Combination of Chinese herbal medicine and conventional western medicine for coronavirus disease 2019: a systematic review and meta-analysis

ObjectiveThis study aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) plus conventional western medicine (CWM) in comparison with CWM against COVID-19.MethodsWe searched eight electronic databases and three trial registers spanning from January 1, 2020 to May 18, 2023. We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing the effectiveness and safety of CHM plus CWM and CWM against COVID-19 in our study. The Cochrane Risk of Bias tool 2.0 (RoB2) was applied to evaluate the methodological quality of the included RCTs. The Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) system was employed to assess the certainty of evidence. Statistical analysis was implemented in R version 4.1.2.ResultsOur study included 50 RCTs involving 11,624 patients. In comparison with sole CWM, CHM plus CWM against COVID-19 significantly enhanced clinical effective rate (RR = 1.18, 95% CI [1.13, 1.22]), improved chest image (RR = 1.19, 95% CI [1.11, 1.28]), inhibited clinical deterioration (RR = 0.45, 95% CI [0.33, 0.60]), lowered mortality (RR = 0.53, 95% CI [0.40, 0.70]), and reduced the total score of TCM syndrome (SMD = −1.24, 95% CI [−1.82, −0.66]). SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid conversion time (MD = −2.66, 95% CI [−3.88, −1.44]), duration of hospitalization (MD = −2.36, 95% CI [−3.89, −0.82]), and clinical symptom (fever, cough, fatigue, and shortness of breath) recovery times were shorter in CHM plus CWM groups than in CWM groups. Further, CHM plus CWM treatment was more conducive for some laboratory indicators returning to normal levels. No statistical difference was found in the incidence of total adverse reactions between the two groups (RR = 0.97, 95% CI [0.88, 1.07]). We assessed the risk of bias for 246 outcomes, and categorized 55 into “low risk”, 151 into “some concerns”, and 40 into “high risk”. Overall, the certainty of the evidence ranged from moderate to very low.ConclusionsPotentially, CHM listed in this study, as an adjunctive therapy, combining with CWM is an effective and safe therapy mode for COVID-19. However, more high-quality RCTs are needed to draw more accurate conclusions.Clinical trial registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?RecordID=293963

a Bayesian test of independence of two categorical variables obtianed from a small area : an application to BMD and BMI

Scientists usually need to understand the extent of the association of two attributes, and the data are typically presented in two-way categorical tables. In science, the chi-squared test is routinely used to analyze data from such tables. However, in many applications the chi-squared test can be defective. For example, when the sample size is small, the chi-squared test may not be applicable. The terms small area"" and local area"" are commonly used to denote a small geographical area, such as a county. If a survey has been carried out, the sample size within any particular small area may be too small to generate accurate estimates from the data, and a chi-squared test may be invalid (i.e., expected frequencies in some cells of the table are less than �ve). To deal with this problem we use Bayesian small area estimation. Because it is used toorrow strength"" from related or similar areas. It enhances the information of each area with common exchangeable information. We use a Bayesian model to estimate a Bayes factor to test the independence of the two variables. We apply the model to test for the independence between bone mineral density (BMD) and body mass index (BMI) from 31 counties and we compare the results with a direct Bayes factor test. We have also obtained numerical and sampling errors; both the numerical and sampling errors of our Bayes factor are small. Our model is shown to be much less sensitive to the speci�cation of the prior distribution than the direct Bayes factor test which is based on each area only

Open-Set Signal Recognition Based on Transformer and Wasserstein Distance

Open-set signal recognition provides a new approach for verifying the robustness of models by introducing novel unknown signal classes into the model testing and breaking the conventional closed-set assumption, which has become very popular in real-world scenarios. In the present work, we propose an efficient open-set signal recognition algorithm, which contains three key sub-modules: the signal representation sub-module based on a vision transformer (ViT) structure, a set distance metric sub-module based on Wasserstein distance, and a class space compression sub-module based on reciprocal point separation and central loss. In this algorithm, the representing features of signals are established based on transformer-based neural networks, i.e., ViT, in order to extract global information about time series-related data. The employed reciprocal point is used in modeling the potential unknown space without using the corresponding samples, while the distance metric between different class spaces is mathematically modeled in terms of the Wasserstein distance instead of the classical Euclidean distance. Numerical experiments on different open-set signal recognition tasks show that the proposed algorithm can significantly improve the recognition efficiency in both known and unknown categories

