Pressurized electro-osmotic dewatering treatment of sludge: focusing on the influences on nutrients for agricultural application.

Sewage sludge requires effective dewatering and high nutrients retention before disposal for agricultural application. Pressurized electro-osmotic dewatering (PEOD) process with low energy consumption can effectively remove water from sludge, but the influences of PEOD process on nutrients for agricultural application still lacks in-depth research. In this study, the influences of PEOD process on nutrients for agricultural application were investigated, including organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and silicon contents. Layered experiments were conducted to investigate the layered variation of nutrients in sludge and to understand the potential change mechanisms. The experimental results showed that PEOD process caused small losses (<10%) of organic matter and total phosphorus (TP) in sludge, but caused 11.2-18.4% loss of total nitrogen (TN). PEOD process also caused 18.6-27.0% loss of total potassium (TK) and over 80% loss of available potassium in sludge, and could weaken the potential salt damage during the agricultural application of sludge. Furthermore, the available phosphorus content of sludge in the anode area increased significantly after the PEOD process, indicating that PEOD process could enhance the phosphorus bioavailability of sludge in the anode area. Besides, PEOD process caused a slight loss of silicon components in sludge, but improved the long-term silicon dissolution and release ability of sludge. This work could expand the knowledge about the influences of PEOD process on sludge nutrients and provide scientific guidance for the agricultural application of PEOD sludge.

Tricaprylin, a medium-chain triglyceride, aggravates high-fat diet-induced fat deposition but improves intestinal health.

Medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) are absorbed and metabolized more rapidly than long-chain triglycerides (LCTs) and therefore are considered to have obesity-prevention potential in foods. The effect of adding tricaprylin, an MCT, to food on fat deposition and intestinal health is uncharted. In this study, mice were randomly divided into four groups and fed a normal diet (ND), ND with tricaprylin, a high-fat diet (HFD), or HFD with tricaprylin. Supplementation of 2% tricaprylin in HFD significantly increased the body weight, fat mass, liver weight, adipocyte size in adipose tissue and liver, and upregulated genes related to fat deposition. Metabolomic analysis of serum and adipose tissue revealed that tricaprylin significantly increased the contents of metabolites related to lipid metabolism, triglyceride storage, and fat deposition related signaling pathways. In vitro experiments and molecular docking analysis suggest that octanoic acid, a primary decomposition product of tricaprylin, may promote adipogenic differentiation of preadipocytes by acting as a PPARγ ligand to activate the expression of lipogenesis-related genes. Although supplementation with 2% tricaprylin in HFD cannot reduce fat deposition, it has a beneficial effect on intestinal health. Tricaprylin improved intestinal morphology, digestive enzyme activity, short-chain fatty acid concentration, and intestinal barrier function-related protein expression, while reducing inflammatory factor levels and the abundance of harmful intestinal microorganisms.

Effects of NBP injection on the inflammatory response, oxidative stress response and vascular endothelial function in patients with ACI: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Acute cerebral infarction (ACI) is a common medical emergency. This study is the first systematic review of the use of Dl-3-n-butylphthalide (NBP) injection in the treatment of ACI. The purpose of this study was to systematically evaluate the effects of NBP injection on the inflammatory response, oxidative stress response and vascular endothelial function in patients with acute ACI. The objective is to provide reference for clinical application. METHODS: From the establishment of the database until August 2022, we systematically searched EMbase, PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, CNKI, VIP, and Wanfang Database. RCTs and retrospective studies were included in this study, and the results that qualified for inclusion were screened by 2 researchers and cross-checked. After the relevant data were extracted, a meta-analysis was performed using RevMan5.3 software. RESULTS: A total of 3307 patients with ACI from 34 studies were analyzed. The meta-analysis showed that the C-reactive protein levels in the NBP combined group were effectively reduced compared with those in the control group (MD = -3.75, 95% confidence intervals [95% CI] [-4.95, -2.56], P < .00001). Based on comparison with the control group, it is evident that combination treatment with NBP is more effective than control group in reducing the oxidative stress response of ACI (MD[superoxide dismutase levels] = 22.16, 95% CI [14.20,30.11], P < .00001; MD[malondialdehyde levels] = -1.97, 95% CI [-2.62, -1.32], P < .00001). Comparison with the control group shows that combination treatment with NBP is more effective in improving vascular endothelial function in ACI patients (MD[vascular endothelial growth factor levels] = 71.44, 95% CI [41.22, 101.66], P < .00001; MD[endothelin-1 levels] = -11.47, 95% CI [-17.39, -5.55], P = .0001; MD[nitric oxide levels] = 9.54, 95% CI [8.39, 10.68], P < .00001) than control group. The NBP combined group also showed a greater reduction in cerebral infarct volume (CIV) and cerebral infarct size (CIS) of ACI (MD[CIV] = -1.52, 95% CI [-2.23, -0.81], P < .0001; MD[CIS] = -2.79, 95% CI [-3.65, -1.94], P < .00001). The NBP combined group did not show an increase in the incidence of adverse reactions compared with the control group (odds ratio = 1.06, 95% CI [0.73, 1.53], P = .77). CONCLUSION: In summary, the use of NBP in combination with control group for ACI can reduce the degree of nerve damage, reduce inflammation and oxidative stress, improve vascular endothelial function, and reduce CIS and CIV in ACI patients, without increasing the incidence of clinical adverse events.

