Inhibiting NF-κB inducing kinase improved the motor performance of ALS animal model.

BACKGROUND: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a typical neurodegenerative disorder typically characterized by inflammation activation. However, the relationship between non-canonical NF-κB (ncNF-κB) pathway activation and ALS progression is not clear. METHODS: We tested the ncNF-κB pathway in the ALS animal model including hSOD1-G93A transgenic mice and TBK1 deletion mice.We treated age-matched SOD1-G93A mice with B022 (a NIK inhibitor) to investigate the role of NIK in the ALS animal model. We also established a new mice model by crossing SOD1-G93A mice with NIK+/- mice to further evaluate the interrelationship between the NIK and the disease progression in ALS animal model. RESULTS: In this study, we found the ncNF-κB pathway was activated in SOD1-G93A animal model and TBK1 deletion model. Inhibition of NIK activity by small molecule B022 significantly improved the motor performance of the ALS animal model. However, NIK deletion enhanced the mutant SOD1 toxicity by inflammatory infiltration. CONCLUSION: BK1 deletion and mutant SOD1 shared the common pathological feature possibly via effects on NIK activation and inhibitor of NIK could be a novel strategy for treating ALS.

Self-management of Diabetes for Empty Nest Older Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Despite much evidence showing the effectiveness of structured self-management education for diabetes, poor glycemic control remains a challenge among empty nest older adults. OBJECTIVE: We explored the effect of a health education intervention based on the PRECEDE-PROCEED model on the self-management of empty nest older adults with type 2 diabetes in Lanzhou, China. METHODS: We conducted a 2-armed, randomized controlled trial using a multistage sampling method. A total of 100 patients were randomly assigned to receive either community nurse-led diabetes education based on the PRECEDE-PROCEED model or general community diabetes education. Self-management scores and blood glucose were compared at baseline and at 3 and 6 months after the intervention. RESULTS: Analyses were conducted on the 98 patients completing follow-up. In the experimental group, diabetes self-management knowledge (t = 7.578, P < .001), self-management attitude (t = 9.155, P < .001), self-management behavior (t = 7.809, P < .001), and overall self-management scores (t = 7.626, P < .001) improved, with hemoglobin A1c (t = -2.825, P = .006), fasting plasma glucose (t = -3.100, P = .003), 2-hour postprandial blood glucose (t = -3.812, P < .001), and diastolic blood pressure (t = -2.104, P = .038) decreasing compared with the control group at 6 months postintervention. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that education based on the PRECEDE-PROCEED model was more effective than general health education in improving diabetes self-management and glycemic control among empty nest older adults.

High expression of NF-κB inducing kinase in the bulge region of hair follicle induces tumor.

The bulge region, a reservoir of multipotent stem cells, is possibly responsible for tumorigenesis. NF-κB-inducing kinase (NIK) is a kinase involved in the activation of the noncanonical NF-κB pathway and exhibits positive staining in tumor cells. However, whether high expression of NIK can result in tumorigenesis has not been reported in published papers. By establishing Nik-coe (Nik-stopF/F crossed with Chat-cre) and Nik-soe (Nik-stopF/F crossed with Sox9-cre) mice, we found that overexpression of Nik in the bulge region of hair follicles induced hair follicle loss and tumorigenesis. Furthermore, RNA sequencing, proteomic and phosphopeptide analyses revealed that multiple cancer pathways are involved in tumor formation. Taken together, these findings indicate that constitutive activation of Nik in the bulge region induces tumorigenesis.

Prediction of 316 stainless steel low-cycle fatigue life based on machine learning.

The low-cycle fatigue life of 316 stainless steel is a significant basis for safety assessment. Usually, many factors affect the low-cycle fatigue life of stainless steel, and the relationship between the influencing factors and fatigue life is complicated and nonlinear. Therefore, it is hard to predict fatigue life using the traditional empirical formula. Based on this, a machine learning algorithm is proposed. In this paper, based on the large amount of existing experimental data, machine learning methods are used to predict the low circumferential fatigue life of 316 stainless steel. The results show that the prediction accuracy of nu-SVR and ELM models is high and can meet engineering needs.

PRR11 is a prognostic biomarker and correlates with immune infiltrates in bladder urothelial carcinoma.

