Efficacy and safety of Lianhua Qingwen granule in the treatment of non-influenza viral pneumonia: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter clinical study

ObjectiveTo observe the effectiveness and safety of Lianhua Qingwen granule in the treatment of non-influenza viral pneumonia.MethodsThis study was a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Subjects who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria and were clinically diagnosed with viral pneumonia (negative for influenza virus) were randomly divided into the Lianhua Qingwen granule trial group and placebo control group. Patients in the trial group was given Lianhua Qingwen granule, 2 bags at a time, 3 times a day, and the controls were given placebo, with a treatment course of 7 days. Patients’ clinical symptoms and signs, and treatment-associated adverse events were observed. Subjects should be included in the full analysis set (FAS) as long as they were all given the medication and had an effectiveness test performed after randomization. Subjects should be included in the Per Protocol Set (PPS),a subset of the total analysis set, which should contain those with strong compliance, no protocol violations, and complete baseline values for the primary indicators.ResultsA total of 169 subjects were enrolled in 12 subcenters, including 151 (76 in the trial group and 75 in the control group) in the FAS and 140 (68 in the trial group and 72 in the control group) in the PPS. After 7 days of treatment, the clinical symptom relief rates were 82.98% (FAS) and 87.12% (PPS) in the trial group, and 75.11% (FAS) and 76.02% (PPS) in the control group, respectively. The clinical symptom relief rates in the trial group were significantly higher than those in the control group (p < 0.001). Significant improvements in single symptoms of cough and expectoration in the trial group were observed compared with the control group (p < 0.05). There were no statistical differences in fever, sputum color change, chest pain, muscle pain, dyspnea, chills, and thirst between the two groups (p > 0.05).SafetyThere were no significant differences in body weight, vital signs, blood routine, urine routine, stool routine, and blood biochemical indicators (CK, AST, ALT, Cr, and Bun) between the two groups before and after treatment (p > 0.05). During treatment, there were no significant differences in the incidence of adverse events and serious adverse events between the two groups (p > 0.05).ConclusionLianhua Qingwen granules improved the clinical symptoms of patients with non-influenza virus pneumonia, especially ameliorating cough and expectoration. Lianhua Qingwen granules were associated with good safety

Preparation and Property Study of Organosilicon Antisticking Coatings

In this article, an organosilicon antisticking coating was synthesized from vinyl silicone oil, hydrogen-containing silicone oil, and platinum catalyst. Firstly, the methyl vinyl MQ (mono and quad) silicone resin was added. When the silicone content was 30 wt.%, the shore hardness and tensile strength increased to about 27.4% and 115.9%, respectively. Furthermore, nano-SiO2 powder was added to further improve its antisticking property. This was due to the change of the surface roughness, which could greatly improve the antisticking performance. When the nano-SiO2 powder content was 2 wt.%, the surface free energy and antisticking force were the lowest and the antisticking effect was the best as well and the mechanical properties of silicone rubber had been improved

Kinetic network models to elucidate aggregation dynamics of aggregation‐induced emission systems

Abstract Aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) is a phenomenon where a molecule that is weakly or non‐luminescent in a diluted solution becomes highly emissive when aggregated. AIE luminogens (AIEgens) hold promise in diverse applications like bioimaging, chemical sensing, and optoelectronics. Investigation in AIE luminescence is also critical for understanding aggregation kinetics as the aggregation process is an essential component of AIE emission. Experimental investigation of AIEgen aggregation is challenging due to the fast timescale of the aggregation and the amorphous aggregate structures. Computer simulations such as molecular dynamics (MD) simulation provide a valuable approach to complement experiments with atomic‐level knowledge to study the fast dynamics of aggregation processes. However, individual simulations still struggle to systematically elucidate heterogeneous kinetics of the formation of amorphous AIEgen aggregates. Kinetic network models (KNMs), constructed from an ensemble of MD simulations, hold great potential in addressing this challenge. In these models, dynamic processes are modeled as a series of Markovian transitions occurring among metastable conformational states at discrete time intervals. In this perspective article, we first review previous studies to characterize the AIEgen aggregation kinetics and their limitations. We then introduce KNMs as a promising approach to elucidate the complex kinetics of aggregations to address these limitations. More importantly, we discuss our perspective on linking the output of KNMs to experimental observations of time‐resolved AIE luminescence. We expect that this approach can validate the computational predictions and provide great insights into the aggregation kinetics for AIEgen aggregates. These insights will facilitate the rational design of improved AIEgens in their applications in biology and materials sciences

Infrared Free Induction Decay (IR-FID) of Non-Interfacial Origin Observed in the Interfacial Sum-Frequency Generation Vibrational Spectroscopy (SFG-VS)

