Berberine alleviates hepatic inflammation of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis mice by inhibiting oxidative stress and endoplasmic reticulum stress

Objective To evaluate the alleviating effect of berberine（BBR）on hepatic inflammation in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis（NASH）mice from the perspectives of oxidative stress and endoplasmic reticulum stress. Methods A total of 24 C57BL/6J mice were randomly divided into 4 groups. Mice in the NASH and NASH+BBR groups were fed with high-fat，high-fructose，and high-cholesterol diets for 28 weeks to induce the NASH disease models，whereas mice in the CD and CD+BBR groups were given with normal diets，and mice in the CD+BBR and NASH+BBR groups were given with 200 mg/（kg·d）of BBR by gavage once a day starting from the 25th week for 4 consecutive weeks. The body weight of mice was recorded weekly. Glucose tolerance test and insulin resistance test were performed at the 3rd week of administration. Serum alanine aminotransferase，aspartate aminotransferase，triglyceride，total cholesterol，LDL cholesterol，and HDL cholesterol levels，and hepatic triglyceride and total cholesterol levels were measured at the end of treatment. Liver samples were treated with HE，Oil-Red O and Masson staining. The expression levels of liver inflammatory factors of TNF-α and IL-1β mRNA were detected by qPCR. The levels of malondialdehyde，total superoxide dismutase activity and total antioxidant capacity，indicators of oxidative stress in liver tissues were assessed by colorimetric assay. The expression levels of proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum stress-related pathways in liver tissues were detected by Western blot. Results NASH mouse models were successfully established. Compared with the mice in the NASH group，weight gain was inhibited，glucose tolerance abnormality was mitigated，insulin sensitivity was increased and liver function and hyperlipidemia were improved after treatment with BBR in the NASH+BBR group（all P < 0.05）. Hepatic pathological slices showed a reduction in steatosis ，and a decrease in inflammatory cell infiltration，but there was no significant alleviation in fibrosis. The mRNA expression levels of liver inflammatory factors were down-regulated（all P < 0.05）. The levels of hepatic tissue oxidative stress factor of malondialdehyde were decreased，whereas those of antioxidant factors of total superoxide dismutase activity and total antioxidant capacity were increased（all P < 0.05）. The expression levels of endoplasmic reticulum stress marker of GRP78 protein and PERK/eIF2α/ATF4/CHOP endoplasmic reticulum stress signaling pathway were significantly down-regulated（all P < 0.05）. Conclusions BBR can alleviate overweight，glycolipid metabolism disorder and liver function abnormality in NASH mice. Besides，it can also mitigate hepatic steatosis and inflammation，but it has no significant effect on the alleviation of fibrosis. BBR mitigates inflammatory response in NASH mice probably by suppressing oxidative stress and endoplasmic reticulum stress in the liver

Use of Xinfeng capsule to treat abarticular pathologic changes in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

AbstractObjectiveTo observe the influence of Xinfeng-capsule (XFC) on abarticular pathologic changes (APCs) and other indices of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and explore the mechanism of action of XFC in improving such changes.MethodsThree-hundred RA patients were divided randomly into a treatment group (n=150) and control group (n=150). A normal control (NC) group (n=90) was also created. Changes in cardiac function, pulmonary function, anemia indices and platelet parameters of RA patients were measured. Curative effects of the two groups were compared, and comparison carried out with the NC group.ResultsIn 300 RA patients, late diastolic peak flow velocity (A peak) was much higher (P<0.01) and early diastolic peak flow velocity (E peak), E/A, and left ventricular fraction shortening much lower (P<0.01) than those in the NC group. Vital capacity (VC), forced vital capacity in one second, forced vital capacity (FVC), maximal voluntary ventilation (MVV), maximal expiratory flow in 50% of VC (FEF50) and FEF75 were lowered remarkably (P< 0.05 or P<0.01). Platelet count (PLT), plateletcrit (PCT) and mean platelet volume (MPV) increased markedly (P<0.05 or P<0.01), and hemoglobin (Hb) level decreased significantly (P<0.05). After XFC treatment, the A peak and PLT and PCT were much lower (P<0.05), and E/A and the number of red blood cells as well as Hb level were much higher (P< 0.05), as were FVC, MVV and FEF50 (P<0.05 or P< 0.01), in the treatment group than those in the NC group. Total score of pain and swelling in joints, uric-acid level and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level were much lower, and superoxide dismutase level as well as the number of CD4 + CD25 + regulation T cells (Treg) and CD4 + CD25 + CD127-Treg were much higher (P<0.05 or P<0.01) in the treatment group than those in the NC group.ConclusionRA patients with pathologic changes in joints also suffer from lower cardiac and pulmonary functions and from parameters of anemia and platelet factors. XFC can improve the symptoms of RA patients, ameliorate their cardiac and pulmonary functions and reduce the parameters of anemia and platelet factors. XFC lowers the immune inflammatory reaction to improve APCs in RA patients

