Combined effect of dydrogesterone and letrozole on humoral immune function, sex hormone levels and serology-related indices in patients with endometriosis

Purpose: To investigate the combined effect of dydrogesterone and letrozole on humoral immunity, and levels of sex hormones and serology-related indices in patients with endometriosis.Methods: Patients with endometriosis (98 cases) were randomly assigned to two groups of 49 patients each: control group and study group. The control group received dydrogesterone (10 mg/kg) orally from the fifth day to the twenty-fifth day of the patient's menstrual cycle, twice daily; while the study group, in addition to dydrogesterone (10 mg/kg), received letrozole (2.5 mg/kg). Treatment in both groups lasted one month, and changes in the levels of humoral immunity, sex hormones and serology-related indices were evaluated before and after treatment. Clinical effectiveness and adverse reactions in both groups were also assessed.Results: After treatment, total effectiveness was markedly higher in the study group (91.84 %) than in control group (77.55 %, p < 0.05). Post-treatment, humoral immunity (IgM, IgG and C3) levels were significantly higher in the study group than in control group (p < 0.05) while estradiol (E2) level in both groups were significantly reduced; however, E2 level was markedly lower in the study group than in control group (p < 0.05).Conclusion: These results suggest that the combination of dydrogesterone with letrozole alleviates clinical symptoms of endometriosis, improves humoral immune function, and maintains sex hormone levels.Keywords: Endometriosis, Dydrogesterone, Letrozole, Humoral immunity, Sex hormones, Serologicalrelated indice

Pd-Doped SnO 2

Methane (CH4), ethane (C2H6), ethylene (C2H4), and acetylene (C2C2) are important fault characteristic hydrocarbon gases dissolved in power transformer oil. Online monitoring these gaseous components and their generation rates can present the operational state of power transformer timely and effectively. Gas sensing technology is the most sticky and tricky point in online monitoring system. In this paper, pure and Pd-doped SnO2 nanoparticles were synthesized by hydrothermal method and characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, field-emission scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, respectively. The gas sensors were fabricated by side-heated preparation, and their gas sensing properties against CH4, C2H6, C2H4, and C2H2 were measured. Pd doping increases the electric conductance of the prepared SnO2 sensors and improves their gas sensing performances to hydrocarbon gases. In addition based on the frontier molecular orbital theory, the highest occupied molecular orbital energy and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy were calculated. Calculation results demonstrate that C2H4 has the highest occupied molecular orbital energy among CH4, C2H6, C2H4, and C2H2, which promotes charge transfer in gas sensing process, and SnO2 surfaces capture a relatively larger amount of electric charge from adsorbed C2H4

SelfOdom: Self-supervised Egomotion and Depth Learning via Bi-directional Coarse-to-Fine Scale Recovery

Accurately perceiving location and scene is crucial for autonomous driving and mobile robots. Recent advances in deep learning have made it possible to learn egomotion and depth from monocular images in a self-supervised manner, without requiring highly precise labels to train the networks. However, monocular vision methods suffer from a limitation known as scale-ambiguity, which restricts their application when absolute-scale is necessary. To address this, we propose SelfOdom, a self-supervised dual-network framework that can robustly and consistently learn and generate pose and depth estimates in global scale from monocular images. In particular, we introduce a novel coarse-to-fine training strategy that enables the metric scale to be recovered in a two-stage process. Furthermore, SelfOdom is flexible and can incorporate inertial data with images, which improves its robustness in challenging scenarios, using an attention-based fusion module. Our model excels in both normal and challenging lighting conditions, including difficult night scenes. Extensive experiments on public datasets have demonstrated that SelfOdom outperforms representative traditional and learning-based VO and VIO models.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, in submissio

Scaling of global input–output networks

Examining scaling patterns of networks can help understand how structural features relate to the behavior of the networks. Input–output networks consist of industries as nodes and inter-industrial exchanges of products as links. Previous studies consider limited measures for node strengths and link weights, and also ignore the impact of dataset choice. We consider a comprehensive set of indicators in this study that are important in economic analysis, and also examine the impact of dataset choice, by studying input–output networks in individual countries and the entire world. Results show that Burr, Log-Logistic, Log-normal, and Weibull distributions can better describe scaling patterns of global input–output networks. We also find that dataset choice has limited impacts on the observed scaling patterns. Our findings can help examine the quality of economic statistics, estimate missing data in economic statistics, and identify key nodes and links in input–output networks to support economic policymaking

Clinical Study of Simple Plasma Exchange in the Treatment of Severe Autoimmune Hepatitis

