Wheat oligopeptides enhance the intestinal mucosal barrier and alleviate inflammation via the TLR4/Myd88/MAPK signaling pathway in aged mice.

Background: Aging can induce oxidative stress, inflammation and mucosal impairment, and few works have been conducted to investigate the protective effects of WP on the natural intestinal aging process. Objective: The present work aimed to examine the protective effect of wheat oligopeptides (WP) on intestine mucosal impairment in aged mice, and investigate the potential antioxidation, anti-inflammatory effects of WP. Design: Seventy-two aged mice (24 months old) were randomly divided into six groups, 12 for each group. Twelve young mice (6 months old) were regarded as the young control group. WP (25, 50, 100, 200, or 400 mg/kg) or distilled water were administered daily by gavage for 30 days. Results: Histological observations showed that intestinal mucosal degeneration was attenuated by WP pretreatment. WP exhibited remarkable antioxidant activity via increasing superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, total antioxidant capacity and catalase activities, and decreasing the malondialdehyde levels in small intestine mucosa. WP pretreatment significantly suppressed intestinal mucosa inflammation through the reduction of TNF-α, TGF-ß, IFN-γ IL-1ß and IL-6. WP markedly protect the intestinal mucosal barrier by decreasing the ICAM-1 level, and increasing ZO-1 and JAMA-A levels. WP significantly down-regulated protein expression levels of TLR4, Myd88, and MAPK, suggesting that WP have a potential effect on inhibiting aging-induced inflammatory responses by blocking TLR4/Myd88/MAPK signal transduction. Conclusion: WP administration effectively alleviated intestinal mucosal impairment in aged mice. The potential mechanism was associated with enhancement of antioxidation and anti-inflammatory action and protection of the intestinal mucosal barrier.

Design and preliminary application of outdoor flying pigeon-robot / 生物医学工程学杂志

Control at beyond-visual ranges is of great significance to animal-robots with wide range motion capability. For pigeon-robots, such control can be done by the way of onboard preprogram, but not constitute a closed-loop yet. This study designed a new control system for pigeon-robots, which integrated the function of trajectory monitoring to that of brain stimulation. It achieved the closed-loop control in turning or circling by estimating pigeons' flight state instantaneously and the corresponding logical regulation. The stimulation targets located at the formation reticularis medialis mesencephali (FRM) in the left and right brain, for the purposes of left- and right-turn control, respectively. The stimulus was characterized by the waveform mimicking the nerve cell membrane potential, and was activated intermittently. The wearable control unit weighted 11.8 g totally. The results showed a 90% success rate by the closed-loop control in pigeon-robots. It was convenient to obtain the wing shape during flight maneuver, by equipping a pigeon-robot with a vivo camera. It was also feasible to regulate the evolution of pigeon flocks by the pigeon-robots at different hierarchical level. All of these lay the groundwork for the application of pigeon-robots in scientific researches.

Effects of combined administration of calcium, iron, zinc, chrysanthemum flavonoids, and DMSA on the treatment of lead intoxication in mice.

The effect of combined administration of calcium (Ca), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), chrysanthemum flavonoids, and meso-2,3-dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) on the treatment of lead (Pb) intoxication in mice was studied. One hundred ninety female mice (SPF level, aged 18-22 days) were randomly divided into two groups as experimental animals. Mice in group I (10 mice) served as normal control animals, and were administered deionized water containing 12.5 µL/L acetate acid for 6 weeks, whereas mice in group II (180 mice) were exposed to 0.1% (wt/vol) of lead acetate in deionized water for 6 weeks and served as experimental animals. After 6 weeks of successful modeling, 180 mice from group II (lead-exposed) were divided into 18 groups of 10 mice each, 16 of which were treated by the combined administration of Ca, Fe, Zn, chrysanthemum flavonoids, and DMSA by L16 (215 ) orthogonal design. The remaining two groups were given treatment with low and high doses of DMSA, respectively. After three weeks of intervention (ig), the optimal treatment group was identified according to its blood lead level, as well as some antioxidant indices in the blood, liver, and hippocampus. The results indicated that the combined administration of Fe, Zn, chrysanthemum flavonoids, and DMSA with low dosage had the most significant effect on increasing the activities of blood delta-aminolevulinic acid dehydratase and superoxide dismutase (SOD), hepatic SOD and hippocampus nitric oxide synthase while decreasing the blood lead level, the content of hepatic malondialdehyde and hippocampus nitric oxide; this was considered the optimal treatment group. There was no difference in the level of blood hemoglobin between the optimal treatment group and the model control group (the first group of the orthogonal experiment). The activities of blood glutathione (GSH), hepatic GSH and glutathione peroxidase of the optimal treatment group were the same as other groups', and the recovery of the related indexes in the optimal effect group closely resembled the high dosage DMSA group. It can be concluded that the coadministration of Fe, Zn, and chrysanthemum flavonoids along with a low-dose DMSA effectively reduces Pb poisoning and lead-induced oxidative damage in lead-exposed mice; the result may provide a theoretical reference for the treatment of Pb poisoning.

