Effects of Encapsulated Propolis on Blood Glycemic Control, Lipid Metabolism, and Insulin Resistance in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Rats

The present study investigates the encapsulated propolis on blood glycemic control, lipid metabolism, and insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) rats. The animal characteristics and biological assays of body weight, fasting blood glucose (FBG), fasting serum insulin (FINS), insulin act index (IAI), triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) were measured and euglycemic hyperinsulinemic glucose clamp technique were used to determine these effects. Our findings show that oral administration of encapsulated propolis can significantly inhibit the increasing of FBG and TG in T2DM rats and can improve IAI and M value in euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamp experiment. There was no significant effects on body weight, TC, HDL-C, and LDL-C in T2DM rats treated with encapsulated propolis. In conclusion, the results indicate that encapsulated propolis can control blood glucose, modulate lipid metabolism, and improve the insulin sensitivity in T2DM rats

Inhibitory Effect of Chinese Propolis on Phosphatidylcholine-Specific Phospholipase C Activity in Vascular Endothelial Cells

To understand the mechanisms underlying the anti-inflammatory action of Chinese propolis, we investigated its effect on the activity of phosphatidylcholine-specific phospholipase C (PC-PLC) that plays critical roles in control of vascular endothelial cell (VEC) function and inflammatory responses. Furthermore, p53 and reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels and mitochondrial membrane potential (Δψm) were investigated. Our data indicated that treatment of Chinese propolis 6.25 and 12.5 μg/ml for 12 hours increased VEC viability obviously. Exposure to Chinese propolis 6.25, 12.5, and 25 μg/ml for 6 and 12 hours significantly decreased PC-PLC activity and p53 level, and ROS levels were depressed by Chinese propolis 12.5 μg/ml and 25 μg/ml dramatically. The Δψm of VECs was not affected by Chinese propolis at low concentration but disrupted by the propolis at 25 μg/ml significantly, which indicated that Chinese propolis depressed PC-PLC activity and the levels of p53 and ROS in VECs but disrupted Δψm at a high concentration

Comparison of green building policies and regulations between central and local governments of China: Analysis based on text similarity

The development of green buildings, as the focus of the construction field, is an inevitable choice to achieve the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutralization. From the perspective of text similarity, this paper conducts a comparative study on the 14th Five-Year Plan for Building Energy Conservation and Green Building Development issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the PRC in 2022 and sixteen local regulations on green buildings at provincial levels. The results show that: First, promoting energy-saving and green transformation of existing public buildings, promoting new green construction methods, strengthening green building management system construction and other contents, have the highest similarity value, indicating that these three contents have the highest overall notices in the legislation formulation level of green buildings in different regions; Second, the legal texts formulated by Tianjin and Shanghai are more in line with the requirements of the 14th Five-Year Plan than those of other provinces, showing the forward-looking nature of local legislation; Lastly, through data analysis, it is found that the average similarities of the three deployments of green buildings have small differences, but there are large differences between regions. Jiangxi, Qinghai and Guangdong have some outstanding contents, forming regional characteristics according to local conditions, showing the differences of local legal texts. Since the Plan is the latest national guidance, it requires local regulations to refine and implement the contents of the Plan. Based on the comprehensive comparative analysis of the text, it is recommended that all localities should check and fill gaps according to the Plan, improve the key task systems, and use local standards to build legal guarantee tailored to local conditions

Crime and Harassment on Public Transportation: A Survey of SJSU Students Set in International Context

Communities around the world are gradually becoming aware that transit riders, and especially women, are often victims of a wide range of offenses of a sexual nature that happen on buses and trains, and at bus stops and train stations. Better understanding the extent and nature of sexual harassment on transit is a critical issue for transit operators and society at large. If fear of sexual crime limits if and how people ride transit, the result is reduced mobility for certain segments of the population, as well as lost ridership for transit agencies. For this study, we surveyed 891 students at San José State University (SJSU), a large public university in the San Francisco Bay Area. The survey explored in detail whether and how student riders experience sexual harassment, as well as how fear of such harassment influences their transit use. Recognizing that transit trips are complex, multi-phased activities, the survey asked separately about harassment experiences waiting for the bus or train, on the transit vehicle, and walking to/from the transit stop. Key findings include that sexual harassment during transit trips is a common experience (63% of respondents reported having been harassed), the experience of sexual harassment leads students to limit their use of transit, many take safety precautions when using transit, and very few report experiences of harassment to anyone at all, much less to authorities. Although the SJSU survey was designed as a stand-alone research project, we are able to situate the results in a global context because the study was embedded in an international effort, with a near-identical survey administered to students at universities in 18 cities across six continents. The SJSU experience is typical of students around the world, though SJSU’s students were particularly likely to report feeling unsafe after dark

Source-Free Domain Adaptation for Real-world Image Dehazing

Deep learning-based source dehazing methods trained on synthetic datasets have achieved remarkable performance but suffer from dramatic performance degradation on real hazy images due to domain shift. Although certain Domain Adaptation (DA) dehazing methods have been presented, they inevitably require access to the source dataset to reduce the gap between the source synthetic and target real domains. To address these issues, we present a novel Source-Free Unsupervised Domain Adaptation (SFUDA) image dehazing paradigm, in which only a well-trained source model and an unlabeled target real hazy dataset are available. Specifically, we devise the Domain Representation Normalization (DRN) module to make the representation of real hazy domain features match that of the synthetic domain to bridge the gaps. With our plug-and-play DRN module, unlabeled real hazy images can adapt existing well-trained source networks. Besides, the unsupervised losses are applied to guide the learning of the DRN module, which consists of frequency losses and physical prior losses. Frequency losses provide structure and style constraints, while the prior loss explores the inherent statistic property of haze-free images. Equipped with our DRN module and unsupervised loss, existing source dehazing models are able to dehaze unlabeled real hazy images. Extensive experiments on multiple baselines demonstrate the validity and superiority of our method visually and quantitatively.Comment: Accepted to ACM MM 202

An Enhanced Drought-Tolerant Method Using SA-Loaded PAMPS Polymer Materials Applied on Tobacco Pelleted Seeds

Drought is one of the most important stress factors limiting the seed industry and crop production. Present study was undertaken to create novel drought-resistant pelleted seeds using the combined materials with superabsorbent polymer, poly(2-acrylamide-2-methyl propane sulfonic acid) (PAMPS) hydrogel, and drought resistance agent, salicylic acid (SA). The optimized PAMPS hydrogel was obtained as the molar ratio of 2-acrylamido-2-methyl-propanesulfonic acid (AMPS) to potassium peroxydisulfate (KPS) and N, N′-methylene-bis-acrylamide (MBA) was 1 : 0.00046 : 0.00134. The hydrogel weight after swelling in deionized water for 24 h reached 4306 times its own dry weight. The water retention ratio (RR) of PAMPS was significantly higher as compared with the control. It could keep as high as 85.3% of original weight after 30 min at 110°C; even at 25°C for 40 d, the PAMPS still kept RR at 33.67%. PAMPS disintegration ratio increased gradually and reached around 30% after embedding in soil or activated sludge for 60 d. In addition, there were better seed germination performance and seedling growth in the pelleted treatments with SA-loaded PAMPS hydrogel under drought stress than control. It suggested that SA-loaded PAMPS hydrogel, a nontoxic superabsorbent polymer, could be used as an effective drought resistance material applied to tobacco pelleted seeds