[Bushen Culuan Formula in treatment of infertility caused by polycystic ovary syndrome].

This study aims to observe the efficacy and safety of Bushen Culuan Formula in the treatment of infertility caused by polycystic ovary syndrome(PCOS) and to explore the mechanism using metabolomics. Ninety-four patients with infertility caused by PCOS with the syndrome of kidney deficiency and blood stasis were selected and assigned into treatment and control groups(n=47). The basal body temperature(BBT) was measured, and B-ultrasonography was employed to monitor follicles, ovarian volume, endometrium, ovulation, and pregnancy. The serum levels of sex hormones including follicle-stimulating hormone(FSH), luteinizing hormone(LH), prolactin(PRL), estradiol(E_2), progestin(P), testosterone(T), free testosterone(FT), androstenedione(A2), inhibin B(INHB), and anti-Müllerian hormone(AMH) were measured. The coagulation function, traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) symptom scores, blood and urine routine, liver and kidney functions and other safety indicators were determined. Metabolomics was employed to comparatively analyze the serum metabolites of 26 patients(13 patients in each group) in the clinical study. The results showed that the total response rate and pregnancy rate of the treatment group were higher than those of the control group(P<0.001), suggesting that Bushen Culuan Formula regulated the sex hormones and ovarian function. Specifically, it reduced the levels of LH, T, FT, A2, and INHB(P<0.05 or P<0.01) and the LH/FSH ratio(P<0.05), elevated the level of P(P<0.05), promoted ovulation, increased endothelial thickness, and lowered TCM symptom scores without causing adverse reactions. A total of 24 differential metabolites were screened by metabolomics, and there were correlations between sex hormones and differential metabolites in the PCOS-induced infertility patients with kidney deficiency and blood stasis. In conclusion, Bushen Culuan Formula may regulate hormone levels through lipid and amino acid metabolism.

A two-stage MPPT controller for PV system based on the improved artificial bee colony and simultaneous heat transfer search algorithm.

The maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controller can monitor the voltage and current of photovoltaic (PV) array in real-time to acquire the maximum power output for battery charging in PV system. In order to improve the accuracy and rapidity of tracking process, a bionic two-stage MPPT control strategy composed of fast positioning stage and precise determination stage is proposed in this paper for optimizing the duty cycle d of DC-DC converter. Firstly, an improved artificial bee colony algorithm with simplified probability selection mechanism and novel employed bee phase is presented to balances exploration and exploitation for excellent rapidity in positioning rough search region around global peak. Then, the simultaneous heat transfer search (SHTS) algorithm is adopted for accurately acquiring the global maximum power point in obtained search region. On the one hand, the SHTS can reduce the subjectivity in artificial setting of the parameters to ensure the universality and accuracy of search process. On the other hand, the parallel search in SHTS can decrease the optimization time effectively. Finally, extensive simulation results illustrate that this two-stage MPPT strategy shows excellent performance in precisely identifying the GMPP of PV system with phenomenal rapidity among multiple peaks. Moreover, it outperforms all the counterparts in tracking speed and accuracy under partial shading conditions.

The effect of Bushen Culuan Decoction on anovulatory infertile women among 6 different diseases: a study protocol for a randomized, double-blinded, positively controlled, adaptive multicenter clinical trial.

BACKGROUND: Anovulation is one of the main causes of female infertility. This study will evaluate the effectiveness and safety of Bushen Culuan Decoction for anovulatory infertility caused by six diseases, including anovulatory abnormal uterine bleeding, polycystic ovarian syndrome, hyperprolactinemia, luteinized unruptured follicle syndrome, corpus luteum insufficiency, and premature ovarian insufficiency. METHODS: This is a randomized, double-blinded, double-dummy, parallel, positively controlled, adaptive, multicenter clinical trial. All participants will be randomly allocated by a central randomization system to the treatment group or the control group in a 1:1 ratio. The treatment group will undergo a 14-day treatment with Bushen Culuan Decoction 13 g three times a day and a 5-day treatment with clomiphene citrate placebo tablets 50 mg once a day starting on day 5 of every menstrual period. The control group will undergo a 14-day treatment with Bushen Culuan Decoction placebo 13 g three times a day and a 5-day treatment with clomiphene citrate tablets 50 mg once a day from day 5 in every menstrual period. The whole treatment will last through 3 menstrual periods or 6 menstrual periods, depending on whether ovulation is regained in the first 3 menstrual periods. All statistical analyses will be performed in SPSS 21.0 (SPSS, Chicago, Illinois, USA), and a p value < 0.05 will be considered statistically significant. DISCUSSION: The objective of this RCT is to evaluate whether Bushen Culuan Decoction enables a higher pregnancy rate than clomiphene citrate in women with anovulatory infertility and to identify the anovulatory diseases for which Bushen Culuan Decoction has higher effectiveness .This study has been approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Xiyuan Hospital China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences (No. 2017XLA037-2). The results of this study will be offered for publication in peer-reviewed journals. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03709849 . Registered on 19 November 2018.

