Prospects for improving cosmological parameter estimation with gravitational-wave standard sirens from Taiji.

Taiji, a space-based gravitational-wave observatory, consists of three satellites forming an equilateral triangle with arm length of 3×106 km, orbiting around the Sun. Taiji is able to observe the gravitational-wave standard siren events of massive black hole binary (MBHB) merger, which is helpful in probing the expansion of the universe. In this paper, we preliminarily forecast the capability of Taiji for improving cosmological parameter estimation with the gravitational-wave standard siren data. We simulate five-year standard siren data based on three fiducial cosmological models and three models of MBHB's formation and growth. It is found that the standard siren data from Taiji can effectively break the cosmological parameter degeneracies generated by the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies data, especially for dynamical dark energy models. The constraints on cosmological parameters are significantly improved by the data combination CMB + Taiji, compared to the CMB data alone. Compared to the current optical cosmological observations, Taiji can still provide help in improving the cosmological parameter estimation to some extent. In addition, we consider an ideal scenario to investigate the potential of Taiji on constraining cosmological parameters. We conclude that the standard sirens of MBHB from Taiji will become a powerful cosmological probe in the future.

Therapeutic ultrasound potentiates the anti-nociceptive and anti-inflammatory effects of curcumin to postoperative pain via Sirt1/NF-κB signaling pathway.

Background: Postoperative pain has well defined and is perceived by patients as one of the most obnoxious aspects of surgical pain. The aim of this study was to determine whether the combination of Therapeutic ultrasound (TUS) and Curcumin (CUR) resulted in an enhancement of their pain relieving activities in a rat model of postoperative pain. Methods: We explored the effect of these treatment and their interaction with signal transduction pathways involved in inflammatory. In this study, TUS and CUR alone or in combination were administered prior to or simultaneously with or after the incisional surgery. Results: At the start time of administration, we observed that the TUS plus CUR treatment reduced the mean paw withdrawal threshold more efficiently than CUR alone. Then we demonstrated that TUS potentiates the antinociceptive effect of CUR in a rat model of chronic postoperative pain and that the combination could facilitate the recovery of surgical pain. However, preventive value was not statistically significant when the treatments were given prior to the incisional surgery. We provide evidence that TUS plus CUR administrations were safe and significantly reduced the ED50 compared to treatment with the single CUR treatment in rats. TUS plus CUR administrations decreases incisional surgery induced activation of inflammatory cells and down-regulation of chemokines and proinflammatory cytokines, MCP-1, MIP-1α, IL-1ß, and TNF-α through regulating Sirt1/NF-κB signaling pathway. Conclusions: Taken together, our results indicate that the combinations of TUS and CUR can be more effective in the anti-nociceptive effects than the treatment with CUR alone.