Boeravinone B promotes fracture healing in ovariectomyinduced osteoporotic rats via the regulation of NF-κB p65/IκB-α/SIRT-1 signaling pathway

Purpose: To investigate the fracture-healing effect of boeravinone B in ovariectomy-induced (OVX) osteoporotic rats. Methods: Adult female Wistar rats (n = 30) were ovariectomized and after three months, the unilateral cross-tibial fractures were fixed with intramedullary nails. The rats were then randomly assigned to three groups of 10 rats each: normal control group, OVX group and 100 mg/kg body weight boeravinone B group. Boeravinone B was orally administered for a period of 5 weeks. The effect of boeravinone B on indices of bone formation and resorption was assessed. Levels of inflammatory cytokines including tumor necrosis factor- α (TNF-α) and interleukin-1β (IL-1β) were determined using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Western blotting was used to determine the expression levels of NF-κB p65, IкB-α and SIRT1 proteins. Results: There were significant increases in the activities of tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and collagen type I fragment (CTX) level and serum osteocalcin (OC) of OVX group, when compared with normal control group (p < 0.05). However, treatment with boeravinone B significantly reduced the activities and levels of these parameters, relative to OVX group (p < 0.05). The levels of TNF-α and IL-1β significantly increased in OVX group, relative normal control group, but were significantly lower following treatment with boeravinone B (p < 0.05). Bone mineral content (BMC) was not significantly altered in OVX and boeravinone B-treated groups, when compared with normal control group (p > 0.05). There was significant reduction in bone mineral density (BMD) of OVX group relative to normal control group (p < 0.05). However, treatment with boeravinone B significantly increased the BMD, when compared with OVX group (p < 0.05). After Week 5 of treatment, boeravinone B significantly enhanced bone remodeling and formation of callus. Treatment with boeravinone B significantly reduced the expression levels of NF-κB p65 and IκB-α proteins, and significantly upregulated the expression of SIRT-1 (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The results obtained in this study suggest that boeravinone B promotes the healing of fracture caused by osteoporosis via a mechanism involving NF-κB p65/IκB-α/SIRT-1 signaling pathway

In-line Mach-Zehnder interferometer with D-shaped fiber grating for temperature-discriminated directional curvature measurement

A high-sensitivity curvature sensing configuration is implemented by using a fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with D-shaped fiber Bragg grating (FBG). A segment of D-shaped fiber is fusion spliced into a single mode fiber at both sides, and then a short FBG is inscribed in the D-shaped fiber. The fiber device yields a significant spectrum sensitivity as high as 87.7 nm/m -1 to the ultralow curvature range from 0 to 0.3 m -1 , and can distinguish the orientation of curvature experienced by the fiber as the attenuation dip producing either a blue or red wavelength shift, by virtue of the asymmetry of D-shaped fiber cladding. In addition, by tracking both resonant wavelengths of the MZI and embedded FBG, the temperature and curvature can be measured simultaneously

Composite Edible Film Containing Microcapsules Composed of Shrimp-derived Bioactive Peptide Preparation and Preservation Potential

Shrimp body had to face with spoilage and melanosis when it come to food preservation. In this study, a kind of composite edible film (CEF) composed of hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (HPMC) and shrimp-derived bioactive peptide microcapsule (SBPM), was developed to preserve the body of Penaeus vannamei. First of all, single-factor experiments were conducted by monitoring the mechanical performance and the water vapor permeability (WVP) of CEF, in order to investigate the influence of the dosages of HPMC, glycerol and SBPM, upon the formulation properties and mechanical strength of the film. The FTIR and free radical scavenging capacity of CEF were also determined when the SBPM addition changed and then, the optimum preparation process of CEF was ascertained based on the results mentioned above. In addition, the preservation-effect of CEF on fresh Penaeus vannamei was evaluated by inspecting some important items such as the sensory evaluation, pH, total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) and aerobic bacterial count of shrimp flesh. The results of the single-factor experiments indicated the optimum amounts of HPMC, glycerol and SBPM were 12%, 0.4% and 3%, respectively, and the comprehensive performance of CEF was satisfied under this optimum condition. The antioxidant ability of CEF was excellent when the dosage of SBPM was not less than 3% and, the interaction between SBPM and other membrane fractions was powerful when the addition amount of SBPM came to be 3%~4%, which was indicated by the FTIR results. More importantly, the spoilage of shrimp body could be controlled by covering the body with CEF and, the sensory of seafood might be maintained by this film, as evidenced by the inhibitory effects of CEF on the raising of body pH, the jump of TVB-N and the increase of aerobic bacterial count in shrimp fresh. The quality guarantee period of fresh body in CEF group could be prolonged by 3~4 days as compared with that in unprotected group, while the overall freshness-keeping ablility of CEF was superior to that of HPMC film even PE film, indicating the potent protective effect of CEF on the fresh of Penaeus vannamei