Bushen Culuan Decoction Ameliorates Premature Ovarian Insufficiency by Acting on the Nrf2/ARE Signaling Pathway to Alleviate Oxidative Stress.

Premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) can result in lower fertility and shorten the female reproductive span. Bushen-Culuan Decoction (BCD) is a traditional Chinese medication utilized for treating POI for many years. We previously observed that BCD protects against further deterioration of the ovarian reserve of POI patients, however, the underlying mechanism has not been well studied. Our investigation seeks to evaluate the effect of BCD on POI induced by Tripterygium wilfordii polyglycosidium (TWP) and the likely mechanistic pathways, which we hypothesize may involve the Nrf2/ARE pathway. The body weights, estrous cycle, serum hormone levels, histological follicular analysis and quantification, levels of oxidative stress biomarkers in the ovarian tissue of POI mice models were evaluated. Western blotting and RT-PCR enabled quantification of the components of the Nrf2/ARE pathway. Our results showed that BCD restored hormonal profiles and estrous cycles of POI mice similar to those observed in healthy controls. BCD reduced the numbers of atretic follicles while increasing the number of primordial follicles. BCD facilitated lower 8-OHdG and MDA levels while increasing levels of key antioxidant enzymes including GSH-Px, CAT, and SOD. Furthermore, TWP increased Bach 1, Nrf2, and Keap 1 expressions at the translational level, while decreased that of HO-1. BCD treatment also promoted nuclear translocation rates of Bach 1 and Nrf2, suppressed Keap 1 protein expression, as well as raised HO-1 protein expression. Taken together, BCD likely augments ovarian reserve by activating the Nrf2/ARE signaling pathway, which stimulated higher levels of antioxidants and suppressed oxidative stress. BCD may be an important therapeutic compound in POI.

A novel linear active disturbance rejection controller for main steam temperature control based on the simultaneous heat transfer search.

The main steam temperature of boiler outlet has been deemed as a significant parameter of the safety and economic performances in the thermal power plant operation. The complex working status of the thermal generation endures highly uncertain factors and remarkable disturbance, which call for effective controlling approaches in the corresponding temperature management. The linear active disturbance rejection controller (LADRC) is a conducive and powerful controlling method, whereas strong correlation between LADRC parameters leads to difficulties in optimally determining the controller parameters. Aiming at eliminating the negative effects on main steam temperature control caused by uncertainties factors and disturbances, a high performance LADRC based on a novel parameters optimization strategy, the simultaneous heat transfer search (SHTS) algorithm, is designed to deliver a stability, rapidity, and precision of control process. In the presented SHTS algorithm, all the three phases of heat transfer are randomly and parallel operated, providing a significant improvement towards the optimization performance. The proposed algorithm is first verified on various benchmark functions contrasted to state-of-the-art counterparts in performance validating, and then adopted in the parameter selection of LADRC in the main steam temperature control system. The excellent control performance, strong robustness and disturbance rejection ability of the designed approach are illustrated through the simulation results on main steam temperature control system.

[Effect of therapies for kidney-tonifying and blood-activating in treatment of anovulatory infertility in eugenics].

