Comparative studies on the regulatory effects of raw and charred hawthorn on functional dyspepsia and intestinal flora

Purpose: To compare the effects of raw hawthorn (RH) and charred hawthorn (CH) on functional dyspepsia (FD) and intestinal flora (IF).Methods: A rat model of FD was established through use of a chronic stimulator. Rat models were evaluated by the rat’s physical state, body weight, diet, and histopathological examination. After RH or CH administration, the digestive function of the rats was evaluated by determining gastric emptying and intestinal propulsion rate, diversity of intestinal flora.Results: RH and CH both improved gastric emptying and intestinal propulsion rate in FD group when compared to control group (p < 0.05). CH yielded higher treatment effectiveness than RH. Sixteen phyla of microbiomes were recognized from all samples. After FD model establishment, the relative abundance of Lactobacillus, Lachnospiraceae and Bacteroidales decreased compared to normal control rats. On the other hand, the relative abundance of Helicobacter and Bacteroides in the model control group increased compared to normal control. After RH and CH treatment, the relative abundance of all dysregulated phyla was restored to varying degrees, but the levels after CH treatment were similar to those of the normal control group.Conclusion: The relative abundance of intestinal flora of FD model rats is significantly different from that of rats in normal control group. Thus, RH and CH intervention improves digestive function, and the mechanisms may be related to adjustment of gut dysbacteriosis.Keywords: Raw Hawthorn, Charred Hawthorn, Functional dyspepsia, Intestinal flor

Identification and characterization of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) in Zhikong scallop Chlamys farreri during gonadal development

Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) controls synthesis of sex steroid hormones through hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis in vertebrates. But in mollusks, research on neuroendocrine control of gonadal function, such as the function of GnRH during gonadal development is limited. In this study, we investigated the morphology and structure of the nerve ganglia of Zhikong scallop Chlamys farreri by physiological and histological observations. We also cloned the ORF and studied the expression patterns of GnRH in the scallop. Tissue expression analysis showed that GnRH was highly expressed in parietovisceral ganglion (PVG). The in situ hybridization result further confirmed that GnRH mRNA only distributed in some good-sized neurons in the posterior lobe (PL) and some pint-sized neurons in the lateral lobe (LL). In addition, by examining the expression of GnRH during gonadal development in ganglia, we found GnRH displayed higher expression in the female scallops, and showed significant high expression at the growing stage of female scallops in PVG. This study would contribute to gaining insight into the mechanism underlying reproduction regulation by GnRH in the scallop and help to provide a better understanding of reproductive neuroendocrine in mollusks

Cooperative train control during the power supply shortage in metro system: A multi-agent reinforcement learning approach

In metro system, the fault of traction power supply system may cause the power supply shortage around the failure substation. In this case, the dispatching measure should be immediately taken to reduce the impacts of disruption on the train operation. To deal with this real-time traffic management problem, a cooperative control approach is proposed in this paper. In this approach, the time to apply tractive force and the level of force are simultaneously adjusted for all the operated trains, to maximize the maintained line capacity when considering the power supply capacity. Compared with the existing train timetable rescheduling approach, cooperative control is more flexible to get a better train regulation solution. To solve the challenges for developing the cooperative control model (i.e., undetermined number and dynamically changing of controlled objects), an imaginary section method is newly developed to transform the original problem into an equivalent cooperative control problem with fixed controlled objects. Then, the mathematical models for the transformed problem are constructed by using the space–time–speed network methodology. According to the formulated model, a Decentralized-Markov Decision Process (Dec-MDP) framework is designed as the basis of the applied algorithm. Next, a Collaboration Mechanism Based-Independent Deep Q-Network (CMB-IDQN) algorithm is proposed to solve the cooperative control problem. Compared with classical IDQN algorithm, a credit assignment method based on the collaboration mechanism among trains is novelly considered in the designed multi-agent reinforcement learning algorithm. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed cooperative control approach is verified by two case studies. When solving the cooperative control problem, the performance by using CMB-IDQN algorithm can be increased by up to 13.0% and 16.8% compared with other two classical reinforcement learning algorithms (i.e., DQN and IDQN), respectively. Compared with two train timetable rescheduling measures during the power supply shortage, the cooperative control approach can improve the solution quality by more than 180.4% and 17.4%, respectively