Climate change : strategies for mitigation and adaptation

The sustainability of life on Earth is under increasing threat due to humaninduced climate change. This perilous change in the Earth's climate is caused by increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, primarily due to emissions associated with burning fossil fuels. Over the next two to three decades, the effects of climate change, such as heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, storms, and floods, are expected to worsen, posing greater risks to human health and global stability. These trends call for the implementation of mitigation and adaptation strategies. Pollution and environmental degradation exacerbate existing problems and make people and nature more susceptible to the effects of climate change. In this review, we examine the current state of global climate change from different perspectives. We summarize evidence of climate change in Earth’s spheres, discuss emission pathways and drivers of climate change, and analyze the impact of climate change on environmental and human health. We also explore strategies for climate change mitigation and adaptation and highlight key challenges for reversing and adapting to global climate change

A heterozygous moth genome provides insights into herbivory and detoxification

How an insect evolves to become a successful herbivore is of profound biological and practical importance. Herbivores are often adapted to feed on a specific group of evolutionarily and biochemically related host plants1, but the genetic and molecular bases for adaptation to plant defense compounds remain poorly understood2. We report the first whole-genome sequence of a basal lepidopteran species, Plutella xylostella, which contains 18,071 protein-coding and 1,412 unique genes with an expansion of gene families associated with perception and the detoxification of plant defense compounds. A recent expansion of retrotransposons near detoxification-related genes and a wider system used in the metabolism of plant defense compounds are shown to also be involved in the development of insecticide resistance. This work shows the genetic and molecular bases for the evolutionary success of this worldwide herbivore and offers wider insights into insect adaptation to plant feeding, as well as opening avenues for more sustainable pest management.Minsheng You … Simon W Baxter … et al

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Influence of Boundary Conditions on Cracking of Sanxingdui Moon Bay City Wall

The Sanxingdui Moon Bay City Wall, in China, is built of pale-yellow sand and yellow-brown clay, and the yellow-brown layers are suffering severely. In order to discuss the desiccation cracks in a section of this wall, this paper conducts evaporation tests in laboratory and observes the variations in the characteristics of the boundary conditions of the bottom surface of the sample. The results show that the boundary conditions of the bottom surface of the sample consist of two free boundaries, two sliding boundaries, and one fixed boundary from the outside to the inside. During the drying process, the free boundary extends, but the fixed boundary shrinks; the sliding boundary also remains basically stable. We obtain the surface tensile stress distribution under different boundary conditions through stress analysis and deduce that the tensile stress distribution has a trapezoidal pattern. Moreover, we calculate the lower limit on the crack spacing of the sample using the energy method, and the double of the sum of the maximum sliding boundary length and the free boundary length is the upper limit to the crack spacing. Maintaining the stability of the soil moisture content of the site is the main factor in the protection of the earthen archaeological site under the humid conditions of the museum above the site. In order to reduce the water evaporation rate of the soil, the surface of the site should be coated by a protectant, the main determining features of which are permeability, tensile strength, and compatibility with the earthen site

Effect of heat treatment on microstructure and mechanical property of selective laser melted high speed steel

Based on selective laser melting (SLM), the high speed steel samples with nearly full density and low defects were prepared by using the printing strategy consisted of preheated printing substrate, low laser power and slow scanning speed. The effect of solid-solution oil-quenching as well as 1-4 times high temperature tempering on the microstructure and mechanical properties of selective laser melted high speed steel was contrasted and analyzed. The results demonstrate that fine austenite grains can be obtained due to the high melting/cooling rate in SLM process, solving the problems of coarse ledeburite organization and carbide network in high speed steel. The structure of steel is martensite and retained austenite after solid-solution oil-quenching. High speed steel sample transformed into tempered martensite during multiple tempering, accompanied with a large number of micro-sized and nano-sized carbides precipitated. The quenched and triple tempered Tempered-Ⅲ sample has a hardness of 60HRC, a flexural strength of 3621 MPa and a bending fracture strain of 10.1%, exhibiting an outstanding combination of hardness, strength and toughness. The bending fracture strain of high speed steel decreases owing to the coarsening of carbides in four times tempering. The integration of SLM, solid-solution oil-quenching and high-temperature tempering, which forms the combined effects of fine-grain strengthening, martensitic hardening and precipitation strengthening, provides a new approach for complex shaped high speed steel parts with high strength and toughness