Abnormal proline-rich protein 11 (PRR11) expression is associated with various tumors. However, there are few reports concerning PRR11 with prognostic risk, immune infiltration, or immunotherapy of bladder urothelial carcinoma (BLCA). This study is based on online databases, such as Oncomine, GEPIA, HPA, LinkedOmics, TIMER, ESTIMATE and TISIDB, and BLCA data downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus, we employed an array of bioinformatics methods to explore the potential oncogenic roles of PRR11, including analyzing the relationship between PRR11 and prognosis, tumor mutational burden (TMB), microsatellite instability, and immune cell infiltration in BLCA. The results depict that PRR11 is highly expressed in BLCA, and BLCA patients with higher PRR11 expression have worse outcomes. In addition, there was a significant correlation between PRR11 expression and TMB and tumor immune infiltration. These findings suggest that PRR11 can be used as a potential marker for BLCA patient assessment and risk stratification to improve clinical prognosis, and its potential regulatory mechanism in the BLCA tumor microenvironment and targeted therapy is worthy of further investigation.

Eosinophilia complicated with venous thromboembolism: A case report.

BACKGROUND: Eosinophilia is an increase of more than 0.5 × 109/L in the number of eosinophils; it is a systemic condition with an unknown etiology and is often accompanied by multiple impaired organ functions. The clinical manifestations of the disease are highly variable and diverse, rendering identification of the diagnosis challenging; hence, diagnosis and treatment are often delayed. Very few reports of this disease exist globally, especially with rare manifestations of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and hemorrhage. CASE SUMMARY: A 32-year-old woman with eosinophilia presented to the hospital with bilateral lower-limb edema as the first clinical manifestation, followed by an extensive maculopapular rash throughout the body. She subsequently developed cerebral venous sinus thrombosis along with bilateral lower-limb deep vein thrombosis. Two weeks earlier, she had received a single course of antibiotics from a local hospital for a low-grade fever and sore throat. After various treatments were administered for anticoagulation, maintaining blood circulation, and relieving blood stasis, the lower extremity edema improved significantly; however, the patient's eosinophil count gradually increased. She experienced cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, cerebral hemorrhage, and deep vein thrombosis of the lower limbs before being declared brain dead. In this case report, we have elaborated the diagnosis and management of deep vein thrombosis manifested as eosinophilia, thrombocytopenia, and elevated D-dimer levels. CONCLUSION: Because proper diagnosis is challenging, clinical vigilance is required for patients with eosinophilia, as it can lead to thrombus formation.

The effect of torrefaction and ZSM-5 catalyst for hydrocarbon rich bio-oil production from co-pyrolysis of cellulose and low density polyethylene via microwave-assisted heating.

This study aims to investigate the effect of microwave torrefaction and ZSM-5 catalyst for hydrocarbon rich bio-oil production from microwave co-pyrolysis of cellulose and low density polyethylene (LDPE). FTIR analysis displayed remarkable reductions of active hydroxyl and ether groups in microwave torrefied cellulose (MTC), demonstrating that cellulose was less stable than MTC. GC/MS analysis indicated that the hydrocarbons content was ranged from 18.36% to 54.94% in the obtained bio-oils under different conditions, and the maximum hydrocarbons content (54.94%) which also contained the highest aromatic hydrocarbons (19.49%) was obtained from MTC catalytic co-pyrolysis. Microwave-assisted Thermogravimetric analyzer (MW-TGA) analysis showed that MTC catalytic co-pyrolysis apparently shifted the major thermal degradation to a lower temperature area, an evident synergistic effect was observed during MTC catalytic co-pyrolysis. Kinetics study revealed that the activation energy was significantly reduced from 97.87 kJ/mol to 63.86 kJ/mol for co-pyrolysis and MTC catalytic co-pyrolysis, respectively.

Microwave-assisted liquefaction of carbohydrates for 5-hydroxymethylfurfural using tungstophosphoric acid encapsulated dendritic fibrous mesoporous silica as a catalyst.

Tungstophosphoric acid (TPA) encapsulated dendritic fibrous silica KCC-1 was prepared via a microemulsion system with the simple reflux method using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide as a structure-directing agent. The TPA impregnated on KCC-1 (ITPA-KCC-1) was also prepared for comparative. Various physicochemical techniques were used to characterize the synthesized materials and their activity evaluated in the 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) formation from carbohydrates derivatives of fructose, glucose and cellulose. The effect of various factors such as catalyst to substrate ratio, different solvents and temperature were investigated on the formation of HMF. The resultant encapsulated catalyst was very active in fructose dehydration with the yield of 92% HMF and full conversion of fructose at 120 °C for 30 min under the microwave heating condition without any salt additive in the THF solvent system as well as 95% in MIBK solvent. The HMF yield was achieved by 58% and 16.2% from glucose and cellulose in the DMSO solvent, respectively. The TPA-KCC-1 can be separated easily after reaction from the reaction mixture and reused atleast five times without substantial loss in catalytic activity. This study provides an easy encapsulation method for TPA in dendritic fibrous silica KCC-1 as a heterogeneous catalyst, and it should have great application potential in other biomass valorization processes.

