β-Elemene alleviates bone cancer-related pain in rats by modulating N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor 2B subunit

Purpose: To investigate the effect of β-elemene on bone cancer-related pain (BCRP) and its underlying mechanism in a rat model.Methods: A rat model of BCRP was established by injection of Walker 256 cells into the medullary cavity in adult male Sprague-Dawley rats. The effects of β-elemene on pain-related behaviours were assessed by paw withdrawal mechanical threshold (PWMT) and paw withdrawal thermal latency (PWTL). Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and western blotting were used to analyse the transcription and translation levels of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor 2B subunit (NR2B), respectively.Results: This study found that PWMT and PWTL were significantly decreased in rats as evidence of successful establishment of a rat model of BCRP. Behavioral test showed that β-elemene treatment could attenuate pain-related behaviours. This analgesic effect began 1 h after drug injection, reached the highest value at 2 h, declined at 4 h, and disappeared by 24 h. qRT-PCR and western blotting indicated that intrathecal administration of β-elemene down-regulated mRNA and protein levels of NR2B.Conclusion: The results show that β-elemene alleviates behaviours related to pain in a rat model of BCRP probably by modulating NR2B, thus indicating a new potential treatment method for cancerrelated pain.Keywords: β-Elemene, Bone cancer, Pain relief, N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor 2B subunit (NR2B), Sensitisatio

Current-Based Fault Detection for Wind Turbine Systems via Hilbert-Huang Transform

Mechanical failures of wind turbines represent a significant cost in both repairs and downtime. Detecting incipient faults of wind turbine components permits maintenance to be scheduled and failed parts to be repaired or replaced before causing failures of other components or catastrophic failure of the system. This paper proposes a Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT)-based algorithm to effectively extract fault signatures in generator current signals for wind turbine fault diagnosis by using the HHT’s capability of accurately representing the instantaneous amplitude and frequency of nonlinear and nonstationary signals. A phase-lock-loop (PLL) method is integrated to estimate wind turbine rotating speed, which is then used to facilitate the fault detection. The proposed method is validated by a real direct-drive wind turbine with different types of faults. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is effective to detect various faults in wind turbine systems as well as to reveal the severities of the faults

Plasma microRNA Profiles as a Potential Biomarker in Differentiating Adult-Onset Still's Disease From Sepsis

Adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD) is a systemic inflammatory disease characterized by cytokine storm. However, a diagnostic test for AOSD in clinical use is yet to be validated. The aim of our study was to identify non-invasive biomarkers with high specificity and sensitivity to diagnosis of AOSD. MicroRNA (miRNA) profiles in PBMC from new-onset AOSD patients without any treatment and healthy controls (HCs) were analyzed by miRNA deep sequencing. Plasma samples from 100 AOSD patients and 60 HCs were used to validated the expression levels of miRNA by qRT-PCR. The correlations between expression levels of miRNAs and clinical manifestations were analyzed using advanced statistical models. We found that plasma samples from AOSD patients showed a distinct miRNA expression profile. Five miRNAs (miR-142-5p, miR-101-3p, miR-29a-3p, miR-29c-3p, and miR-141-3p) were significantly upregulated in plasma of AOSD patients compared with HCs both in training and validation sets. We discovered a panel including 3 miRNAs (miR-142-5p, miR-101-3p, and miR-29a-3p) that can predict the probability of AOSD with an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.8250 in training and validation sets. Moreover, the expression levels of 5 miRNAs were significantly higher in active AOSD patients compared with those in inactive patients. In addition, elevated level of miR-101-3p was found in AOSD patients with fever, sore throat and arthralgia symptoms; the miR-101-3p was also positively correlated with the levels of IL-6 and TNF-α in serum. Furthermore, five miRNAs (miR-142-5p, miR-101-3p, miR-29c-3p, miR-29a-3p, and miR-141-3p) expressed in plasma were significantly higher in AOSD patients than in sepsis patients (P < 0.05). The AUC value of 4-miRNA panel (miR-142-5p, miR-101-3p, miR-29c-3p, and miR-141-3p) for AOSD diagnosis from sepsis was 0.8448, revealing the potentially diagnostic value to distinguish AOSD patients from sepsis patients. Our results have identified a specific plasma miRNA signature that may serve as a potential non-invasive biomarker for diagnosis of AOSD and monitoring disease activity

Cytomegalovirus Infection May Trigger Adult-Onset Still's Disease Onset or Relapses