Uncovering the spatially heterogeneous effects of shared mobility on public transit and taxi

A Mixed Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) model is applied to explore the effects of shared mobility trips on taxi and public transit ridership at the macro-level. Several essential variables, including socioeconomic, transportation, network, and land use data, are set as the causal factors. The experiment is conducted using the smart card data, vehicle GPS trajectories, and vehicle order data collected in Shenzhen City, China. We show that the Mixed GWR outperforms the basic GWR in model fitting and capturing the unobserved heterogeneity. The spatial analysis reveals that bike-sharing addresses the “last-mile” and “first-mile” problems to bus and metro in the urban periphery. It substitutes the bus and taxis in short-distance journeys in the city center. However, the over-placement of bike-sharing in some regions limits the flexibility of bike-sharing connections to the metro. In the city center, ride-hailing fills the gaps in bus coverage and competes with the metro. In the peripheral areas, ride-hailing replaces buses and improves the accessibility to metro stations. The transportation policy increases the cooperation between ride-hailing and taxis citywide, although competitions in few regions need to be solved. The abovementioned results provide policy suggestions to optimize the allocation of local transportation resources

An integrated energy-efficient train operation approach based on the space-time-speed network methodology

Reduction on the traction energy and increasing of the reused regenerative energy are two main ways for saving energy in metro systems, which are related to the driving strategy as well as the train timetable. To minimize the systematic energy, this paper proposes an integrated energy-efficient train operation method in which the driving strategy and the train timetable are jointly optimized. Firstly, the models of calculating the traction energy and the reuse of the regenerate energy are introduced with the constraints of the train operation. Then, the systematical optimization model is formulated by taking the net energy (i.e., the difference between the traction energy and the reused regenerate energy) as the objective function. Based on the Space–-Time-Speed network methodology, the optimization model is transformed into a discrete decision problem. Next, two algorithms are used to solve the problem. The dynamic programming algorithm is used to obtain the global optimal solution, and the discrete differential dynamic programming algorithm is applied to get the approximate optimal solution to reduce the computing time. Finally, two numeral examples are conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method on energy saving. The method can reduce the net energy consumption by up to 25.0% compared to the result without optimization and by up to 8.7% compared to the result by using the two-stage method

Experimental Demonstration of 40-Gb/s I-SC-FDM With 10G-Class Optics and Low-Complexity DSP for Next-Generation PON

Low cost and low energy consumption are two important issues for the upgrade of next-generation passive optical network (PON). In this paper, we experimentally demonstrated a 40-Gb/s PON downstream transmission employing interleaved single carrier frequency-division multiplexing (I-SC-FDM) modulation and joint frequency-time domain equalization. At the transmitter, low peak-to-average power ratio and low-complexity signal is generated using simplified encoding structure of phase rotation and complex-to-real transform. At the receiver, the digital signal processing is of low computational complexity since very few taps of joint equalization are needed. 10G-class optics are used both in transmitter and receiver to maintain a low-cost system. Experimental results indicate that total 28.6 dB link power budget over 20 km transmission in C-band was successfully achieved without using any optical amplifier or optical dispersion compensation fiber, which supports up to $1:256$ optical splitter ratio in PON systems. The proposed scheme is of great reference significance in the next-generation PON systems

Down-Regulating the High Level of 17-Beta-Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase 13 Plays a Therapeutic Role for Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic liver disease worldwide, and there is no specific drug to treat it. Recent results showed that 17-beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 13 (HSD17B13) is associated with liver diseases, but these conclusions are controversial. Here, we showed that HSD17B13 was more highly expressed in the livers of NAFLD patients, and high expression was induced in the livers of murine NAFLD models and cultural hepatocytes treated using various etiologies. The high HSD17B13 expression in the hepatocytes facilitated the progression of NAFLD by directly stabilizing the intracellular lipid drops and by indirectly activating hepatic stellate cells. When HSD17B13 was overexpressed in the liver, it aggravated liver steatosis and fibrosis in mice fed with a high-fat diet, while down-regulated the high expression of HSD17B13 by short hairpin RNAs produced a therapeutic effect in the NAFLD mice. We concluded that high HSD17B13 expression is a good target for the development of drugs to treat NAFLD