Pioglitazone is as effective as dexamethasone in a cockroach allergen-induced murine model of asthma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>While glucocorticoids are currently the most effective therapy for asthma, associated side effects limit enthusiasm for their use. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ (PPAR-γ) activators include the synthetic thiazolidinediones (TZDs) which exhibit anti-inflammatory effects that suggest usefulness in diseases such as asthma. How the ability of TZDs to modulate the asthmatic response compares to that of glucocorticoids remains unclear, however, because these two nuclear receptor agonists have never been studied concurrently. Additionally, effects of PPAR-γ agonists have never been examined in a model involving an allergen commonly associated with human asthma.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We compared the effectiveness of the PPAR-γ agonist pioglitazone (PIO) to the established effectiveness of a glucocorticoid receptor agonist, dexamethasone (DEX), in a murine model of asthma induced by cockroach allergen (CRA). After sensitization to CRA and airway localization by intranasal instillation of the allergen, Balb/c mice were challenged twice at 48-h intervals with intratracheal CRA. Either PIO (25 mg/kg/d), DEX (1 mg/kg/d), or vehicle was administered throughout the period of airway CRA exposure.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>PIO and DEX demonstrated similar abilities to reduce airway hyperresponsiveness, pulmonary recruitment of inflammatory cells, serum IgE, and lung levels of IL-4, IL-5, TNF-α, TGF-β, RANTES, eotaxin, MIP3-α, Gob-5, and Muc5-ac. Likewise, intratracheal administration of an adenovirus containing a constitutively active PPAR-γ expression construct blocked CRA induction of Gob-5 and Muc5-ac.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Given the potent effectiveness shown by PIO, we conclude that PPAR-γ agonists deserve investigation as potential therapies for human asthma.</p

The effect of an adhesive interaction on predicting the scratch response of PS/PPO blends

\u3cp\u3eSingle-asperity scratching is used as a simplified contact problem to investigate the deformation due to two materials touching each other. Coupling the intrinsic polymer characteristics to the scratch response for blends of polystyrene (PS) and poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPO) with varying composition is the main challenge of this study. The intrinsic deformation properties of these blends are strongly influenced by their composition. A combination of experiments and simulations is essential to understand the influence of friction on the interplay between intrinsic deformation properties and contact mechanics. Without an adhesive component in the numerical simulations, no influence of scratch velocity on the penetration depth or lateral force is observed. Furthermore, the lateral force is highly underestimated. Inclusion of an adhesive component between the indenter tip and polymer substrate results in a bow-wave in front of the sliding indenter tip. The experimentally measured lateral forces can only be predicted when the velocity-independent constant friction coefficient varies with blend composition. Therefore, knowing the intrinsic material properties, i.e. deformation kinetics and the intrinsic friction parameter, enables a quantitative prediction of the single-asperity scratch response.\u3c/p\u3

Hydrostatic stress as indicator for wear initiation in polymer tribology

\u3cp\u3eOver the last two decades the study of friction has been an important topic in polymer tribology. The obtained knowledge about friction phenomena enables to take the next step towards understanding wear in polymers. When increasing the amount of local deformation in sliding friction experiments, the onset of failure is obtained, i.e. periodic cracks are initiated. Comparing the location of these cracks for a range of polymers with large differences in their intrinsic deformation response, suggests that different kinds of wear mechanisms are important. The relation between these mechanisms and the intrinsic properties are explained by the subtle interplay between intrinsic strain softening and strain hardening in the material. The critical locations for crack initiation are for polystyrene behind the indenter tip, at the centerline of the scratch, while for high-density polyethylene the cracks are initiated in the bow wave in front of the indenter. In finite element scratch simulations, the position of the maximum hydrostatic stress appears to be identical to the experimentally observed crack location. This suggests that crack initiation is related to a critical positive hydrostatic stress, which is known to be an intrinsic parameter for failure initiation in bulk polymers.\u3c/p\u3

Many-Parameter Quaternion Fourier Transforms for Intelligent OFDM Telecommunication System

In this paper, we aim to investigate the superiority and practicability of many-parameter quaternion Fourier transforms (MPQFT) from the physical layer security (PHY-LS) perspective. We propose novel Intelligent OFDM-telecommunication system (Intelligent-OFDM-TCS), based on MPFT. New system uses inverse MPQFT for modulation at the transmitter and direct MPQFT for demodulation at the receiver. The purpose of employing the MPFTs is to improve the PHY-LS of wireless transmissions against to the wide-band anti-jamming communication. Each MPQFT depends on finite set of independent parameters (angles), which could be changed independently one from another. When parameters are changed, multi-parametric transform is also changed taking form of a set known (and unknown) orthogonal (or unitary) transforms. We implement the following performances as bit error rate (BER), symbol error rate (SER), the Shannon-Wyner secrecy capacity (SWSC) for novel Intelligent-MPWT-OFDM-TCS. Simulation results show that the proposed Intelligent OFDM-TCS have better performances than the conventional OFDM system based on DFT against eavesdropping. © 2020, The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.Russian Foundation for Basic Researc