with a dense network of wells. The Yangdachengzy reservoir develops a long-term depositional cycle (a third-level sequence) consisting of 3 mid-term depositional cycles (MDC1-MDC3) and 21 short-term depositional cycles (SDC1-21). Sedimentary facies maps of each stratigraphic intervals in the Yangdachengzy reservoir that are constrained to high well density from the Yushulin Oilfield exhibit: (i) as base-level falls, the planform style of sandstone bodies changes from isolated type to amalgamated type; (ii) how static connectivity evolves through base-level fluctuations and show how static connectivity is sensitive to the net-to-gross ratio and well spacing. The analyses show that the relationship between the net-to-gross ratio and static connectivity exhibits a sigmoid curve. Such a curve is sensitive to the well spacing and the planform style of sandstone bodies. When well spacing increases, the S-curve shifts to the right, with a narrow “cascade zone” and a relatively higher percolation threshold of net-to-gross ratio (e.g., 0.2 at 150 m well spacing). When well spacing decreases, the S-curve tends to be linear, with a large range of “cascade zones” and a relatively lower percolation threshold of the net-to-gross ratio (e.g., 0.43 at 450 m well spacing). At a given net-to-gross ratio, amalgamated-type sandstone bodies that developed at the lowest base-level stage are very prone to reach the fully connected status (reservoir connected over 0.8) with a relatively low well density.
•A four-tier hierarchical scheme of fluvial reservoir was built by using densely drilled subsurface data.•Reveal how base-level variations control the sandbody architecture and static connectivity.•Results can be applied to guide the well emplacement in fluvial reservoirs.
•The broad learning system is first introduced to the unsupervised stereo matching.•Construct a multi-directional broad learning system to generate candidate disparity maps.•The invalid depth ...redefinition based on local gravity weight method is designed by combining the local color space, matching cost space and geometric space.•The proposed method can show superiority in indoor and outdoor data sets without ground truth disparity map.
The supervised stereo matching methods usually rely on ground truth disparity maps as the training labels, this limits its practical application in many situations. In this study, we propose a novel unsupervised stereo matching method based on a multi-directional broad learning system. A multi-directional broad learning system was constructed to generate multiple candidate disparity maps. During the generation of each candidate disparity map, an update criterion is proposed for the disparity value based on the maximum similarity of the inverse mapping region to remove the abnormal disparity values of the training samples. Subsequently, multi-direction consistency verification is performed to further eliminate abnormal disparity values, which are based on the uniqueness principle of disparity truth values at the same location. Finally, an invalid depth redefinition based on a local gravity weight method is introduced to select the appropriate disparity value to fill the invalid pixel positions from their neighborhood, which is calculated based on the local region of the color, matching cost, and geometric spaces in the stereo images. We provide the results of experiments on both indoor and outdoor scenarios to demonstrate the effectiveness and flexibility of our approach, including comparisons with state-of-the-art methods.
Routine neoadjuvant therapy for muscle-invasive bladder urothelial carcinoma prior to radical surgery is curative. With the increase in cancer immunotherapy, neoadjuvant immunotherapy has been used ...as an important complement to neoadjuvant chemotherapy for muscle-invasive urothelial carcinoma. Toripalimab is a recombinant, humanized IgG4 monoclonal antibody directed against programmed cell death protein 1 and received the first global approval for the treatment of unresectable or metastatic melanoma in China on December 17, 2018.
A 57-year-old man was admitted to our hospital because of hematuria for 1 week. The patient was diagnosed pathologically with muscle-invasive bladder urothelial carcinoma.
The patient received neoadjuvant toripalimab combined with gemcitabine therapy. The patient showed partial response. Subsequently, radical cystectomy was performed.
Toripalimab combined with gemcitabine exhibited accurate antitumor activity and may be a promising novel neoadjuvant therapy for muscle-invasive urothelial carcinoma.
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