Artesunate Provides Neuroprotection against Cerebral Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury via the TLR-4/NF-κB Pathway in Rats.

Inflammation has an important role in ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. Artesunate (ART) has anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory pharmacological activities, and it is used for various types of serious malaria, including cerebral malaria. ART maintains a high concentration in the brain but little is known about the neuroprotective effect of ART against brain I/R injury. We studied the neuroprotection of ART against brain I/R injury and its underlying mechanism. In this study, rats were subjected to middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) for 2 h. After 24 h of reperfusion, neurological deficits, cerebrum water content, infarct volume, hematoxylin-eosin (H&E)-staining, myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity, and proinflammatory cytokine levels were measured. Administration of 20, 40, 80, and 160 mg/kg ART intraperitoneally (i.p.) 10 min after MCAO significantly decreased brain water content and improved neurological deficits in a dose-dependent manner. An 80 mg/kg dosage was optimal. ART significantly reduced infarct volume, suppressed MPO activity and diminished the expressions of toll-like receptor (TLR)-4, MyD88, nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB), tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, and interleukin (IL)-6 in the area of the ischemic cortex. The neuroprotective action of ART against focal cerebral I/R injury might be due to the attenuation of inflammation through the TLR-4/NF-κB pathway.

Prediction of Fatigue Crack Growth in Gas Turbine Engine Blades Using Acoustic Emission.

Fatigue failure is the main type of failure that occurs in gas turbine engine blades and an online monitoring method for detecting fatigue cracks in blades is urgently needed. Therefore, in this present study, we propose the use of acoustic emission (AE) monitoring for the online identification of the blade status. Experiments on fatigue crack propagation based on the AE monitoring of gas turbine engine blades and TC11 titanium alloy plates were conducted. The relationship between the cumulative AE hits and the fatigue crack length was established, before a method of using the AE parameters to determine the crack propagation stage was proposed. A method for predicting the degree of crack propagation and residual fatigue life based on the AE energy was obtained. The results provide a new method for the online monitoring of cracks in the gas turbine engine blade.

Wavelet transform based defringing in interference imaging spectrometer.

The constructive and destructive fringe-like pattern (FP) introduced by the fringing effects is a universal phenomenon emerging in the imaging system using the back-illuminated CCD. Generally, the flat fielding or modeling based methods were applied to suppressing the FP and featured as time-consuming, duplicated, and hardware-based. In this paper, a method based on the wavelet transform was proposed for the interferogram processing in interference imaging spectrometer. An artificial interferogram construction method was developed and utilized to evaluate the quality of the reconstructed interferogram. The performance of defringing was significantly determined by the wavelet decomposition. Through numerical simulation, 4 wavelets were selected out of 50 typical wavelets; the decomposition levels with better performance were determined. The feasibility of the defringing and performance evaluation methods were verified by the simulation and practical experiments. It provides us with a software-based, time-saving, without prior knowledge, automatic approach for defringing.

The Identification of the Deformation Stage of a Metal Specimen Based on Acoustic Emission Data Analysis.

The acoustic emission (AE) signals of metal materials have been widely used to identify the deformation stage of a pressure vessel. In this work, Q235 steel samples with different propagation distances and geometrical structures are stretched to get the corresponding acoustic emission signals. Then the obtained acoustic emission signals are de-noised by empirical mode decomposition (EMD), and then decomposed into two different frequency ranges, i.e., one mainly corresponding to metal deformation and the other mainly corresponding to friction signals. The ratio of signal energy between two frequency ranges is defined as a new acoustic emission characteristic parameter. Differences can be observed at different deformation stages in both magnitude and data distribution range. Compared with other acoustic emission parameters, the proposed parameter is valid in different setups of the propagation medium and the coupled stiffness.

Effects of muscarinic acetylcholine 3 receptor(208-227) peptide immunization on autoimmune response in nonobese diabetic mice.

The second extracellular loop (LFWQYFVGKRTVPPGECFIQFLSEPTITFGTAI, aa 205-237) of muscarinic acetylcholine 3 receptor (M3R) has been reported to be an epitope for autoantibodies generated during certain autoimmune disorders, including Sjögren's syndrome (SS). Autoantibodies against M3R(228-237) have been shown to interfere with the function of M3R. However, few studies have been performed on the M3R(205-227) peptide of the second extracellular loop. In the current study, we sought to investigate the effect of M3R(208-227) peptide immunization on autoimmune response in NOD/LtJ mice. We synthesized the M3R(208-227) peptide and immunized NOD/LtJ mice to investigate whether peptide-specific antibodies could be generated and whether immunization would lead to changes in autoimmune response in NOD/LtJ mice. Our results demonstrate that the secretions of Th-1, Th-2, and Th-17 cytokines are downregulated and lymphocytic infiltration is improved in the salivary glands and lacrimal glands following immunization with M3R(208-227) peptide in NOD/LtJ mice, suggesting that peptide immunotherapy using the M3R(208-227) peptide may represent a potential therapeutic alternative.

