Effects of different mind-body exercises on glucose and lipid metabolism in patients with type 2 diabetes: A network meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: This study aims to compare the relative effectiveness of different forms of mind-body exercise in improving glycolipid metabolism in patients with T2DM using a network meta-analysis. METHODS: The relevant literature was systematically searched in Cochrane Library, Embase, PubMed, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang database and VIP Chinese Science. A network meta-analysis was conducted using a random-effects model within a frequentist framework. RESULTS: A total of 52 studies with 6 modalities of mind-body exercise involving 4024 patients were included. Compared with controls, all exercise modalities except Yijinjing significantly improved patients' fasting blood glucose (MDs ranged from -0.72(95% CI: -1.20,-0.25) in dance to -2.06(95% CI: -2.59,-1.54) in yoga), glycated hemoglobin (MDs ranged from -0.62 (95% CI: -0.96) in taijiquan to -0.27,-0.27) in Pilates to -1.18(95% CI: 1.80,-0.57)), total cholesterol (MDs ranged from -0.73(95% CI: -1.29,-0.17) in Pilates to -0.41(95% CI: -0.62,-0.19) in Tai Chi), triglycerides (MDs ranged from -0.56 in Pilates (95% CI: -1.07,-0.04) for Pilates to -0.38 (95% CI: -0.67,-0.10)) for dance; only Tai Chi Chuan (MD:0.12 95% CI:0.04,0.20) and Baduanjin (MD:0.14 95% CI:0.06,0.22) significantly increased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in patients; only yoga(MD: 0.78 95%CI: 1.20,-0.37) and Tai Chi Chuan(MD: 0.32 95%CI: 0.60,-0.04) significantly decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in patients. CONCLUSION: All mind-body exercises help to improve blood glucose and lipid levels in T2DM patients, but the ranking of relative effectiveness needs to be rationalized. Our study suggests that T2DM patients should choose appropriate mind-body exercises according to their conditions and stick to them for a long time under their healthcare professionals' guidance to achieve effective diabetes control.

Acidic and Alkaline Conditions Affect the Growth of Tree Peony Plants via Altering Photosynthetic Characteristics, Limiting Nutrient Assimilation, and Impairing ROS Balance.

Exposure to acidic and alkaline conditions were found to cause the excess accumulation of reactive oxygen species in tree peony, thereby causing damage and inhibiting plant growth and development. The activities of antioxidant enzymes were also found to be significantly up-regulated, especially under alkaline conditions; this explained why tree peony is better adapted to alkaline than to acidic conditions. Through pairwise comparisons, 144 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) associated with plant growth, photosynthesis, and stress were identified. The DEGs related to stress were up-regulated, whereas the remaining DEGs were almost all down-regulated after acid and alkaline treatments. The nutrient assimilation was greatly inhibited. Chlorophyll synthesis genes were suppressed, and chlorophyll content was reduced. The development and structures of stomata and chloroplasts and the transcription of related genes were also influenced. Among photosynthesis-related DEGs, electron transport chains were the most sensitive. The suppressed expression of photosynthesis genes and the reduced light-harvesting capacity, together with the impairment of chloroplasts and stomata, finally led to a sharp decrease in the net photosynthetic rate. Carbohydrate accumulation and plant biomass were also reduced. The present study provides a theoretical basis for the response mechanisms of tree peony to adverse pH conditions and enriches knowledge of plant adaptation to alkaline conditions.

Event-triggered adaptive prescribed performance control of uncertain nonlinear systems with unknown control directions.

The problem of event-triggered prescribed performance control for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with unknown control directions and faults is investigated. Compared with the existing methods, a new set of error transformation functions is defined for the first time. Although no approximate structure is adopted, prescribed performance control (PPC) and event triggered control (ETC) are realized simultaneously for the nonlinear system considered in this paper for the first time. The proposed control scheme can guarantee that all closed-loop signals are bounded, and the tracking error, as well as all state errors, converges within the adjustable constraint functions. Finally, two simulation experiments verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Co-Creating the Cities of the Future.

In recent years, the evolution of urban environments, jointly with the progress of the Information and Communication sector, have enabled the rapid adoption of new solutions that contribute to the growth in popularity of Smart Cities. Currently, the majority of the world population lives in cities encouraging different stakeholders within these innovative ecosystems to seek new solutions guaranteeing the sustainability and efficiency of such complex environments. In this work, it is discussed how the experimentation with IoT technologies and other data sources form the cities can be utilized to co-create in the OrganiCity project, where key actors like citizens, researchers and other stakeholders shape smart city services and applications in a collaborative fashion. Furthermore, a novel architecture is proposed that enables this organic growth of the future cities, facilitating the experimentation that tailors the adoption of new technologies and services for a better quality of life, as well as agile and dynamic mechanisms for managing cities. In this work, the different components and enablers of the OrganiCity platform are presented and discussed in detail and include, among others, a portal to manage the experiment life cycle, an Urban Data Observatory to explore data assets, and an annotations component to indicate quality of data, with a particular focus on the city-scale opportunistic data collection service operating as an alternative to traditional communications.