Question Answering System Based on Knowledge Graph in Traditional Chinese Medicine Diagnosis and Treatment of Viral Hepatitis B.

This article uses the real medical records and web pages of Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment of hepatitis B to extract structured medical knowledge, and obtains a total of 8,563 entities, 96,896 relationships, 32 entity types, and 40 relationship types. The structured data was stored in the Neo4j graph structure database, and a knowledge graph of Chinese medical diagnosis and treatment of hepatitis B was constructed. The knowledge map is used as a structured data source to provide high-quality knowledge information for the medical question and answer system based on hepatitis B disease. Applying the deep learning method to the question identification and knowledge response of the question answering system makes the hepatitis B medical intelligent question answering system has important research and application significance. The question-and-answer system takes aim at hepatitis B, a public health problem in the world and leverages the advantages of traditional Chinese medicine for diagnosis and treatment. It provides a reference for doctors' disease diagnosis, treatment, and patient self-care. Its value is important for the treatment of hepatitis B disease.

Comparison of efficacy and safety of complementary and alternative therapies for essential hypertension with anxiety or depression disorder.

BACKGROUND: Essential hypertension (EH) with anxiety or depression belongs to the category of psycho-cardiology. Hypertension is closely related to anxiety and depression. The adverse reactions of Western medicine are apparent and the compliance is poor. Supplementary and replacement therapies have accumulated rich experience in clinical practices, which can reduce side effects and improve clinical efficacy. This study intends to use the Bayesian network meta-analysis (NMA) analysis method for the first time to gather randomized controlled trials (RCTs) related to complementary and alternative therapies in the treatment of hypertension with anxiety or depression disorder and rank efficacy and safety, to provide a reference basis for the treatment of hypertension with anxiety or depression disorder. METHODS: All randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and registered and ongoing trials of Chinese and English databases, related to supplementation and replacement therapies of EH with anxiety or depression disorder, published from initial state to February 2021, will be collected in the form of computer retrieval. Two researchers will independently screen the literature, extracting data, assessing bias risk and assessing heterogeneity. We will use software WinBUGS 1.4.3 and Stata 16.0 for pairwise meta-analysis and NMA to comprehensively evaluate various interventions. The quality of evidence will be evaluated through the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE). RESULTS: This NMA will comprehensively compare and rank the efficacy and safety of a series of complementary and alternative therapies in treating EH with anxiety or depression disorder. CONCLUSION: Supplementary and replacement therapies have accumulated rich experience of clinical practices in improving EH with anxiety or depression disorder. We expect that this NMA will guide practice and research by providing reliable evidence of evidence-based medicine for the treatment of EH with anxiety or depression disorder. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION NUMBER: INPLASY202120068.