A correlation study ofCT and clinical features of different clinical types of 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia / 中华放射学杂志

Objective@#To investigate the CT and clinical features of 2019 novel coronavirus (NCP) pneumonia.@*Methods@#Chest CT and clinical data of confirmed 103 patients with 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia in January 2020, retrospectively. According to diagnosis and treatment of NCP infected pneumonia (trial version 5), all the patients were classified into mild(n=58), severe (n=36) and very severe (n=9) type, and their clinical findings, laboratory examination and CT finding were analyzed. CT features included lesions’ distribution, location, size, shape, edge, number, density, percentage of pneumonia lesions of the whole lung and extra-pulmonary manifestations. The CT features of different clinical subtypes were compared using χ2test or Fisher's exact probability. Comparisons between the percentage of pneumonic lesions to total lung volume were computed by using analysis of variance (normal distribution) or Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test (non-normal distribution).@*Results@#In terms of clinical manifestations, the patients with severe NCP were more common in elderly men, with a median age of 65 years. Fever was the first symptom in 49 (84%) of 58 patients with NCP, and fever was the first symptom in both severe and critical NCP patients. The incidence of cough in severe (25 / 36, 69%) and critical (6 /9, 67%) NCP patients was higher than that in general (20 /58, 34%). All critical patients have dyspnea. In terms of CT findings, common NCP showed double lung (40/58,71%) multiple (40 / 58,69%) ground glass (31/58,52%) or mixed (25 / 58,43%) lesions (56 / 58,97%); severe and critical NCP showed double lung lesions, heavy NCP mainly showed multiple (34 / 36,96%) patches (33 / 36,92%) mixed density lesions (26 / 36,72%); 9 severe NCP lesions were more than 3 cm Mixed density lesions. The percentage of pneumonia focus in the whole lung volume: the common type (12.5% ± 6.1%) was significantly lower than the severe type (25.9% ± 10.7%) and the critical type (47.2% ± 19.2%) NCP, the difference was statistically significant (P values were < 0.001 and 0.002 respectively), and the severe type NCP was also significantly lower than the critical type (P = 0.032).@*Conclusions@#CT and clinical features of different clinical types of NCP pneumonia are different. Chest CT findings have unique characteristic, which can not only make early diagnosis, but also evaluate its clinical course and severity.

A correlation study of CT and clinical features of different clinical types of COVID-19 / 中华放射学杂志