A Marr's Three‐Level Analytical Framework for Neuromorphic Electronic Systems

Neuromorphic electronics, an emerging field that aims for building electronic mimics of the biological brain, holds promise for reshaping the frontiers of information technology and enabling a more intelligent and efficient computing paradigm. As their biological brain counterpart, the neuromorphic electronic systems are complex, having multiple levels of organization. Inspired by David Marr's famous three-level analytical framework developed for neuroscience, the advances in neuromorphic electronic systems are selectively surveyed and given significance to these research endeavors as appropriate from the computational level, algorithmic level, or implementation level. Under this framework, the problem of how to build a neuromorphic electronic system is defined in a tractable way. In conclusion, the development of neuromorphic electronic systems confronts a similar challenge to the one neuroscience confronts, that is, the limited constructability of the low-level knowledge (implementations and algorithms) to achieve high-level brain-like (human-level) computational functions. An opportunity arises from the communication among different levels and their codesign. Neuroscience lab-on-neuromorphic chip platforms offer additional opportunity for mutual benefit between the two disciplines

Simulation study of BESIII with stitched CMOS pixel detector using ACTS

Reconstruction of tracks of charged particles with high precision is very crucial for HEP experiments to achieve their physics goals. As the tracking detector of BESIII experiment, the BESIII drift chamber has suffered from aging effects resulting in degraded tracking performance after operation for about 15 years. To preserve and enhance the tracking performance of BESIII, one of the proposals is to add one layer of thin CMOS pixel sensor in cylindrical shape based on the state-of-the-art stitching technology, between the beam pipe and the drift chamber. The improvement of tracking performance of BESIII with such an additional pixel detector compared to that with only the existing drift chamber is studied using the modern common tracking software ACTS, which provides a set of detector-agnostic and highly performant tracking algorithms that have demonstrated promising performance for a few high energy physics and nuclear physics experiments

Protecting public’s wellbeing against COVID-19 infodemic: The role of trust in information sources and rapid dissemination and transparency of information over time

ObjectivesThis study examined how trust in the information about COVID-19 from social media and official media as well as how the information was disseminated affect public’s wellbeing directly and indirectly through perceived safety over time.MethodsTwo online surveys were conducted in China, with the first survey (Time1, N = 22,718) being at the early stage of the pandemic outbreak and the second one (Time 2, N = 2,901) two and a half years later during the zero-COVID policy lockdown period. Key measured variables include trust in official media and social media, perceived rapid dissemination and transparency of COVID-19-related information, perceived safety, and emotional responses toward the pandemic. Data analysis includes descriptive statistical analysis, independent samples t-test, Pearson correlations, and structural equation modeling.ResultsTrust in official media, perceived rapid dissemination and transparency of COVID-19-related information, perceived safety, as well as positive emotional response toward COVID-19 increased over time, while trust in social media and depressive response decreased over time. Trust in social media and official media played different roles in affecting public’s wellbeing over time. Trust in social media was positively associated with depressive emotions and negatively associated with positive emotion directly and indirectly through decreased perceived safety at Time 1. However, the negative effect of trust in social media on public’s wellbeing was largely decreased at Time 2. In contrast, trust in official media was linked to reduced depressive response and increased positive response directly and indirectly through perceived safety at both times. Rapid dissemination and transparency of COVID-19 information contributed to enhanced trust in official media at both times.ConclusionThe findings highlight the important role of fostering public trust in official media through rapid dissemination and transparency of information in mitigating the negative impact of COVID-19 infodemic on public’s wellbeing over time

Characterization and phylogenetic relationship of the complete chloroplast genome of Stemona japonica as an herb to treat bone tuberculosis at China

Stemona japonica is a species of perennial, flowering and herbaceous vines in the genus Stemona and the family Stemonaceae. In this study, we presented and annotated the complete chloroplast genome of S. japonica, which the chloroplast genome length was 154,224 bp, containing a large single-copy region (LSC) of 82,118 bp, a small single-copy region (SSC) of 17,938 bp and two same inverted repeat regions (IR) of 27,084 bp. The cp genome of S. japonica comprised 134 genes that included 88 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 38 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes and 8 ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes. The overall nucleotide of cp genome composition is: A of 47,338 bp (30.7%), T of 48,206 bp (31.3%), C of 29,528 bp (19.1%), and G of 29,101 bp (18.9%), with a total A + T content of 62.0% and G + C content of 38.0%. Phylogenetic Neighbor-Joining (NJ) analysis based on 11 plants species chloroplast genomes with Stemona japonica, the result shown that Stemona japonica is closely related to Stemona mairei in evolutionary relationship

A Multi-Task Network Based on Dual-Neck Structure for Autonomous Driving Perception

A vision-based autonomous driving perception system necessitates the accomplishment of a suite of tasks, including vehicle detection, drivable area segmentation, and lane line segmentation. In light of the limited computational resources available, multi-task learning has emerged as the preeminent methodology for crafting such systems. In this article, we introduce a highly efficient end-to-end multi-task learning model that showcases promising performance on all fronts. Our approach entails the development of a reliable feature extraction network by introducing a feature extraction module called C2SPD. Moreover, to account for the disparities among various tasks, we propose a dual-neck architecture. Finally, we present an optimized design for the decoders of each task. Our model evinces strong performance on the demanding BDD100K dataset, attaining remarkable accuracy (Acc) in vehicle detection and superior precision in drivable area segmentation (mIoU). In addition, this is the first work that can process these three visual perception tasks simultaneously in real time on an embedded device Atlas 200I A2 and maintain excellent accuracy