Berberine Ameliorates High Glucose-Induced Cardiomyocyte Injury via AMPK Signaling Activation to Stimulate Mitochondrial Biogenesis and Restore Autophagic Flux

Background: Type II diabetes (T2D)-induced cardiomyocyte hypertrophy is closely linked to the impairment of mitochondrial function. Berberine has been shown to be a promising effect for hypoglycemia in T2D models. High glucose-induced cardiomyocyte hypertrophy in vitro has been reported. The present study investigated the protective effect and the underlying mechanism of berberine on high glucose-induced H9C2 cell line.Methods: High glucose-induced H9C2 cell line was used to mimic the hyperglycemia resulting in cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. Berberine was used to rescue in this model and explore the mechanism in it. Confocal microscopy, immunofluorescence, RT-PCR, and western blot analysis were performed to evaluate the protective effects of berberine in high glucose-induced H9C2 cell line.Results: Berberine dramatically alleviated hypertrophy of H9C2 cell line and significantly ameliorated mitochondrial function by rectifying the imbalance of fusion and fission in mitochondrial dynamics. Furthermore, berberine further promoted mitogenesis and cleared the damaged mitochondria via mitophagy. In addition, berberine also restored autophagic flux in high glucose-induced cardiomyocyte injury via AMPK signaling pathway activation.Conclusion: Berberine ameliorates high glucose-induced cardiomyocyte injury via AMPK signaling pathway activation to stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis and restore autophagicflux in H9C2 cell line

A Prediction Model of the Project Life-Span in Open Source Software Ecosystem

© 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.In nature ecosystems, animal life-spans are determined by genes and some other biological characteristics. Similarly, the software project life-spans are related to some internal or external characteristics. Analyzing the relations between these characteristics and the project life-span, may help developers, investors, and contributors to control the development cycle of the software project. The paper provides an insight on the project life-span for a free open source software ecosystem. The statistical analysis of some project characteristics in GitHub is presented, and we find that the choices of programming languages, the number of files, the label format of the project, and the relevant membership expressions can impact the life-span of a project. Based on these discovered characteristics, we also propose a prediction model to estimate the project life-span in open source software ecosystems. These results may

Table_1_Development and evaluation of an online training program based on the O-AMAS teaching model for community pharmacists in the post-COVID-19 era.DOC

BackgroundFormerly, the community pharmacists' work was mainly focused on drug supply. However, during the COVID-19 epidemic outbreak, community pharmacists in Wuhan played an important role in control and prevention of SARS-CoV-2 and in providing pharmaceutical care. Due to a lack of adequate knowledge and skills, many community pharmacists were not able to cope with healthcare work timely and efficiently. To improve community pharmacists' specialized knowledge and enhance their professional competence through systemic training in the post-COVID-19 era.MethodsBased on the O-AMAS (Objective, Activation, Multi-learning, Assessment and Summary) teaching model and flipped classroom, an online continuing training program containing four sections was developed. It was a semi-experimental study with no control group. Quantitative tests before and after training as well as questionnaire were used to evaluate the outcome of this training program for community pharmacists.ResultsA total of twenty-six community pharmacists were invited to participate in continuing education, and twenty-five trainees finished this training program with a completion rate of 96.2 %. Quantitative tests before and after training and anonymous questionnaires were carried out to comprehensively evaluate the outcomes of this training program. Compared with the test scores before training (61.6 ± 6.6), the score after training was statistically higher, reaching 80.9 ± 7.5 (P ConclusionIt was suggested that the O-AMAS model and the flipped classroom-based continuing educational program achieved the expected training effects. It is a promising on-the-job training approach for pharmacy continuing education. Moreover, our study also demonstrated that online learning had advantages of no geographic constraints, flexible learning beyond time and easy interaction, over traditional face-to-face training style, especially in the post-pandemic era.</p