Effectiveness of Zhixiao Decoction in children with bronchial asthma, and its effect on serum levels of IL-13, IL-6, and IL-17

Purpose: To probe into the efficiency of Zhixiao Decoction in treating children with bronchial asthma, and its effect on serum levels of interleukin (IL)-13, IL-6, and IL-17.Methods: 140 children with bronchial asthma who were treated in the Affiliated Hospital of Shandong University of traditional Chinese medicine from February 2018 to October 2020, were included as the study group, while 70 children at the same period of physical examination served as the control group. Using the random number table, the study group was equally subdivided into regular group given Asthma-relief Oral Liquid, and treatment group given Zhixiao Decoction. Serum levels of IL-13, IL-6, and IL-17, and effectiveness and safety of Zhixiao Decoction, were measured.Results: Zhixiao Decoction showed higher levels of IL-13, IL-6, and IL-17 and greater treatment effectiveness in patients compared with Asthma-relief Oral Liquid (p < 0.05). IL-13, IL-6, and IL-17 levels exhibited negative correlation with FEV1 and PEF. The treatment group had lower post-treatment traditional Chinese medicine syndrome scores, serum levels of IL-13, IL-6, IL-17; fractional exhaled nitric oxide, and eosinophil counts. The treatment group also demonstrated higher scores in asthma control test, mini-asthma-related quality of life, and better lung function than the regular group (p <0.05).Conclusion: Zhixiao Decoction mitigates clinical symptoms of bronchial asthma children, improves lung function and clinical efficacy, and down-regulates levels of inflammatory cytokines. Thus, this therapeutic approach has potentials in the management of pediatric asthma

A review on biological adaptation: with applications in engineering science

Abstract Biological adaptation refers to that organisms change themselves at morphological, physiological, behavioral and molecular level to better survive in a changing environment. It includes phenotype adaptation and molecular adaptation. Biological adaptation is a driving force of evolution. Biological adaptation was described from Darwinian theory of evolution to the theory of molecular evolution in present paper. Adaptive control and adaptive filtering were briefly described also

Simulation of action potential propagation based on the ghost structure method

In this paper, a ghost structure (GS) method is proposed to simulate the monodomain model in irregular computational domains using finite difference without regenerating body-fitted grids. In order to verify the validity of the GS method, it is first used to solve the Fitzhugh-Nagumo monodomain model in rectangular and circular regions at different states (the stationary and moving states). Then, the GS method is used to simulate the propagation of the action potential (AP) in transverse and longitudinal sections of a healthy human heart, and with left bundle branch block (LBBB). Finally, we analyze the AP and calcium concentration under healthy and LBBB conditions. Our numerical results show that the GS method can accurately simulate AP propagation with different computational domains either stationary or moving, and we also find that LBBB will cause the left ventricle to contract later than the right ventricle, which in turn affects synchronized contraction of the two ventricles

A Hierarchical Component-based WebGIS and Its Key Technologies

A practical hierarchical component-based WebGIS model referred to as Geo-Union is presented. Geo-Union consists of four layers: storage layer, service layer, component layer and application layer. Service layer is partitioned into another two layers: Geo-Union client and Geo-Union server. The architectures and object diagram of each layer in Geo-Union are discussed in details. After that, four key technologies adopted in Geo-Union (spatial data model, ORDB, spatial index and spatial cache) are summarized and analyzed, especially the spatial cache framework of Geo-Union. At last, some future works in WebGIS, such as interoperability, security, distributed computing and intelligent computing, are indicated and simply explored

Supratentorial Collision Tumor of Hemangioblastoma and Metastatic Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma in a Patient with von Hippel-Lindau Disease

Collision tumors are rarely reported in patients with von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease, even though VHL patients often present with multi-organ tumor syndromes, like hemangioblastoma and renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Hemangioblastoma is rarely located in a supratentorial location, and intracranial lateral ventricular is also not a common site of metastasis for RCC. It is extremely rare for the two tumors to collide in the supratentorial area. We report a 64-year-old man with a history of clear cell RCC who presented with a sudden headache. The brain magnetic resonance imaging revealed that there was a cystic-solid mass in the intracranial lateral ventricular trigone. Histopathologically, the tumor consisted of two distinct components, most of which showed the typical morphology of hemangioblastoma. However, there were a few acinar structures composed of clear cells scattered in hemangioblastoma, and these acinar structures were subsequently confirmed as clear cell RCC. The genetic testing confirmed that the patient had VHL disease with de novo somatic mutation. Based on our case report, we systematically reviewed the characteristics of collision tumor composed of hemangioblastoma and metastatic RCC in VHL patients. The special growth site of our case is the first report of this kind of collision tumor, and can also help enrich our understanding of VHL disease and collision tumor