A sandwiched ventricular explant assay to model mouse coronary angiogenesis ex vivo

Summary: Developing an ex vivo system that mimics in vivo developmental coronary angiogenesis provides an improved understanding of its underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms. Here, we present a sandwiched embryonic ventricular explant assay to model mouse coronary angiogenesis ex vivo. We describe steps for breeding mice, labeling endocardial cells, isolating murine hearts, dissecting left ventricles, and making sandwiched explants in Matrigel. We then detail procedures for modeling coronary angiogenesis and taking images.For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Lu et al. (2023)1 : Publisher’s note: Undertaking any experimental protocol requires adherence to local institutional guidelines for laboratory safety and ethics

Review of the Functions of Archimedes’ Spiral Metallic Nanostructures

Here, we have reviewed some typical plasmonic structures based on Archimedes’ spiral (AS) architectures, which can produce polarization-sensitive focusing phenomenon and generate plasmonic vortices (PVs) carrying controllable orbital angular momentum (OAM) because of the relation between the incident polarized states and the chiralities of the spiral structures. These features can be used to analyze different circular polarization states, which has been one of the rapidly developing researching topics in nanophotonics in recent years. Many investigations demonstrate that the multifunctional spiral-based plasmonic structures are excellent choices for chiral selection and generating the transmitted field with well-defined OAM. The circular polarization extinction ratio, as an evaluation criterion for the polarization selectivity of a designed structure, could be effectively improved by properly modulating the parameters of spiral structures. Such functional spiral plasmonic nanostructures are promising for applications in analyzing circular polarization light, full Stokes vector polarimetric sensors, near-field imaging, and so on

Effects of Electrical Stimulation on the Degradation of Azo Dye in Three-Dimensional Biofilm Electrode Reactors

Three-dimensional biofilm electrode reactors (3D-BERs) were constructed to degrade the azo dye Reactive Brilliant Red (RBR) X-3B. The 3D-BERs with different influent concentrations and external voltages were individually studied to investigate their influence on the removal of X-3B. Experimental results showed that 3D-BERs have good X-3B removal efficiency; even when the influent concentration was 800 mg/L, removal efficiency of 73.4% was still achieved. In addition, the X-3B removal efficiency stabilized shortly after the influent concentration increased. In 3D-BERs, the average X-3B removal efficiency increased from 52.8% to 85.4% when the external voltage rose from 0 to 2 V. We further identified the intermediate products via UV-Vis and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analyses, and discussed the potential mechanism of degradation. After the conjugate structure of X-3B was destroyed, all of the substances generated mainly consisted of lower-molecular-weight organics

The effects of fruiting positions on cellulose synthesis and sucrose metabolism during cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) fiber development.

Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) boll positions on a fruiting branch vary in their contribution to yield and fiber quality. Fiber properties are dependent on deposition of cellulose in the fiber cell wall, but information about the enzymatic differences in sucrose metabolism between these fruiting positions is lacking. Therefore, two cotton cultivars with different sensitivities to low temperature were tested in 2010 and 2011 to quantify the effect of fruit positions (FPs) on fiber quality in relation to sucrose content, enzymatic activities and sucrose metabolism. The indices including sucrose content, sucrose transformation rate, cellulose content, and the activities of the key enzymes, sucrose phosphate synthase (SPS), acid invertase (AI) and sucrose synthase (SuSy) which inhibit cellulose synthesis and eventually affect fiber quality traits in cotton fiber, were determined. Results showed that as compared with those of FP1, cellulose content, sucrose content, and sucrose transformation rate of FP3 were all decreased, and the variations of cellulose content and sucrose transformation rate caused by FPs in Sumian 15 were larger than those in Kemian 1. Under FP effect, activities of SPS and AI in sucrose regulation were decreased, while SuSy activity in sucrose degradation was increased. The changes in activities of SuSy and SPS in response to FP effect displayed different and large change ranges between the two cultivars. These results indicate that restrained cellulose synthesis and sucrose metabolism in distal FPs are mainly attributed to the changes in the activities of these enzymes. The difference in fiber quality, cellulose synthesis and sucrose metabolism in response to FPs in fiber cells for the two cotton cultivars was mainly determined by the activities of both SuSy and SPS