Numerical simulation of heat transfer characteristics under semi-confined impinging slot jets

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Biologics targeting IL-17 and IL-23 maintain stability in patients with psoriasis during COVID-19 infection: a case-control study

BackgroundPsoriasis is a chronic and refractory skin disease. The emergence of biologics provides more options for the treatment of psoriasis, but the COVID-19 pandemic poses challenges for the management of psoriasis.ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of different biologics on the stabilization of psoriasis during COVID-19 infection in China.MethodsThis is a single-center, observational, retrospective, case–control study. Using our database, we conducted a remote dermatologic study by means of questionnaire follow-up or telephone follow-up to collect general information of patients, information related to COVID-19 infection and conditions of psoriasis for comparison and further analysis between groups.ResultsOur study ultimately included 274 patients for analysis. We found that the patients in this collection had mild symptoms of COVID-19 infection, and only 13 of them needed to go to the hospital for medical treatment. Further studies found that in biologics, relative to tumor necrosis factor-α inhibitors (TNF-αi), interleukin-17 inhibitors (IL-17i) and interleukin-23 inhibitors (IL-23i) are both protective factors in flare-up of psoriasis [IL-17i: OR (95% CI) = 0.412 (0.189–0.901); IL-23i: OR (95% CI) = 0.291 (0.097–0.876)]. In addition, we also found that the proportion of people with increased psoriasis developing long COVID-19 increased, and we speculated that increased psoriasis may be a potential risk factor for long COVID-19.ConclusionOur study showed that the use of IL-17i and IL-23i was a protective factor for psoriasis compared with TNF-αi, and could keep the psoriasis stable

Insights into Interactions between Vanadium (V) Bio-reduction and Pentachlorophenol Dechlorination in Synthetic Groundwater

Aquifer co-contamination by vanadium (V) and pentachlorophenol (PCP) involves complicated biogeochemical processes that remain poorly understood, particularly from the perspective of microbial metabolism. Batch experiment results demonstrated that V(V) and PCP could be competitively bio-reduced, with 96.0 ± 1.8% of V(V) and 43.4 ± 4.6% of PCP removed during 7 d operation. V(V) was bio-transformed to vanadium (IV), which could precipitate naturally under circumneutral conditions, facilitating the removal of up to 78.2 ± 3.1% dissolved total V. The PCP reductive dechlorination products were mainly 2,4,6-trichlorophenol and 4-monochlorophenol with lower toxicity. High-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing indicated that Pseudomonas, Soehngenia, and Anaerolinea might be responsible for the two bio-transformations, with detected functional genes of nirS and cprA. Extracellular reduction by cytochrome c and intracellular conversion by nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) occurred for both V(V) and PCP. Extracellular proteins in microbial-secreted extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) might also be involved in these enzymatic bioprocesses. EPS could protect microbial cells through V(V) binding by the chemically reactive carboxyl (COO−), and hydroxyl (–OH) groups. These findings elucidate the metabolic processes during anaerobic V(V) and PCP biotransformation, advance understanding of their biogeochemical fates, and provide a foundation on which to develop novel strategies for remediation of co-contaminated aquifers

Semi-Automated Tracking of Vibrissal Movements in Free-Moving Rodents Captured by High-Speed Videos

Abstract-Quantitative analyses of whisker movements provide a means to study functional recovery and regeneration of mouse facial nerve after an injury. However, accurate tracking of the mouse whisker movement is challenging. Most methods for whisker tracking require manual intervention, e.g. fixing the head of the mouse during a study. Here we describe a semi-automated image processing method, which is applied to high-speed video recordings of free-moving mice to track the whisker movements. We first track the head movement of a mouse by delineating the lower head contour frame-by-frame that allows for detection of the location and orientation of the head. Then, a region of interest is identified for each frame; the subsequent application of a mask and the Hough transform detects the selected whiskers on each side of the head. Our approach is used to examine the functional recovery of damaged facial nerves in mice over a course of 21 days