Comparison of efficacy and safety of complementary and alternative therapies for coronary heart disease complicated with anxiety or depression disorder: A protocol for Bayesian network meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: With the acceleration of the pace of life, the phenomenon of anxiety and depression in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) is more and more common, and "psycho-cardiology" arises spontaneously. At present, the drug treatments of psycho-cardiology are difficult to achieve satisfactory results, and the side effects are obvious. Complementary and replacement therapies of CHD complicated with anxiety or depression disorder play an increasingly positive role, but there is a lack of comparison among different complementary and alternative therapies. In this study, Bayesian network meta-analysis (NMA) analysis method will be used for the first time to synthesize all the evidences of direct and indirect comparison among a variety of interventions, and rank their effectiveness and safety. METHODS: Two independent researchers will search from the beginning to January 2021 mainly including randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and closely related ongoing RCTs of complementary and alternative therapies for CHD complicated with anxiety or depression disorder. And then identify, select and extract the data. The primary outcome measures are frequency of acute attack angina, severity of angina pectoris; the changed score in the validated scales, which can assess severity of anxiety or depression. Secondary outcomes include total efficacy rate, electrocardiogram improvement, traditional Chinese medicine symptoms score, changes of dosage of nitroglycerin and adverse effects. Using softwares WinBUGS 1.4.3 and STATA 16.0 for pairwise meta-analysis and NMA to comprehensively evaluate various interventions. The quality of evidences will be evaluated through the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation. RESULTS: This NMA will comprehensively compare and rank the efficacy and safety of a series of complementary and alternative therapies in the treatment of CHD complicated with anxiety or depression disorder. CONCLUSION: Supplementary and replacement therapies play an essential role in improving CHD complicated with anxiety or depression disorder. We expect that the NMA will provide reliable evidences of evidence-based medicine for treatment of CHD complicated with anxiety or depression disorder. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION NUMBER: INPLASY202120046. ETHICAL APPROVAL: This review does not require ethical approval.

Choline Supplementation Ameliorates Behavioral Deficits and Alzheimer's Disease-Like Pathology in Transgenic APP/PS1 Mice.

SCOPE: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a detrimental neurodegenerative disease and has no known effective treatment. The essential nutrient choline potentially plays an important role in cognition. Perinatal choline supplementation (CS) is critical for memory performance. Findings have shown that postnatal choline-containing compounds enhance memory functions in populations with memory impairments. However, whether CS can be targeted to decelerate the progression of AD remains unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS: APP/PS1 mice and their wild-type littermates are fed either a control or CS diet from 2 to 11 months of age. As compared to WT mice, APP/PS1 mice on the control diet are characterized by the reduction in the number of cholinergic neurons in the basal forebrain, reduced cholinergic fiber staining intensity in the amygdala, and reduced hippocampal and cerebral cortical levels of choline and acetylcholine. CS partially prevents these changes and ameliorates cognitive deficits and anxiety. Furthermore, amyloid-ß deposition and microgliosis are decreased in the APP/PS1 mice fed a CS diet. These effects may have been due to inhibition of NLRP3 inflammasome activation and restoration of synapse membrane formation. CONCLUSION: These findings reveal a beneficial effect of CS on AD progression during adulthood and provide a likely therapeutic intervention for AD patients.

Evaluation indexes for symptom changes in Chinese medicine.

OBJECTIVE: To screen and summarize evaluation indexes for symptom changes in Chinese medicine (CM). METHODS: A case database was established based on information from subsequent patient visits from the case records of famous doctors since 1866. Symptom change descriptions in the database were regarded as research materials. The evaluation indexes of the symptom changes were screened and summarized. RESULTS: In total, 243 evaluation indexes for 256 symptoms were summarized. Among them, common symptoms were frequency, quantity, degree, mobility, color, and correlation with fatigue. CONCLUSION: There are many aspects to evaluating the changes in a symptom. Some symptoms occur with other simultaneous symptoms. The alleviation or aggravation of simultaneous symptoms could reflect the corresponding changes in a symptom. The changes of inducing factors are important to judging changes in symptoms.

Selecting an appropriate interestingness measure to evaluate the correlation between Chinese medicine syndrome elements and symptoms.

To select the best interestingness measure appropriate for evaluating the correlation between Chinese medicine (CM) syndrome elements and symptoms, 60 objective interestingness measures were selected from different subjects. Firstly, a hypothesis for a good measure was proposed. Based on the hypothesis, an experiment was designed to evaluate the measures. The experiment was based on the clinical record database of past dynasties including 51 186 clinical cases. The selected data set in this study had 44 600 records. Cold and heat were selected as the experimental CM syndrome elements. Three indicators calculated according to the distances between two CM syndrome elements were obtained in the experiment and combined into one indicator. The Z score, ϕ-coefficient, and Kappa were selected from 60 measures after the experiment. The Z score and ϕ-coefficient were selected according to subjective interestingness. Finally, the ϕ-coefficient was selected as the best measure for its low computational complexity. The method introduced in this paper may be used in other similar territories.

