Role of traditional Chinese medicine in the regulation of inflammatory mediators in paediatric asthma

Abstract Background: In many nations, there has been an increase in the prevalence of allergic diseases, many of which lack therapies for recovery. In addition, there are concerns regarding the use of conventional medicine, particularly corticosteroids, in children. Accordingly, in the case of asthma, many chronic allergic patients are looking at complementary and alternative drugs to treat their condition. Objective: The study intended to observe the impact of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) prescriptions children with asthma, with a specific focus on their impact on the molecular mechanism of asthma. Method: A total number of 167 children with symptom of asthma were included in the study and were randomly allocated to two groups – those who received traditional Chinese medicine (TCM, the TCM group, n = 90) and those who were given salbutamol plus montelukast (SM, the SM group, n = 77). Different TCM treatments were given to patients in the TCM group, while salbutamol and montelukast were given to the SM group. Theappropriate treatment was given to both groups for 12 weeks. The patient who are getting TCM treatment had 42 cases, and the SM group had 35 cases. Real-time quantitative fluorescent PCR detects interleukin 10 and interleukin 17 (IL-10 and IL17 respectively) and matrix metal-oproteinase 9 commonly known as MMP-9 expression levels including monocyte blood transforming growth factor 1 (MBTGF-β1). A diagnosis of IL-10 orIL-17 or, MMP-9 as well as MBTGF- β1 is monitored in peripheral blood which were treated before and after consecutively. Results: MBTGF-β1-RNA decreased among the SM group children after the treatment Whereas after treatment no major variances in MMP-9 among TCM and the SM children group were noted (0.05>0.05). The amount of IL-10 including IL-17 and MMP-9 expressively declined (p = 0.01, 0.04 and 0.03 respectively) in the TCM group. On the other hand, MMP-9 and MBTGF- β1 levels expressively declined in the SM group following therapy. The IL-10 as well as IL-17, and MBTGF-β1 and MMP-9 values in the two groups were not significantly different (> 0.05). The differences between IL-17 and c-ACT scores in the Chinese medicine group and SM group were adversely correlated. Conclusions: Traditional Chinese Medicine has controlling consequence on secretions of childhood asthma inflammatory mediators and help in asthma management immune mechanism. [Ethiop. J. Health Dev. 2020; 34(4):262-266] Key words: Paediatric asthma, traditional Chinese medicine, children, Chinese herbal medicin

Resource scheduling of workflow multi-instance migration based on the shuffled leapfrog algorithm

Purpose: When the workflow changed, resource scheduling optimization in the process of the current running instance migration has become a hot issue in current workflow flexible research; purpose of the article is to investigate the resource scheduling problem of workflow multi-instance migration. Design/methodology/approach: The time and cost relationships between activities and resources in workflow instance migration process are analyzed and a resource scheduling optimization model in the process of workflow instance migration is set up; Research is performed on resource scheduling optimization in workflow multi-instance migration, leapfrog algorithm is adopted to obtain the optimal resource scheduling scheme. An example is given to verify the validity of the model and the algorithm. Findings: Under the constraints of resource cost and quantity, an optimal resource scheduling scheme for workflow migration is found, ensuring a minimal running time and optimal cost. Originality/value: A mathematical model for resource scheduling of workflow multi-instance migration is built and the shuffled leapfrog algorithm is designed to solve the model.Peer Reviewe

DYNAMIC RESPONSE ANALYSES OF COLLINEAR BARS WITH CONCENTRATED MASSES

Longitudinal vibration of the elastic bars with concentrated masses widely exist in the engineering applications which needs to be studied deeply. In this paper,the harmonic dynamic disturbance was considered. At first,the equations to be determined were written out,the linear algebraic equations of the unknown coefficients were obtained utilizing the supposed harmonic solutions with unknown coefficients,boundary conditions of the problem and the dynamic conditions of the concentrated masses. The given example took three bars and two concentrated masses as the example,the vibration displacement amplitudes and the dynamic stress amplitudes of the bars along the axial direction with different disturbance frequencies were studied,The conclusions can provide the theoretical bases for the dynamic strength check and the strength design

Ageism, resilience, coping, family support, and quality of life among older people living with HIV/AIDS in Nanning, China

Although the HIV epidemic continues to spread among older adults over 50 years old in China, little empirical research has investigated the interrelationships among ageism, adaptability, family support, and quality of life among older people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs). In this cross-sectional study, among 197 older PLWHAs over 50 years old, path analytic modelling was used to assess the interrelationships among ageism, resilience, coping, family support, and quality of life. Compared with female PLWHAs, male PLWHAs had a higher level of resilience and coping. There were no significant differences in the scores of quality of life, ageism, family support, HIV knowledge, and duration since HIV diagnosis between males and females. The following relationships were statistically significant in the path analysis: (1) family support → resilience [β (standardised coefficient) = 0.18], (2) resilience → ageism (β = −0.29), (3) resilience → coping (β = 0.48), and (4) coping → quality of life (β = 0.24). In addition, male PLWHAs were more resilient than female PLWHAs (β = 0.16). The findings indicate that older PLWHAs do not only negatively accept adversity, but build their adaptability to positively manage the challenges. Family-based interventions need take this adaptability to adversity into consideration

