Mechanisms of action and synergetic formulas of plant-based natural compounds from traditional Chinese medicine for managing osteoporosis: a literature review

Osteoporosis (OP) is a systemic skeletal disease prevalent in older adults, characterized by substantial bone loss and deterioration of microstructure, resulting in heightened bone fragility and risk of fracture. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) herbs have been widely employed in OP treatment owing to their advantages, such as good tolerance, low toxicity, high efficiency, and minimal adverse reactions. Increasing evidence also reveals that many plant-based compounds (or secondary metabolites) from these TCM formulas, such as resveratrol, naringin, and ginsenoside, have demonstrated beneficial effects in reducing the risk of OP. Nonetheless, the comprehensive roles of these natural products in OP have not been thoroughly clarified, impeding the development of synergistic formulas for optimal OP treatment. In this review, we sum up the pathological mechanisms of OP based on evidence from basic and clinical research; emphasis is placed on the in vitro and preclinical in vivo evidence-based anti-OP mechanisms of TCM formulas and their chemically active plant constituents, especially their effects on imbalanced bone homeostasis regulated by osteoblasts (responsible for bone formation), osteoclasts (responsible for bone resorption), bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells as well as bone microstructure, angiogenesis, and immune system. Furthermore, we prospectively discuss the combinatory ingredients from natural products from these TCM formulas. Our goal is to improve comprehension of the pharmacological mechanisms of TCM formulas and their chemically active constituents, which could inform the development of new strategies for managing OP

Image Perceptual Hashing for Content Authentication Based on Geometric Invariant Vector Distance

Image perceptual hashing is broadly applied in image content authentication, recognition, retrieval, and social media hotspot event detection. An image authentication algorithm is put forward based on the Itti visual saliency model and geometric invariant vector distance. To begin with, the image is preprocessed and weighted by the Itti model and contourlet transform. After that, the weighted image is randomly divided into blocks, and the image feature vector is constructed by calculating the geometric invariant vector distance on both Hu invariant moment vector and maximum singular value vector of the random blocks. In the end, the feature vector is quantized and encrypted to generate the ultimate hash. Experimental results illustrate that when the threshold T = 70, the true positive rate PTPR for duplicate images stands at 0.96574, while the false rate PFPR of different images is merely 0.0224, with the total error rate reaching the minimum value (0.0566). Furthermore, the AUC value of the proposed algorithm is 0.9951, which is higher than that of the comparison algorithms, indicating that the algorithm has better performance than other state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of various visual content-preserving attacks

Breeding Ecology of Cinereous Vulture in Tien-Shan Mountains, China

During 2016 and 2017, we observed 4 nests of the Cinereous Vulture (Aegypius monachus) in the middle of the Tien Shan Mountains, the west of China, and tried to follow them by the GPS/GSM dataloggers. We continuously observed nesting birds and recorded their behavior. The duration of the field works was about 40 days that makes in total more than 500 hours. The results showed that all nests of the vultures were located on the eastern slope of cliffs on the altitude of 2 300 – 2 900 meters, with the distance between nests is 1–3 km. Nests were built on the open and steep ledges with the outer diameter of the nest is 1.1–1.6 m. All clutches consists of only one egg (n=4), the incubation period was 52–56 days, and the nestlings hatched in the middle of April; the medium weight of newly hatched nestlings was 160 g. In May 17th, their weight increased to 1.50 kg, in June 14th – to 5.65kg, and in July 14th the weight of young birds was about 8.56kg (close to the adult’s weight). The brooding period in this species is very long – nestlings stayed for 90–105 days in the nest, and continued to be fed by adult birds till October. Lack of food is one of the main reasons for low reproductive success in this species

A Remote-Sensing-Driven System for Mining Marine Spatiotemporal Association Patterns