STA-TSN: Spatial-Temporal Attention Temporal Segment Network for action recognition in video.

Most deep learning-based action recognition models focus only on short-term motions, so the model often causes misjudgments of actions that are combined by multiple processes, such as long jump, high jump, etc. The proposal of Temporal Segment Networks (TSN) enables the network to capture long-term information in the video, but ignores that some unrelated frames or areas in the video can also cause great interference to action recognition. To solve this problem, a soft attention mechanism is introduced in TSN and a Spatial-Temporal Attention Temporal Segment Networks (STA-TSN), which retains the ability to capture long-term information and enables the network to adaptively focus on key features in space and time, is proposed. First, a multi-scale spatial focus feature enhancement strategy is proposed to fuse original convolution features with multi-scale spatial focus features obtained through a soft attention mechanism with spatial pyramid pooling. Second, a deep learning-based key frames exploration module, which utilizes a soft attention mechanism based on Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) to adaptively learn temporal attention weights, is designed. Third, a temporal-attention regularization is developed to guide our STA-TSN to better realize the exploration of key frames. Finally, the experimental results show that our proposed STA-TSN outperforms TSN in the four public datasets UCF101, HMDB51, JHMDB and THUMOS14, as well as achieves state-of-the-art results.

A combined HMM-PCNN model in the contourlet domain for image data compression.

Multiscale geometric analysis (MGA) is not only characterized by multi-resolution, time-frequency localization, multidirectionality and anisotropy, but also outdoes the limitations of wavelet transform in representing high-dimensional singular data such as edges and contours. Therefore, researchers have been exploring new MGA-based image compression standards rather than the JPEG2000 standard. However, due to the difference in terms of the data structure, redundancy and decorrelation between wavelet and MGA, as well as the complexity of the coding scheme, so far, no definitive researches have been reported on the MGA-based image coding schemes. In addressing this problem, this paper proposes an image data compression approach using the hidden Markov model (HMM)/pulse-coupled neural network (PCNN) model in the contourlet domain. First, a sparse decomposition of an image was performed using a contourlet transform to obtain the coefficients that show the multiscale and multidirectional characteristics. An HMM was then adopted to establish links between coefficients in neighboring subbands of different levels and directions. An Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm was also adopted in training the HMM in order to estimate the state probability matrix, which maintains the same structure of the contourlet decomposition coefficients. In addition, each state probability can be classified by the PCNN based on the state probability distribution. Experimental results show that the HMM/PCNN -contourlet model proposed in this paper leads to better compression performance and offer a more flexible encoding scheme.

The research on propagation characteristics of acoustic emission signals in stiffened plates based on the multipath propagation model.

Mechanical equipment with the stiffener has a strong interference with the propagation of acoustic emission (AE) signals from faults, reducing the accuracy of fault detection. This paper conducts an in-depth study of the interaction between AE signals and the stiffener. The installation constraints, that can separate the direct signal, signals scattered from the stiffener and signals reflected from the boundary in the time domain, for sensors are deduced based on the multipath propagation model of AE signals in the stiffened plate. On this basis, the scattering characteristics of AE signals with different frequencies in different height stiffened plates are predicted by simulations. Moreover, the reflection and transmission coefficients are calculated to quantify the scattering characteristics. The results show that the signal, undergoing a "T-shaped" transformation at the stiffener, generates various modes, among which the transmission signal accounted for the largest proportion. In addition, experiments are performed to verify the numerical simulations, and the results are in good agreement with the numerical simulations. This work clarifies the propagation characteristics of AE signals in stiffened plates, and the research can optimize the spatial arrangement for sensors.

Protective effect of silencing Stat1 on high glucose-induced podocytes injury via Forkhead transcription factor O1-regulated the oxidative stress response.

BACKGROUND: Podocyte plays an important role in maintaining the integrity and function of the glomerular filtration barrier. Various studies reported that forkhead transcription factor (Fox) O1 played a key role in anti-oxidative signaling. This study aimed to investigate the role of Stat1 in high glucose (HG) -induced podocyte injury. METHODS: Under normal glucose, hypertonic and HG stimulated podocyte conditions, cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) assay, flow cytometry and western blot and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) were respectively carried out to determine cell viability, apoptosis, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and related genes expressions. We then respectively used silent Stat1, simultaneous silencing Stat1 and FoxO1 and over-expression of FoxO1, to observe whether they/it could reverse the damage of podocytes induced by HG. RESULTS: High glucose attenuated cell survival and promoted cell apoptosis in MPC-5 cells at the same time, and it was also observed to promote the protein expression of Stat1 and the FoxO1 expression inhibition. Silencing Stat1 could reverse HG-induced podocytes injury. Specifically, siStat1 increased cell viability, inhibited cell apoptosis and attenuated ROS level in a high-glucose environment. Cleaved caspase-3 and pro-apoptosis protein Bax was significantly down-regulated, and anti-apoptosis protein Bcl-2 was up-regulated by siStat1. The antioxidant genes Catalase, MnSOD, NQO1 and HO1 were up-regulated by siStat1. We found that silencing FoxO1 reversed the protective effect of siStat1 on the HG-induced podocytes injury. CONCLUSIONS: Silencing Stat1 could reverse the effects of high glucose-triggered low cell viability, cell apoptosis and ROS release and the functions of Stat1 might be involved in FoxO1 mediated-oxidative stress in nucleus.