Objectives: Plasma Exchange (PE) in the treatment of severe autoimmune hepatitis and the clinical outcome of the clinical data were retrospectively analyzed. The clinical efficacy and safety of single plasma exchange (PE) in the treatment of autoimmune hepatitis were also evaluated. Method: The PE group of 22 patients was given conventional treatment of combined treatment of patients with simple PE while 21 cases of the control group were treated with comprehensive treatment. The efficacy of PE group and control group were compared within 2 weeks. Results: The clinical symptoms of 22 patients in PE group were significantly improved (p < 0.05); in total bilirubin (TBIL), (AST), (INR), (ALT) where the PE group (17/22) 77.27%, and control group (10/21) 47.62%. The difference was statistically significant (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Pure plasma exchange (PE) is an effective method for the treatment of severe autoimmune hepatitis (AIH)

Power trading Raft consensus mechanism considering green certificate and carbon emission weights

The consensus mechanism is a critical technology in the power trading blockchain distributed power trading platforms, which are gradually being applied and promoted to achieve the “dual carbon” goal. Green-certificate trading and carbon emission trading systems help mobilize power generation enterprises to increase the generation of and investment in renewable energy, thereby becoming important factors in distributed power trading. Therefore, they should also be considered as factors in the consensus mechanism. This article first evaluates the green-certificate weight based on whether nodes possess green certificates, evaluates the carbon emission weight based on the carbon emission settlement of nodes in the previous cycle, and constructs a mechanism to evaluate a node’s weight. An improved Raft consensus algorithm based on node weight is then proposed. Nodes with greater weights are more likely to become leading nodes, promoting active compliance and green consumption by nodes and reducing carbon emissions. A simulation shows that the improved Raft consensus mechanism enhances the reliability of leading nodes, improves the efficiency of the distributed power transaction, increases the generation of renewable energy, and encourages the consumption of new energy

Morphology Control of Tin Oxide Nanostructures and Sensing Performances for Acetylene Detection

Morphology Control plays an important role in gas sensing properties of metal oxide semiconductor based gas sensors. In this study, various morphologies of SnO2 nanostructures including nanobulks, nanospheres, nanorods, and nanowires were successfully synthesized via a simple hydrothermal method assisted with different surfactants. X-ray powder diffraction and scanning electron microscopy were employed to characterize the prepared products. Gas sensors were fabricated by screen-printing the as-prepared SnO2 nanostructures onto planar ceramic substrates. Moreover, their gas sensing properties were systematically investigated towards acetylene gas (C2H2), an important fault hydrocarbon dissolved in power transformer oil. Experiments indicate that the SnO2 nanowires based sensor exhibits excellent gas sensing properties, such as lower operating temperature, higher gas response, quicker response-recovery time and good stability than those of SnO2 nanobulks, nanospheres and nanorods. These results imply SnO2 nanowires a promising sensing morphology for C2H2 detection and provide us a feasible way to develop high-performance gas sensor by tailoring the microstructures and morphologies of the materials in further

Di’ao Xinxuekang Capsule, a Chinese Medicinal Product, Decreases Serum Lipids Levels in High-Fat Diet-Fed ApoE–/– Mice by Downregulating PCSK9

Numerous risk factors are responsible for the development of atherosclerosis, for which an increased serum level of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) is a driving force. By binding to the low-density lipoprotein cholesterol receptor (LDLR) and inducing LDLR degradation, proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) plays a key role in cholesterol homeostasis regulation. The inducement of PCSK9 expression is also an important reason for statin intolerance. The Di’ao Xinxuekang (DXXK) capsule extracted from Dioscorea nipponica Makino is a well-known traditional Chinese herbal medicinal product used in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Although DXXK has been widely used in atherosclerotic cardiovascular treatment for nearly 30 years, studies on the potential mechanisms of the lipid-lowering effect are very limited. The purpose of the present study was to demonstrate the possible involvement of the PCSK9/LDLR signaling pathway in the lipid-lowering and antiatherosclerotic effect of DXXK in high-fat diet-fed ApoE–/– mice. The results showed that DXXK treatment alleviated hyperlipidemia, fat accumulation, and atherosclerosis formation in ApoE–/– mice. Furthermore, changes in the expression of PCSK9 mRNA in liver tissue and the circulating PCSK9 level in ApoE–/– mice were both reversed after DXXK treatment, and upregulation of LDLR in the liver was also detected in the protein level in DXXK-treated mice. Our study is the first to show that DXXK could alleviate lipid disorder and ameliorate atherosclerosis with downregulation of the PCSK9 in high-fat diet-fed ApoE–/– mice, suggesting that DXXK may be a potential novel therapeutic treatment and may support statin action in the treatment of atherosclerosis