Remote sensing is widely used to analyze marine environments. While many effective and advanced methods have been developed, they are generally used independently of each other, despite the potential advantages of combining different modules into an integrated system. We develop here an image-driven remote-sensing mining system, RSMapMining (Remote Sensing driven Marine spatiotemporal Association Pattern Mining system), which consists of three modules. The image preprocessing module integrates image processing techniques and marine extraction methods to build a mining database. The pattern mining module integrates popular algorithms to implement the mining process according to the mining strategies. The third module, knowledge visualization, designs a series of interactive interfaces to visualize the marine data at a variety of scales, from global to grid pixel. The effectiveness of the integrated system is tested in a case study of the northwestern Pacific Ocean. The main contribution of this study is the development of a mining system to deal with marine remote sensing images by integrating popular techniques and methods ranging from information extraction, through visualization, to knowledge discovery

The Impact of Cross-Linking Effect on the Space Charge Characteristics of Cross-Linked Polyethylene with Different Degrees of Cross-Linking under Strong Direct Current Electric Field

Cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) obtained by the crossing-linking reaction of polyethylene (PE) can greatly enhance the mechanical properties and other properties of PE, which makes XLPE widely applied in the field of electric power engineering. However, the space charges can distort the distribution of the electrical field strength in the XLPE applied in the insulation materials, which can shorten the service life of the insulation materials. Therefore, the space charge characteristics of XLPE under the strong direct current (DC) electric field have been the focus of scholars and engineers all over the world. This article has studied the impact of the cross-linking effect on the space charge characteristics of XLPE with different degrees of cross-linking. For this issue, we used dicumyl peroxide (DCP) as the cross-linking agent and low-density polyethylene (LDPE) as the base material for the preparation of samples. Besides, the space charge distribution was measured by the pulsed electro-acoustic method (PEA). In addition, the average charge density as a characteristic parameter was introduced into the experiment, which was used to quantitatively analyze the impact of the cross-linking effect on the space charge characteristics of XLPE with different degrees of cross-linking. Meanwhile, we also explained the impact of the cross-linking effect on XLPE with different degrees of cross-linking from a microscopic point of view. Ultimately, some important conclusions can be obtained. For instance, the cross-linking effect significantly increases the threshold electrical field strength of XLPE, and as the content of cross-linking agent increases, the threshold electrical field strength increases at first and then decreases, and the threshold electrical field strength reaches the maximum value when the content of the cross-linking agent is 1.0% or 2.1%. Besides, the cross-linking effect introduces negative charge traps into the LDPE and increases the densities of the deeper charge traps, and so on. In addition, we have also analyzed the average charge density, and we have summarized the theoretical model of the average charge decay, namely, Q ( t ) = Q 0 + α e − t β , which is very effective for explaining the dissipation characteristics (more conclusive contents can be seen in the conclusion section of this article)

Supporting Information from Fluorimetric detection of reserpine in mouse serum through online post-column electrochemical derivatization

Supplementary materials included figures that made the work complete

Supporting Information from Fluorimetric detection of reserpine in mouse serum through online post-column electrochemical derivatization

Supplementary materials included figures that made the work complete

Green Polyelectrolyte-Functionalization of Carbonaceous Nanospheres and Its Application in Ion Chromatography

Carbonaceous nanospheres (CNSs) synthesized from hydrothermal carbonization of glucose were facilely modified with quaternary ammonium polyelectrolytes (QAPs) through a green and high-efficiency strategy, and they were successfully applied in anion-exchange chromatography (AEC). Methylamine and 1,4-butanediol diglycidyl ether were utilized as monomers to start the polymerization for constructing QAPs. The entire synthesis was achieved in water without damage to the monodispersity of CNSs. The water-dispersibility of CNSs was significantly increased after QAP-modification. The QAP-grafted CNSs (QAP-CNSs) were characterized by FTIR, XPS, SEM, TGA, and zeta potential measurement. The functionalization methodology was further extended to produce octadecylamine-modified CNSs, which demonstrated its versatility in preparation of functional carbons. For application in AEC, the QAP-CNSs were adhered on sulfonated poly­(styrene-divinylbenzene) (PS-DVB) microspheres by electrostatic interaction. Using the PS-DVB/QAP-CNS composite as anion-exchange phase and potassium hydroxide solution as eluent, seven common anions were efficiently separated with superior stability