Hydrocarbon rich bio-oil production, thermal behavior analysis and kinetic study of microwave-assisted co-pyrolysis of microwave-torrefied lignin with low density polyethylene.

This study aims to enhance the quality of biofuel through microwave torrefaction pretreatment for lignin. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) was added as a hydrogen source during microwave co-pyrolysis along with the microwave-torrefied lignin (MTL). The thermal degradation behavior and kinetic study of MTL co-pyrolysis with LDPE by microwave-assisted heating was investigated as well. The results indicated that the hydrocarbon content in the bio-oil obtained from microwave co-pyrolysis of MTL and LDPE increased significantly (about 80%). It was also noticed that the aromatic hydrocarbon content increased from 1.94% to 22.83% with the addition of LDPE. Thermal behavior analysis and reaction kinetic study showed that the addition of LDPE into MTL had the effect of promoting thermal degradation and improving reaction rate during microwave-assisted pyrolysis.

Application of UV absorbance and fluorescence indicators to assess the formation of biodegradable dissolved organic carbon and bromate during ozonation.

This study examined the significance of changes of UV absorbance and fluorescence of dissolved organic matter (DOM) as surrogate indicators for assessing the formation of bromate and biodegradable dissolved organic carbon (BDOC) during the ozonation of surface water and wastewater effluent. Spectroscopic monitoring was carried out using benchtop UV/Vis and fluorescence spectrophotometers and a newly developed miniature LED UV/fluorescence sensor capable of rapidly measuring UVA280 and protein-like and humic-like fluorescence. With the increase of O3/DOC mass ratio, the plots of BDOC formation were characterized of initial lag, transition slope and final plateau. With the decrease of UV absorbance and fluorescence, BDOC concentrations initially increased slowly and then rose more noticeably. Inflection points in plots of BDOC versus changes of spectroscopic indicators were close to 35-45% loss of UVA254 or UVA280 and 75-85% loss of humic-like fluorescence. According to the data from size exclusion chromatography (SEC) with organic carbon detection and 2D synchronous correlation analyses, DOM fractions assigned to operationally defined large biopolymers (apparent molecular weight, AMW>20 kDa) and medium AMW humic substances (AMW 5.5-20 kDa) were transformed into medium-size building blocks (AMW 3-5.5 kDa) and other smaller AMW species (AMW<3 kDa) associated with BDOC at increasing O3/DOC ratios. Appreciable bromate formation was observed only after the values of UVA254, UVA280 and humic-like fluorescence in O3-treated samples were decreased by 45-55%, 50-60% and 86-92% relative to their respective initial levels. No significant differences in plots of bromate concentrations versus decreases of humic-like fluorescence were observed for surface water and wastewater effluent samples. This was in contrast with the plots of bromate concentration versus UVA254 and UVA280 which exhibited sensitivity to varying initial bromide concentrations in the investigated water matrixes. These results suggest that measurements of humic-like fluorescence can provide a useful supplement to UVA indices for characterization of ozonation processes.

Synthesis and characterization of thermo-sensitive semi-IPN hydrogels based on poly(ethylene glycol)-co-poly(epsilon-caprolactone) macromer, N-isopropylacrylamide, and sodium alginate.

Thermo-sensitive semi-IPN hydrogels were prepared via in situ copolymerization of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) with poly(ethylene glycol)-co-poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (PEG-co-PCL) macromer in the presence of sodium alginate by UV irradiation technology. The effects of the sodium alginate content, temperature, and salt on the swelling behavior of the as-obtained hydrogels were studied. The results showed that the swelling ratio of the hydrogels increased with the increasing sodium alginate content at the same temperature, and decreased with the increase in temperature. The salt sensitivity of the semi-IPN hydrogels was dependent on the content of sodium alginate introduced in the hydrogels. The mechanical rheology of the hydrogels and in vitro release behavior of bovine serum albumin (BSA) in situ encapsulated within the hydrogels were also investigated. It was found that the introduction of sodium alginate with semi-IPN structure improved mechanical strength of the hydrogels and the cumulative release percentage of BSA from the hydrogels. Such double-sensitive semi-IPN hydrogel materials could be exploited as potential candidates for drug delivery carriers.