Bioactive chemical constitutes from the root of
classified in two major groups, viz., liposoluble tanshinones and water-soluble phenolics. Tanshinone IIA is a major lipid-soluble compound having ...promising health benefits. The
and
studies showed that the tanshinone IIA and salvianolate have a wide range of cardiovascular and other pharmacological effects, including antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, endothelial protective, myocardial protective, anticoagulation, vasodilation, and anti-atherosclerosis, as well as significantly help to reduce proliferation and migration of vascular smooth muscle cells. In addition, some of the clinical studies reported that the
preparations in combination with Western medicine were more effective for treatment of various cardiovascular diseases including angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and pulmonary heart diseases. In this review, we demonstrated the potential applications of
, including pharmacological effects of salvianolate, tanshinone IIA, and its water-soluble derivative, like sodium tanshinone IIA sulfonate. Moreover, we also provided details about the clinical applications of
preparations in controlling the cardiovascular diseases.
Inertial microfluidic technology, which can manipulate the target particle entirely relying on the microchannel characteristic geometry and intrinsic hydrodynamic effect, has attracted great ...attention due to its fascinating advantages of high throughput, simplicity, high resolution and low cost. As a passive microfluidic technology, inertial microfluidics can precisely focus, separate, mix or trap target particles in a continuous and high-flow-speed manner without any extra external force field. Therefore, it is promising and has great potential for a wide range of industrial, biomedical and clinical applications. In the regime of inertial microfluidics, particle migration due to inertial effects forms multiple equilibrium positions in straight channels. However, this is not promising for particle detection and separation. Secondary flow, which is a relatively minor flow perpendicular to the primary flow, may reduce the number of equilibrium positions as well as modify the location of particles focusing within channel cross sections by applying an additional hydrodynamic drag. For secondary flow，the pattern and magnitude can be controlled by the well-designed channel structure, such as curvature or disturbance obstacle. The magnitude and form of generated secondary flow are greatly dependent on the disturbing microstructure. Therefore, many inventive and delicate applications of secondary flow in inertial microfluidics have been reported. In this review, we comprehensively summarize the usage of the secondary flow in inertial microfluidics.
This study aims to validate a commercially available inertial sensor based motion capture system, Xsens MVN BIOMECH using its native protocols, against a camera-based motion capture system for the ...measurement of joint angular kinematics. Performance was evaluated by comparing waveform similarity using range of motion, mean error and a new formulation of the coefficient of multiple correlation (CMC). Three dimensional joint angles of the lower limbs were determined for ten healthy subjects while they performed three daily activities: level walking, stair ascent, and stair descent. Under all three walking conditions, the Xsens system most accurately determined the flexion/extension joint angle (CMC > 0.96) for all joints. The joint angle measurements associated with the other two joint axes had lower correlation including complex CMC values. The poor correlation in the other two joint axes is most likely due to differences in the anatomical frame definition of limb segments used by the Xsens and Optotrak systems. Implementation of a protocol to align these two systems is necessary when comparing joint angle waveforms measured by the Xsens and other motion capture systems.
The swimming of aquatic animals and flying of insects and birds have fascinated physicists and biologists for more than a century. In this regard, great efforts have been made to develop new features ...and promote their applications in underwater and air propulsion. However, many challenges remain in understanding these forms of physical processes. Five key physical models are summarized to show how researchers use numerical and experimental methods to understand physiology, movement ecology and evolution from the viewpoint of fluid mechanics. They are morphological model, flexibility model, kinematics model, tethered/free model and force measurement model. Then, the latest progresses on the vortex dynamics of some simplified models and even high-fidelity models are presented, including the forming, growth, interaction, role and influence factors of the vortical structures. Some other aspects in swimming and flying, including stability, manoeuvrability and acoustics, are also briefly reviewed. Finally, the major challenges and several open issues in this field are highlighted.
Electrochemical oxidation of alkene difunctionalization with simultaneous construction of C–Se and C–S bonds is reported. The products of β-selenylethyl dithiocarbamates are obtained with CS2, ...amines, alkenes, and diphenyl diselenides in the absence of any oxidant or metal. Furthermore, the transformation is compatible with various groups. In the preliminary mechanism studies, we propose three possible pathways.
Holometabolous insects stop feeding at the final larval instar stage and then undergo metamorphosis; however, the mechanism is unclear. In the present study, using the serious lepidopteran ...agricultural pest Helicoverpa armigera as a model, we revealed that 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) binds to the dopamine receptor (DopEcR), a G protein-coupled receptor, to stop larval feeding and promote pupation. DopEcR was expressed in various tissues and its level increased during metamorphic molting under 20E regulation. The 20E titer was low during larval feeding stages and high during wandering stages. By contrast, the dopamine (DA) titer was high during larval feeding stages and low during the wandering stages. Injection of 20E or blocking dopamine receptors using the inhibitor flupentixol decreased larval food consumption and body weight. Knockdown of DopEcR repressed larval feeding, growth, and pupation. 20E, via DopEcR, promoted apoptosis; and DA, via DopEcR, induced cell proliferation. 20E opposed DA function by repressing DA-induced cell proliferation and AKT phosphorylation. 20E, via DopEcR, induced gene expression and a rapid increase in intracellular calcium ions and cAMP. 20E induced the interaction of DopEcR with G proteins αs and αq. 20E, via DopEcR, induced protein phosphorylation and binding of the EcRB1-USP1 transcription complex to the ecdysone response element. DopEcR could bind 20E inside the cell membrane or after being isolated from the cell membrane. Mutation of DopEcR decreased 20E binding levels and related cellular responses. 20E competed with DA to bind to DopEcR. The results of the present study suggested that 20E, via binding to DopEcR, arrests larval feeding and promotes pupation.