Previous studies have revealed that several micro-organisms, especially DNA viruses, have been associated with adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD). However, there are no studies on the relationship between the presence of viral infections in AOSD patients with disease occurrence and reactivation. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the presence of antibodies against virus, virus DNA load and nucleic acid sensors in AOSD patients. Anti-viral antibodies were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in plasma samples from 100 AOSD patients and 70 healthy controls (HCs). The copy number of cytomegalovirus (CMV) DNA in 100 AOSD patients was detected by PCR. The expression levels of nucleic acid sensors interferon gamma-inducible protein 16 (IFI16) and absent in melanoma 2 (AIM2) in peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) and skin from AOSD patients and HCs were analyzed by PCR and immunohistochemistry. The levels of antibodies against CMV were significantly higher in AOSD patients compared to HCs. Moreover, the level of anti-CMV IgM antibody was significantly increased in patients with fever, sore throat, arthralgia and rash. CMV DNA was found in plasma of AOSD patients with disease new-onset and relapse. Furthermore, the copy number of CMV DNA significantly increased in patients with fever, sore throat, arthralgia and rash. And the significant associations of the CMV DNA level with the levels of leukocytes, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C-reactive protein (CRP) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) were observed. Moreover, we found an upregulation of cytoplasmic DNA-sensing receptor IFI16 and AIM2 in PBMC and skin from AOSD patients. In conclusion, our results showed that CMV infection may play a role in the initiation or amplification of inflammatory responses in AOSD

Microstructure Abnormalities in Adolescents with Internet Addiction Disorder

BACKGROUND: Recent studies suggest that internet addiction disorder (IAD) is associated with structural abnormalities in brain gray matter. However, few studies have investigated the effects of internet addiction on the microstructural integrity of major neuronal fiber pathways, and almost no studies have assessed the microstructural changes with the duration of internet addiction. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We investigated the morphology of the brain in adolescents with IAD (N = 18) using an optimized voxel-based morphometry (VBM) technique, and studied the white matter fractional anisotropy (FA) changes using the diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) method, linking these brain structural measures to the duration of IAD. We provided evidences demonstrating the multiple structural changes of the brain in IAD subjects. VBM results indicated the decreased gray matter volume in the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), the supplementary motor area (SMA), the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the cerebellum and the left rostral ACC (rACC). DTI analysis revealed the enhanced FA value of the left posterior limb of the internal capsule (PLIC) and reduced FA value in the white matter within the right parahippocampal gyrus (PHG). Gray matter volumes of the DLPFC, rACC, SMA, and white matter FA changes of the PLIC were significantly correlated with the duration of internet addiction in the adolescents with IAD. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggested that long-term internet addiction would result in brain structural alterations, which probably contributed to chronic dysfunction in subjects with IAD. The current study may shed further light on the potential brain effects of IAD

Output Maximization Control for DFIG Wind Turbines without Using Wind and Shaft Speed Measurements

Wind turbine generators (WTGs) are usually equipped with mechanical sensors to measure wind speed and turbine shaft rotating speed for system monitoring, control, and protection. The use of these sensors increases the cost and hardware complexity and reduces the reliability of the WTG system. This paper proposes a novel real-time speed estimation algorithm for wind turbines equipped with doubly-fed induction generators (DFIGs). In the proposed algorithm, both the wind and turbine shaft speeds are estimated from the measured DFIG output electrical power. The estimated speeds are then used to determine the maximum power point of the DFIG wind turbine. A P-Q decoupled control strategy is developed to continuously regulate the DFIG at the maximum power point without the need of using any wind or turbine shaft speed sensors

Lethal and Sublethal Toxicity Comparison of BFRs to Three Marine Planktonic Copepods: Effects on Survival, Metabolism and Ingestion.