Objective:To investigate the CT and clinical features of COVID-19.Methods:Chest CT and clinical data of 103 patients who were confirmed as COVID-19 in January 2020 were collected retrospectively. According to diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 (trial version 5), all the patients were classified into common( n=58), severe ( n=36) and critical ( n=9) types, and their clinical findings, laboratory examination and CT finding were analyzed. CT features included distribution, location, size, shape, edge, number and density of the lesion, percentage of pneumonia lesions of the whole lung and extra-pulmonary manifestations. The CT features among different clinical types were compared using χ 2 test or Fisher's exact probability. Comparisons of age, duration from onset to CT examination, and percentage of pneumonic lesions to total lung volume among different types were performed by using analysis of variance (normal distribution) or Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test (non-normal distribution). Results:In terms of clinical manifestations, the patients with critical COVID-19 were more common in elderly men, with a median age of 65 years. Fever was the first symptom in 49 (84%) of 58 common patients, and also the first symptom in both severe and critical COVID-19 patients. The incidence of coughing in severe (25/36, 69%) and critical (6/9, 67%) COVID-19 patients was higher than that in common patients (20/58, 34%). All critical patients had dyspnea. CT showed the common COVID-19 was located in bilateral lung (40/58, 71%)with multiple (40/58, 69%), ground glass (31/58, 52%) or mixed (25/58, 43%)opacities (56/58, 97%), while all the severe and critical COVID-19 were located in bilateral lung(100%) with multiple (34/36, 96%), patchy (33 /36, 92%), or mixed opacities (26/36, 72%) in severe patients, and with mixed opacities more than 3 cm in critical patients. As for the percentage of pneumonia focus in the whole lung volume, the common type (12.5%±6.1%) was significantly lower than the severe type (25.9%± 10.7%) and the critical type (47.2%±19.2%), with statistically significant differences( P< 0.001 and 0.002 respectively), and the severe type COVID-19 was also significantly lower than the critical type ( P= 0.032). Conclusions:CT and clinical features of different clinical types of COVID-19 pneumonia are different. Chest CT findings are characteristic, which can not only help the early diagnosis but also evaluate the clinical course and severity.

Early CT Findings of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Asymptomatic Children: A Single-Center Experience

Objective@#The current study reported a case series to illustrate the early computed tomography (CT) findings of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in pediatric patients. @*Materials and Methods@#All pediatric patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19 and who underwent CT scan in Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University from January 20, 2020 to February 28, 2020 were included in the current study. Data on clinical and CT features were collected and analyzed. @*Results@#Four children were included in the current study. All of them were asymptomatic throughout the disease course (ranging from 7 days to 15 days), and none of them showed abnormalities in blood cell counts. Familial cluster was the main transmission pattern. Thin-section CT revealed abnormalities in three patients, and one patient did not present with any abnormal CT findings. Unilateral lung involvement was observed in two patients, and one patient showed bilateral lung involvement. In total, five small lesions were identified, including ground-glass opacity (n = 4) and consolidation (n = 1). All lesions had ill-defined margins with peripheral distribution and predilection of lower lobe. @*Conclusion@#Small patches of ground-glass opacity with subpleural distribution and unilateral lung involvement were common findings on CT scans of pediatric patients in the early stage of the disease.

Dietary survey and nutritional evaluation of one meal among the four-star hotel customers in Nanjing city / 重庆医学

Objective To investigate the food intake of one meal of the hotel customers and evaluate it rationality ,then provide dietary suggestions .Methods Six hundreds hotel customers were investigated in 2 four‐star hotel and 2 five‐star hotel of Nanjing , who were selected with a stratified sampling method .Their 5 days diet were investigated and then the dietary intake ,the percentage of energy from protein ,fat and carbohydrate and the percentage of protein resource were calculated based on the food composition table .Results It was shown that the daily energy intake of one meal was appropriate among the surveyed hotel customers ,and the energy proportion from 3 major nutrients were not reasonable ,and the energy proportion from fat were higher than other 2 major nutrients ;the proportion from the source of good proteins was reasonable ,but the intake of protein was too much;the customers fell short on their daily serving of grains ,eggs ,beans and milk products and the intake of cooking oil and salt was excessive in diets . Their intake of fat ,protein ,retinol equivalent ,niacin ,vitamin E ,sodium and iron were too much .Instead ,they ate less ascorbic acid;only the intake of energy ,riboflavin and thiamine were appropriate .Conclusion The one meal dietary structure of hotel customers is not appropriate ,while nutrition collocation is not reasonable .It is necessary to promote nutrition and health education and some intervention measures must be taken .

The study of exploring teaching method in experiments / 中华医学教育探索杂志

To enhance the level of experimental teaching,the exploring teaching method was studied. Compared to the traditional teaching method,this new method was approved by its obviously advantages. The results show that the students who were taught by exploring teaching method are more excellent in experimental operation,problem resolving capability,and report writ-ing. Also,this result induce a possibility of new method application in experimental teaching.