Adsorption and photocatalytic degradation are effective strategies to purify the wastewater caused by organic dyes. In this study, graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) powders are prepared from melamine ...with a thermal decomposition method, which are applied to synthesize the direct Z-scheme g-C3N4-ZnO@graphene aerogel (g-C3N4-ZnO@GA) heterojunctions with a hydrothermal self-assembly combined with freeze-drying. As adsorbents and photocatalysts, the heterojunctions exhibit superior adsorption capacity and catalytic activity for the elimination of organic pollutants irradiated by UV and visible light. Among all the materials, g-C3N4-ZnO@GA(30%) displays the best purification efficiencies of rhodamine B (RhB) under both UV and visible light illumination, reaching 81.0% and 82.7%, respectively, because of its hierarchical porous structure and the synergistic effect among the components. More importantly, g-C3N4-ZnO@GA(30%) possesses good reusability, which can keep 87.1% of the initial activity after four cycles. What's more, the heterojunctions also demonstrate high removal efficiency for other organic dyes, such as methyl orange (MO), demonstrating their promising application in environmental remediation. Finally, based on the experimental investigations, a reasonable photocatalytic mechanism is proposed and analyzed. The present work provides a promising way to construct the direct Z-scheme porous heterojunctions for elimination of environmental pollutants.
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•The direct Z-scheme g-C3N4-ZnO@GA heterojunctions are facilely constructed.•They possess superior removal performance for various organic pollutants.•A reasonable photocatalytic mechanism is proposed and analyzed.
Abstract
Subpercent level accuracy in shear measurement is required by the Stage-IV weak lensing surveys. One important challenge is suppressing the shear bias on source images of low signal-to-noise ...ratios (S/N ≲ 10). Previously, it has been demonstrated that the shear estimators defined in the Fourier_Quad (FQ) method can achieve subpercent accuracy at the very faint end (S/N ≲ 5) through ensemble averaging. Later, it was found that we can approach the minimum statistical error (the Cramer–Rao Bound) by symmetrizing the full probability distribution function (PDF) of the FQ shear estimators (the PDF_SYM approach), instead of taking ensemble averages. Recently, with a large amount of mock galaxy images, we were able to identify some small amount of shear biases in the PDF_SYM approach at the faint end. The multiplicative bias goes up to (1–2) × 10
−2
at S/N ≲ 10, and the anisotropy of the point-spread function causes an additive bias that can reach a few times 10
−4
. We find that these biases originate from the noise-source coupling in the galaxy power spectrum. It turns out that this problem can be largely fixed by adding additional terms to the FQ shear estimators. The resulting multiplicative and additive biases can be significantly suppressed to the level of 10
−3
and 10
−5
, respectively. These corrections substantially extend the available S/N range for accurate shear measurement with the PDF_SYM approach.
Ovarian cancer (OC) is the highest frequent malignant gynecologic tumor with very complicated pathogenesis. The purpose of the present academic work was to identify significant genes with poor ...outcome and their underlying mechanisms. Gene expression profiles of GSE36668, GSE14407 and GSE18520 were available from GEO database. There are 69 OC tissues and 26 normal tissues in the three profile datasets. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between OC tissues and normal ovarian (OV) tissues were picked out by GEO2R tool and Venn diagram software. Next, we made use of the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery (DAVID) to analyze Kyoto Encyclopedia of Gene and Genome (KEGG) pathway and gene ontology (GO). Then protein-protein interaction (PPI) of these DEGs was visualized by Cytoscape with Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes (STRING). There were total of 216 consistently expressed genes in the three datasets, including 110 up-regulated genes enriched in cell division, sister chromatid cohesion, mitotic nuclear division, regulation of cell cycle, protein localization to kinetochore, cell proliferation and Cell cycle, progesterone-mediated oocyte maturation and p53 signaling pathway, while 106 down-regulated genes enriched in palate development, blood coagulation, positive regulation of transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter, axonogenesis, receptor internalization, negative regulation of transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter and no significant signaling pathways. Of PPI network analyzed by Molecular Complex Detection (MCODE) plug-in, all 33 up-regulated genes were selected. Furthermore, for the analysis of overall survival among those genes, Kaplan-Meier analysis was implemented and 20 of 33 genes had a significantly worse prognosis. For validation in Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA), 15 of 20 genes were discovered highly expressed in OC tissues compared to normal OV tissues. Furthermore, four genes (BUB1B, BUB1, TTK and CCNB1) were found to significantly enrich in the cell cycle pathway via re-analysis of DAVID. In conclusion, we have identified four significant up-regulated DEGs with poor prognosis in OC on the basis of integrated bioinformatical methods, which could be potential therapeutic targets for OC patients.
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