The TCM pattern of the six-zang and six-fu organs can be simplified into the pattern of five-zang and one-fu organs.

OBJECTIVE: To simplify the TCM pattern of the zang-fu organs. METHODS: A database of zang-fu syndromes was established. The relationship between the zang-fu syndromes was analyzed by means of frequency analysis, association rule, and phi-coefficient correlation. RESULTS: The six zang-fu organs of the heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, and stomach prove to be the main components of the zang-fu pattern. The large intestine, small intestine, gallbladder, bladder, triple energizer, and pericardium have strong association and positive correlation with the above-mentioned six zang-fu organs, and their clinical symptoms can all be included into the symptoms of these six zang-fu organs. CONCLUSION: The traditional TCM pattern of six-zang and six-fu can be simplified into five-zang and one-fu.

[HPLC determination of six components in zedoary turmeric oil and its related injections].

OBJECTIVE: To establish an HPLC method to simultaneously determine six ingredients in zedoary turmeric oil and its related injections. METHOD: HPLC analysis was performed on Waters Symmetry C18 (4.6 mm x 250 mm, 5 microm). The mobile phase was composed of methanol and water solution in gradient elution mode with at a flow rate of 1.0 mL x min(-1). The column temperature was 30 degrees C and the UV detection wavelength was 215 nm. RESULT: The six ingredients were separated well. The linear ranges of curdione, curcumol, germacrone, curzerene, furanodiene and beta-elemene were 1.74-347.00, 2.38-475.00, 2.49-497.00, 2.07-826.00, 5.05-1009.00, 4.78-955.00 mg x L(-1) (r > or = 0.9996), respectively. The average recoveries were above 95% (RSD <3.0%, n=9). CONCLUSION: The method is accurate, reliable and reproducible, it can be used for the quality control of zedoary turmeric oil and its related injections.

[Fingerprints of Curcuma wenyujin by RP-HPLC].

OBJECTIVE: To establish a mutual mode fingerprint of Curcuma wenyujin for quality control of C. wenyujin. METHODS: Waters Symmetry C18 column was used; the mobile phase was methanol-water in a linear gradient elution with the flow rate of 1.0 mL/ min, the temperature of column was 30 degrees C; the detection wavelength was set at 215 nm. 10 batches of C. wenyujin from different places and different time were determined, 3 batches of C. phaeocaulis and 3 batches of C. kwangsiensis were determined in the same chromatographic conditions. RESULTS: 11 mutual peaks in the fingerprint of the 10 groups of C. wenyujin, and the S peak among them represented germacrone. CONCLUSION: Curcuma wenyujin's fingerprints have strong feature and specificity, which can be combined with assaying in the quality control of C. wenyujin.

Nineteen clinical features of fever in Chinese medicine.

Based on the 4,067 descriptions about fever in the medical records of the well-known Chinese medicine physicians throughout the ages, 19 different clinical features of fever are summarized as follows: chilly fever, high fever, low fever, dull fever, bones fever, alternating chills and fever, tidal fever, head fever, face fever, chest fever, back fever, abdomen fever, waist fever, palms and soles fever, lower extremity fever, afternoon fever, evening fever, postpartum fever, and menstrual fever. Although, some of these fever features have not be paid close attention to in Western medicine, stage-division and classification about fever in Western medicine deserve to be used by Chinese medicine for reference.

[Exploration on thinking approach and methodology of syndrome standardization].

The researching thinking approach of "descending the dimension with the lowering rank, ascending the rank with the raising of nsion of dimension", which could exclude the intervention of non-crucial fact ors and reveal the complexity of syndrome as well, provides a feasible approach for syndrome standardization. A study was conducted by analyzing some syndromes and their correlated factors selected from the "Ancient Good-sized Medical Records Database" through unconditional logistic multivariate stepwise regression by SAS 6.12 universal statistical software to sieve the variable, and the mathematical mode of regression equation was obtained eventually, expressed as logit (p) = alpha + beta1X1 + beta2X2 + ... + betamXm. With that, the research of syndrome standardization was proceeded on the syndromes with diagnostic significance to provide references for standardization of syndrome differentiation. I