We report the observation of infrared free induction decay (IR-FID) signal of the anti-symmetric modes around ~ 2350 cm-1 of the gaseous CO2 molecules in the air in the sum-frequency generation vibrational spectroscopy (SFG-VS) measurement from the gold surface. These signals appeared with time-dependent interference pattern in the 15-73 ps range and beyond after the time-zero of the SFG-VS process. The interference pattern was found to reflect the rotational coherence of the gaseous CO2 molecules. Similar IR-FID and rotational coherence was also observed for the symmetric and asymmetric stretching modes of gaseous H2O molecules in air. The gold surface in this case serves as the up-conversion agent with the visible pulse as the time-gate for the ultrafast IR-FID emissions. We tested this hypothesis by replacing the gold surface with a β-BBO (beta-barium borate, β-BaB2O4) and found a five orders of magnitude increase of the signal in the reflecting geometry. The up-conversion of the IR-FID radiation of non-interfacial origin into the SFG-VS signal also provides the mechanistic understanding of the ‘abnormal spectral bands’ in broadband SFG-VS induced by bulk absorption and refraction reported in the literature

The Microbial Community Composition and Nitrogen Cycling Metabolic Potential of an Underground Reservoir in Rizhao, Shandong Province, China

Constructing underground reservoirs has emerged as a crucial strategy to address the shortage of fresh water in Rizhao, Shandong Province, China. However, the water quality, microbial community composition, and biogeochemical cycling of nutrients in underground reservoirs compared to raw water remain unknown. To unveil the characteristics of microbial community structures and their nitrogen cycling metabolic potential in coastal underground reservoirs, we utilized a functional gene array (GeoChip 5.0) in conjunction with high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA and 18S rRNA genes. Our findings indicate that the water quality in the underground reservoir exhibits a certain degree of eutrophication compared to raw water, with higher concentrations of TN, TP, NO3−N, NO2−-N, and Chl a, but lower concentrations of DO and NH4+-N. The alpha diversity of bacterial and microeukaryotic communities was significantly lower in the underground reservoir. The bacterial community presented a stronger correlation with environmental factors than the microeukaryotic community. Regarding the relative abundance of bacterial communities, Gammaproteobacteria dominated the bacterial community in raw water, while Gammaproteobacteria and Alphaproteobacteria dominated the bacterial community in underground reservoir water. Additionally, the relative abundance of Nitrospirae was noticeably higher in the underground reservoir water. Moreover, we found significantly higher sequence abundance of the archaea Thaumarchaeota in the underground reservoir. Furthermore, our analysis revealed that, except for the amoA functional gene, which significantly increased the metabolic potential of nitrification, the metabolic potential of other microbial nitrogen functional genes was significantly reduced. This reduction may contribute to the lower concentration of NH4+-N in the underground reservoir. This study provides a comprehensive understanding of the microbial community characteristics and their nitrogen cycling metabolic potential in underground reservoirs. It serves as a valuable reference for water source selection, the formulation of water quality assurance measures, and the construction and management of underground reservoirs for subsequent impounding

Polymerization-Induced Interfacial Self-Assembly of Janus Nanoparticles in Block Copolymers: Reaction-Mediated Entropy Effects, Diffusion Dynamics, and Tailorable Micromechanical Behaviors

Polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA) has become widely recognized as a robust and efficient route to produce nanostructured systems toward functionally superior materials. Herein, by combining mesoscale simulations and micromechanical modeling, we report the structural control over the interfacial organization and the resulted micromechanical behaviors of novel nanocomposites designed based on the PISA of initiator-modified Janus nanoparticles in diblock copolymers. Our simulations demonstrate that the off-center distribution of these functionalized Janus nanoparticles with respect to phase interface can be precisely regulated by tuning the reaction kinetics and the concentration of monomers dispersed in polymer microdomains. Theoretical calculation reveals that such polymerization-induced interfacial self-assembly of Janus nanoparticles is fundamentally attributed to a unique entropy effect mediated by the reaction. The diffusion dynamics of monomers in the entanglement mesh of the diblock copolymers is also examined to evaluate the efficiency of the structural control governed by polymerization in the polymer matrix. Furthermore, the combination of techniques allows us to determine how the interfacial polymerization of Janus nanoparticles influences the micromechanical behaviors, such as the elastic fields, modulus, and failure, fracture behaviors of the nanocomposites. The findings have a bearing on enriching our understanding on the thermodynamic nature of polymer nanocomposites and suggest design guidelines for creating block copolymer-based functional materials of programmable interfacial nanostructures correlated with controlled mechanical performance