Cell phone-based health education messaging improves health literacy.

BACKGROUND: The ubiquity of cell phones, which allow for short message service (SMS), provides new and innovative opportunities for disease prevention and health education. OBJECTIVE: To explore the use of cell phone-based health education SMS to improve the health literacy of community residents in China. METHODS: A multi-stage random sampling method was used to select representative study communities and participants ≥ 18 years old. Intervention participants were sent health education SMSs once a week for 1 year and controls were sent conventional, basic health education measures. Health literacy levels of the residents before and after the intervention were evaluated between intervention and control groups. RESULTS: Public health literacy scores increased 1.5 points, from 61.8 to 63.3, after SMS intervention for 1 year (P<0.01); the increase was greater for males than females (2.01 vs. 1.03; P<0.01) and for Shenzhen local residents than non-permanent residents (2.56 vs. 1.14; P<0.01). The frequency of high health literacy scores was greater for the intervention than control group (22.03% to 30.93% vs. 22.07% to 20.82%). With health literacy as a cost-effective index, the cost-effectiveness per intervention was 0.54. CONCLUSION: SMS may be a useful tool for improving health literacy.

Effect of Helicobacter pylori infection on gastric mucosal pathologic change and level of nitric oxide and nitric oxide synthase.

AIM: To investigate the level of nitric oxide (NO) and nitrous oxide synthase (NOS) enzyme and its effect on gastric mucosal pathologic change in patients infected with Helicobacter pylori (H pylori), and to study the pathogenic mechanism of H pylori. METHODS: The mucosal tissues of gastric antrum were taken by endoscopy, then their pathology, H pylori and anti-CagA-IgG were determined. Fifty H pylori positive cases and 35 H pylori negative cases were randomly chosen. Serum level of NO and NOS was detected. RESULTS: One hundred and seven cases (71.33%) were anti-CagA-IgG positive in 150 H pylori positive cases. The positive rate was higher especially in those with pre-neoplastic diseases, such as atrophy, intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia. The level of NO and NOS in positive group was higher than that in negative group, and apparently lower in active gastritis than in pre-neoplastic diseases such as atrophy, intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia. CONCLUSION: H pylori is closely related with chronic gastric diseases, and type I H pylori may be the real factor for H pylori-related gastric diseases. Infection with H pylori can induce elevation of NOS, which produces NO.

Prevalence of depressive symptoms and work-related risk factors among nurses in public hospitals in southern China: a cross-sectional study.

Poor mental health among nurses not only hinders professional performance but also affects the quality of healthcare provided. To improve the prevention and management of depression among nurses in mainland China, we investigated the association between working conditions and depressive symptoms using a cross-sectional study with a sample of 3474 nurses with more than 1 year of work experience in public hospitals in Shenzhen in southern China. Participants completed a structured questionnaire and a validated measure of depressive symptoms. Multivariable linear mixed models were used to identify work-related risk factors for depressive symptoms scores. An estimated 38% of nurses had depressive symptoms. More than 10% of the nurses often experienced workplace violence, and 64.22% encountered it occasionally. Depressive symptoms were associated with frequent workplace violence, long working hours (more than 45 hours per week), frequent night shifts (two or more per week), and specific departments. These findings indicate that interventions to minimize workload and improve nurse-patient relationships are essential to combat depressive symptoms among nurses. Additionally, in the prevention and management of depression among nurses, we must consider inter-department differences.

Prevalence of anxiety and depressive symptoms and related risk factors among physicians in China: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Physicians' poor mental health not only hinders their professional performance and affects the quality of healthcare provided but also adversely affects patients' health outcomes. Few studies in China have evaluated the mental health of physicians. The purposes of this study are to quantify Chinese physicians' anxiety and depressive symptoms as well as evaluate associated risk factors. METHODS: In our study, 2641 physicians working in public hospitals in Shenzhen in southern China were recruited and interviewed by using a structured questionnaire along with validated scales testing anxiety and depressive symptoms. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to identify risk factors for anxiety and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: An estimated 25.67% of physicians had anxiety symptoms, 28.13% had depressive symptoms, and 19.01% had both anxiety and depressive symptoms. More than 10% of the participants often experienced workplace violence and 63.17% sometimes encountered it. Among our study population, anxiety and depressive symptoms were associated with poor self-reported physical health, frequent workplace violence, lengthy working hours (more than 60 hours a week), frequent night shifts (twice or more per week), and lack of regular physical exercise. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates that anxiety and depressive symptoms are common among physicians in China, and the doctor-patient relationship issue is particularly stressful. Interventions implemented to minimize workload, improve doctor-patient relationships, and assist physicians in developing healthier lifestyles are essential to combat anxiety and depressive symptoms among physicians, which may improve their professional performance.