The estuarine planktonic copepods have a wide geographical distribution and commendable tolerance to various kinds of contaminants. The primary aim of the present study was to contrast the impacts of model POPs (TBBPA and HBCD) on three common estuarine planktonic copepods (Oithona similis, Acartia pacifica and Pseudodiaptomus inopinus) and establish a protocol for the assessment of acute toxicity of marine organic pollutants. We first quantified the 96h-LC50 (0.566, 0.04 and 0.257 mg/L of TBBPA to the three subjects above respectively and 0.314 mg/L of HBCD to P. inopinus; all reported concentrations are nominal values). In the sub-lethal toxicity tests, it was turned out that the effects of copepods exposed to TBBPA could product different influences on the energy ingestion and metabolism. Different type of pollutions, meanwhile, could also bring varying degree effect on the target copepods. In general, the indicators (the rate of oxygen consumption, ammonia excretion, food ingestion and filtration) in higher concentration groups showed marked significant difference compared with controls as well a dose-effect relationship. The study also extended the research on the joint toxicity of TBBPA and HBCD based on the survival rate of P.inopinus. Whether 1:1 concentration or 1:1 toxic level, the research showed synergy effect relative to single exposure conditions. The result indicated that current single ecological testing used for environmental protection activities may underestimate the risk for copepods. It was also demonstrated that short-term sub-lethal experiment could be a standard to evaluate the sensitivity of copepods to POPs

CT-Integral on Interval-Valued Sugeno Probability Measure and Its Application in Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Problems

It is well known that the complexity of the decision-making environment frequently coexists with the diversity of linguistic information in the decision-making process. In order to solve this kind of uncertain multi-criteria decision-making problem, reasonable measures and integrals should be established. In this paper, the discrete expression of the CT-integral on the interval-valued Sugeno probability measure is proposed. The CT-integral is the Choquet integral when the t-norm is T(x,y)=xy in the CT-integral and is a pre-aggregation function. Then, the CT-integral on interval-valued Sugeno probability measure is applied to solve end-of-life (EOL) strategy in order to determine multi-criteria decision-making problems. Compared with the general Choquet integral, the method proposed in this paper significantly improves the calculation process, that is, the calculation is simpler and the amount of calculation is smaller. A case study was performed in order to validate the effectiveness of this conclusion

Clinical effect of semiconductor laser combined with total glucosides of paeony capsules for the treatment of erosive oral lichen planus

Objective To investigate the short⁃term clinical effect of semiconductor laser exposure combined with total glucosides of paeony (TGP) capsules for the treatment of erosive oral lichen planus (OLP). Methods Sixty⁃four patients with erosive oral lichen planus were randomly divided into two groups: the experimental group and the control group. Patients in the control group were treated with TGP capsules, while patients in the experimental group were treat⁃ ed with TGP capsules and semiconductor laser irradiation. The clinical effects were evaluated 3 months after treatment. The data were analyzed using the SPSS 17.0 software package. Results Three months after treatment, the effective rate in the experimental group was 90.6%, which was significantly higher than that in the control group (59.4%, χ2＝ 5.62, P < 0.05). The physical condition and visual analogue scale (VAS) scores in the experimental group were 2.17 ± 1.49 and 1.25 ± 1.29, respectively. The physical condition and VAS scores in the control group were 3.55 ± 1.41 and 2.09 ± 1.24, respectively. The physical condition and VAS scores in both groups were significantly higher after treat⁃ ment than before (P < 0.05). Three months after treatment, the physical condition score (t＝3.805) and VAS score (t＝ 2.655) in the experimental group were significant higher than those in the control group (P < 0.05). Conclusion Semi⁃ conductor laser irradiation combined with TGP capsules can improve the short⁃term clinical efficacy in the treatment of erosive OLP

In-Composition Graded Quantum Barriers for Polarization Manipulation in InGaN-Based Yellow Light-Emitting Diodes

Highly efficient indium gallium nitride (InGaN)-based yellow light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with low efficiency droop have always been pursued for next-generation displays and lighting products. In this work, we report an InGaN quantum barrier (QB) with linear-increase In-composition along [0001] direction for InGaN-based yellow LEDs. With the In-composition in QBs systematically engineered, three QB structures including linear-increase QB (LIQB), linear-decrease QB (LDQB) and commonly used flat QB (FQB) were investigated by simulation. The results show that the LIQB not only yields enhanced electron confinement, but also contributes to suppressed polarization field. Consequently, the yellow LED incorporated with LIQBs demonstrates improved radiative recombination rates and the efficiency droop is alleviated. Under a current density of 100 A/cm2, the efficiency droop ratios of LEDs with FQBs, LDQBs and LIQBs are 58.7%, 62.2% and 51.5%, respectively. When current density varies from 1 A/cm2 to 60 A/cm2, the blueshift values of peak emission wavelength for LEDs with FQBs, LDQBs and LIQBs are 14.4 nm, 16.5 nm and 13.0 nm, respectively. This work is believed to provide a feasible solution for high-performance InGaN-based LEDs in long-wavelength spectral region