Role of Inflammatory Factors in Regulation of Osteogenesis in Tissue-Engineered Bone

It was traditionally considered that the inhibition of inflammatory reaction is necessary for osteogenesis, but the latest issue argued inflammation is unavoidable in the process of bone trauma, and physiological inflammatory reaction is essential to achieve bone formation. Tissue-engineered bone graft is not only associated with osteoblast-related cells; the inflammatory reaction is the initial physiological process, mainly with neutrophil infiltration, which secretes MCP-1, IL-8, and other chemokines and further promotes dendritic cells, lymphocytes, and mononuclear macrophages to move in. The activation pathways of macrophages have a direct effect on the outcome of the inflammatory reaction and the healing, which are divided into the classical approach (M1) and the alternative approach (M2). The M1 pathway secretes IL-1 beta, IL-6, TNF-α, and other pro-inflammatory factors, while the M2 pathway secretes arginase, IL-1Ra, IL-4, and other anti-inflammatory cytokines, also with bone-healing-related growth factors, which promote homing of bone mesenchymal stem cells (bMSCs)

The Biological Function of Kupffer Cells in Liver Disease

Kupffer cells, which have a characteristic morphology and a kind of phenotype, are the resident macrophages in liver, serve as the largest population mononuclear phagocytes in the body, and are localized in the periportal zone. They have phagocytosis capacity and release all kinds of cytokines, chemokines, and soluble biological mediators. Owing to the different functions of Kupffer cells, they play an important role in liver diseases. In this chapter, we review the role of Kupffer cells in infectious disease, fatty liver disease, liver fibrosis, liver ischemia-reperfusion injury, liver transplantation immunology, as well as liver cancer and metastases

Are We Building on the Rock? On the Importance of Data Preprocessing for Code Summarization

Code summarization, the task of generating useful comments given the code, has long been of interest. Most of the existing code summarization models are trained and validated on widely-used code comment benchmark datasets. However, little is known about the quality of the benchmark datasets built from real-world projects. Are the benchmark datasets as good as expected? To bridge the gap, we conduct a systematic research to assess and improve the quality of four benchmark datasets widely used for code summarization tasks. First, we propose an automated code-comment cleaning tool that can accurately detect noisy data caused by inappropriate data preprocessing operations from existing benchmark datasets. Then, we apply the tool to further assess the data quality of the four benchmark datasets, based on the detected noises. Finally, we conduct comparative experiments to investigate the impact of noisy data on the performance of code summarization models. The results show that these data preprocessing noises widely exist in all four benchmark datasets, and removing these noisy data leads to a significant improvement on the performance of code summarization. We believe that the findings and insights will enable a better understanding of data quality in code summarization tasks, and pave the way for relevant research and practice

Vapourchromic alkali metal ions complexes based on 2-phenmethylamino-7-methyl-1,8-naphthyridine

556-560A series of 2-phenmethylamino-7-methyl-1,8-naphthyridine/alkali metal ion (Li+ and Na+) complexes have been synthesized using a polymeric medium (poly(acrylic acid)) as the key activating component. Upon exposure to methanol or ethanol vapour at ambient temperature, the emission colour of prepared complexes in solid powder and thin film states changes from red-orange or pink to blue, respectively. These phenomena are reversible and rapid (about 5-10 s), hence, the prepared complexes have potential applications as chemosensor materials for detection of volatile methanol vapour

From chemical Langevin equations to Fokker-Planck equation: application of Hodge decomposition and Klein-Kramers equation

The stochastic systems without detailed balance are common in various chemical reaction systems, such as metabolic network systems. In studies of these systems, the concept of potential landscape is useful. However, what are the sufficient and necessary conditions of the existence of the potential function is still an open problem. Use Hodge decomposition theorem in differential form theory, we focus on the general chemical Langevin equations, which reflect complex chemical reaction systems. We analysis the conditions for the existence of potential landscape of the systems. By mapping the stochastic differential equations to a Hamiltonian mechanical system, we obtain the Fokker-Planck equation of the chemical reaction systems. The obtained Fokker-Planck equation can be used in further studies of other steady properties of complex chemical reaction systems, such as their steady state entropies.Comment: 6 pages, 0 figure, submitted to J. Phys. A: Math. Theo

Prevalence of Clonorchis sinensis infection in dogs and cats in subtropical southern China

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Clonorchiasis, caused by <it>Clonorchis sinensis</it>, is one of the major parasitic zoonoses in China, particularly in China's southern Guangdong province where the prevalence of <it>C. sinensis </it>infection in humans is high. However, little is known of the prevalence of <it>C. sinensis </it>infection in its reservoir hosts dogs and cats. Hence, the prevalence of <it>C. sinensis </it>infection in dogs and cats was investigated in Guangdong province, China between October 2006 and March 2008.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 503 dogs and 194 cats from 13 administrative regions in Guangdong province were examined by post-mortem examination. The worms were examined, counted, and identified to species according to existing keys and descriptions. The average prevalences of <it>C. sinensis </it>infection in dogs and cats were 20.5% and 41.8%, respectively. The infection intensities in dogs were usually light, but in cats the infection intensities were more serious. The prevalences were higher in some of the cities located in the Pearl River Delta region which is the most important endemic area in Guangdong province, but the prevalences were relatively lower in seaside cities.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The present investigation revealed a high prevalence of <it>C. sinensis </it>infection in its reservoir hosts dogs and cats in China's subtropical Guangdong province, which provides relevant "base-line" data for conducting control strategies and measures against clonorchiasis in this region.</p