Acquisition Method of User Requirements for Complex Products Based on Data Mining

The vigorous development of big data technology has changed the traditional user requirement acquisition mode of the manufacturing industry. Based on data mining, manufacturing enterprises have the innovation ability to respond quickly to market changes and user requirements. However, in the stage of complex product innovation design, a large amount of design data has not been effectively used, and there are some problems of low efficiency and lack of objectivity of user survey. Therefore, this paper proposes an acquisition method of user requirements based on patent data mining. By constructing a patent data knowledge base, this method combines the Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic model and a K-means algorithm to cluster patent text data to realize the mining of key functional requirements of products. Then, the importance of demand is determined by rough set theory, and the rationality of demand is verified by user importance performance analysis. In this paper, the proposed method is explained and verified by mining the machine tool patent data in CNKI. The results show that this method can effectively improve the efficiency and accuracy of user requirements acquisition, expand the innovative design approach of existing machine tool products, and be applied to other complex product fields with strong versatility

Module division method of complex products for responding to user’s requirements

With the gradual diversification of personalized usage scenarios, user requirements play a direct role in product design decisions. Due to the problem of fuzzy demand caused by user cognitive bias, traditional design methods usually focus on realizing product functions and cannot effectively match user requirements. Therefore, this paper proposes a complex product module division method for user requirements. The method constitutes of three tasks, requirement analysis of module division, design mapping of module division and scheme implementation of module division. Firstly, based on the progressive architecture from initial requirements to precise requirements, the effective user requirements are obtained through similarity recommendation. Secondly, according to the four types of knowledge of function, geometry, physics and design, the design structure matrix is constructed to complete the Requirement-Function-Structure mapping. The improved Fuzzy C-means Algorithm is used to solve the mapping model, and finally a module division scheme that meets the user requirements is obtained. Taking the chip removal machine as an example, the rationality and effectiveness of the method are verified. The results show that the product modules divided by this method can effectively meet the multiple user requirements

A Decision-Making Method for Design Schemes Based on Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets and Prospect Theory

Conceptual design is a key link in the process of complex product design, and it is very important to select the appropriate design scheme; however, there are many types and inaccuracies of the evaluation data, and there is a problem of mutual influence between the evaluation criteria, which leads to unreliable decision making of the optimal solution. In order to solve this problem, a decision-making method based on intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFS) and prospect theory is proposed. This method can be used for symmetric and asymmetric evaluation data. The evaluation data are classified according to different expression types and unified using intuitionistic fuzzy numbers. The intuitionistic fuzzy prospect value of decision information is calculated using prospect theory, and the prospect transformation of decision information is completed. At the same time, the Gray Relational Analysis (GRA) method and the Criteria Importance Though Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) method are used to calculate the subjective and objective weights of the technical and economic evaluation indexes of the product, and the combination weights are given; then, based on the evidence theory, the basic probability distribution of the evidence chain of all conceptual design schemes is synthesized, and the comprehensive prospect evaluation results of the schemes are obtained to complete the optimization of the conceptual design schemes. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by the conceptual design of the chip removal system of the deep hole machining machine tool. This work provides a promising method for decision makers to optimize the design scheme and provides insights into multi-objective decision-making problems

Resource scheduling of workflow multi-instance migration based on the shuffled leapfrog algorithm

Purpose: When the workflow changed, resource scheduling optimization in the process of the current running instance migration has become a hot issue in current workflow flexible research; purpose of the article is to investigate the resource scheduling problem of workflow multi-instance migration. Design/methodology/approach: The time and cost relationships between activities and resources in workflow instance migration process are analyzed and a resource scheduling optimization model in the process of workflow instance migration is set up; Research is performed on resource scheduling optimization in workflow multi-instance migration, leapfrog algorithm is adopted to obtain the optimal resource scheduling scheme. An example is given to verify the validity of the model and the algorithm. Findings: Under the constraints of resource cost and quantity, an optimal resource scheduling scheme for workflow migration is found, ensuring a minimal running time and optimal cost. Originality/value: A mathematical model for resource scheduling of workflow multi-instance migration is built and the shuffled leapfrog algorithm is designed to solve the model

Psychological Impacts among Older and Younger People Living with HIV/AIDS in Nanning, China

Objectives. The HIV epidemic has drastically increased among older adults in China, yet little research has examined the psychological impacts among older and younger people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs). This study examined and compared self-efficacy, depression, well-being, and quality of life among older and younger PLWHAs in China. Method. A two-stage sampling procedure was used to recruit a final sample of 148 participants. Older adults were defined as age 50 and older. Result. Compared to younger PLWHAs aged 18–49 years old, older PLWHAs reported lower levels of well-being (7.6 versus 11.4), higher levels of depression (18.6 versus 15.8), and poorer quality of life. Self-efficacy was similar among older (23.9) and younger (24.6) PLWHAs. A higher level of depression among older PLWHAs was associated with much lower levels of subjective well-being and quality of life (physical health and psychological health). Conclusion. The findings suggest that older PLWHAs face psychological problems and mental health challenges beyond those experienced by younger PLWHAs. Intervention programs dedicated to improving mental health and quality of life are greatly needed for HIV infected older adults