In the context of the new era, paying attention to maternal and child health and advocating prenatal and postnatal care can effectively improve the quality of the birth population. Traditional Chinese medicine has a long history of prenatal and postnatal healthcare with rich content, which is the theoretical basis of modern related services. With the social development and the improvement of people's awareness of prenatal and postnatal healthcare, people have gradually shifted the focus of prenatal and postnatal healthcare to the peri-pregnancy stage at present, namely that couples of childbearing age are guided to prepare for pregnancy under the premise of solving their basic diseases. Infertility is a common and refractory disease for women of childbearing age. Ovulation disorder is one of its common pathological mechanisms. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that kidney deficiency is the main cause and pa-thogenesis of anovulation infertility and blood stasis is an important factor throughout the disease course. In clinical practice, therapies for invigorating kidney and activating blood are safe and reliable to treat anovulatory infertility mainly by adjusting the hypothalamus-pituitary-ovarian axis, improving ovarian function, uterine environment and gamete quality and increasing endometrial volume. Under the guidance of the thought of prenatal and postnatal healthcare, the authors tried to explore the effect of therapies for kidney-tonifying and blood-activating in the treatment of anovulatory infertility in eugenics, with the purpose of providing ideas and basis for subsequent relevant clinical studies and contributing to prenatal and postnatal healthcare services.

[Study on mechanism of Bushen Culuan Formula in treatment of polycystic ovary syndrome based on network pharmacology and molecular docking].

This study used network pharmacology and molecular docking to study the mechanism of Bushen Culuan Formula in the treatment of infertility caused by polycystic ovary syndrome(PCOS). The active ingredients and potential drug targets of Bushen Cu-luan Decoction were obtained by searching the Traditional Chinese Medicine System Pharmacology(TCMSP) database, and the targets of PCOS by searching GeneCards. After the drug targets and disease targets were corrected by Uniprot, the intersection genes were obtained. STRING database and Cytoscape 3.7.2 were used for protein-protein interaction(PPI) analysis of the intersection genes. The ClueGO plug-in of Cytoscape 3.7.2 was employed to perform gene ontology(GO) enrichment and KEGG pathway enrichment for the intersection genes. Finally, molecular docking of the key active ingredients with the targets of Bushen Culuan Formula was performed using AutoDockVina and MGLtools. A total of 136 active ingredients and 314 drug targets of the decoction were obtained from TCMSP, and 136 disease targets from GeneCards. Finally, 49 drug-disease intersection genes were obtained. GO enrichment found that the genes were mainly involved in the regulation of muscle cell apoptosis, positive regulation of small molecule metabolism, core promoter binding, RNA polymerase Ⅱ regulation of pri-miRNA transcription, negative regulation of transmembrane transport and other biological functions. The enriched KEGG pathways mainly included MAPK, PI3 K-Akt, p53, and HIF-1 signaling pathways. The results of molecular docking showed that quercetin and PTGS2 can bind stably and interact through amino acid residues THR206, TRP387, ASN382, etc. This study preliminarily reveals the multi-component, multi-target, and multi-pathway mechanism of Bushen Culuan Formula in the treatment of PCOS-related infertility, which provides a basis for further research.

Novel fuzzy modeling and energy-saving predictive control of coordinated control system in 1000 MW ultra-supercritical unit.

In order to satisfy the growing demands of control performance and energy conservation in power generation process, a novel T-S fuzzy modeling method combined with the quantum artificial bee colony (QABC) algorithm is proposed and applied to the coordinated control system (CCS) of ultra-supercritical unit in 1000MW power plant. The T-S fuzzy modeling consists of the identifications of premise part and consequence part. In the premise part identification, the cluster number and initial cluster centers are obtained at first by using entropy-based clustering method. Secondly, the initial cluster centers are modified through QABC algorithm to guarantee the integral of data and avoid possible marginalization. Then, the consequence part is identified through exponentially-weighted least squares. Furthermore, on account of the obtained fuzzy model, an energy-saving predictive control (ESPC) algorithm based on the generalized predictive control is introduced. In the rolling optimization process of ESPC, the values of manipulated variables taken as energy consumption indicator are introduced into objective function to decrease the consumption of energy and improve the performance of control process. Meanwhile, the addition of manipulated variables constraints can obtain further improvements of energy-saving efficiency and control performance. The simulation results demonstrate the high precision of identified model and ideal performance along with energy-saving ability of ESPC.