Spore Powder of Ganoderma lucidum Improves Cancer-Related Fatigue in Breast Cancer Patients Undergoing Endocrine Therapy: A Pilot Clinical Trial

The fatigue prevalence in breast cancer survivors is high during the endocrine treatment. However, there are few evidence-based interventions to manage this symptom. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of spore powder of Ganoderma lucidum for cancer-related fatigue in breast cancer patients undergoing endocrine therapy. Spore powder of Ganoderma lucidum is a kind of Basidiomycete which is a widely used traditional medicine in China. 48 breast cancer patients with cancer-related fatigue undergoing endocrine therapy were randomized into the experimental or control group. FACT-F, HADS, and EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaires data were collected at baseline and 4 weeks after treatment. The concentrations of TNF-α, IL-6, and liver-kidney functions were measured before and after intervention. The experimental group showed statistically significant improvements in the domains of physical well-being and fatigue subscale after intervention. These patients also reported less anxiety and depression and better quality of life. Immune markers of CRF were significantly lower and no serious adverse effects occurred during the study. This pilot study suggests that spore powder of Ganoderma lucidum may have beneficial effects on cancer-related fatigue and quality of life in breast cancer patients undergoing endocrine therapy without any significant adverse effect

The Expressive Power of Graph Neural Networks: A Survey

Graph neural networks (GNNs) are effective machine learning models for many graph-related applications. Despite their empirical success, many research efforts focus on the theoretical limitations of GNNs, i.e., the GNNs expressive power. Early works in this domain mainly focus on studying the graph isomorphism recognition ability of GNNs, and recent works try to leverage the properties such as subgraph counting and connectivity learning to characterize the expressive power of GNNs, which are more practical and closer to real-world. However, no survey papers and open-source repositories comprehensively summarize and discuss models in this important direction. To fill the gap, we conduct a first survey for models for enhancing expressive power under different forms of definition. Concretely, the models are reviewed based on three categories, i.e., Graph feature enhancement, Graph topology enhancement, and GNNs architecture enhancement

The research on intelligent extraction of furnace mouth flame characteristics based on DNN

Deep neural networks are a focus of artificial intelligence and big data analysis in recent years. The monitor of the converter mouth is essential to the quality of the steel material production while the requirement of the steel material production is increasingly higher in China. The end-point control of converter blowing is the ultimate regulation of the carbon content and temperature. The severity of carbon-oxygen reaction and the temperature of molten steel can be reflected by the converter mouth flame. Operators judge the end of the steel by watching the converter mouth flame, the converter mouth spark and the time of oxygen supply. So, it is very important to offer a quantitative analysis to converter mouth flame characteristics. We quote the deep neural network into the intelligent extraction of the flame characteristics of the furnace mouth and construct a flame color recognition algorithm based on the deepness letter neural network. This paper belongs to the data science problem in the intelligent research of steel production. By observing the converter flame during the steel flame changes, this paper records the data of light intensity and end-point carbon content of each steel making furnace. When this paper then uses the temperature of flame emission spectrum to deduce and the absorption of the molten steel to judge the contents of the carbon during the converter steel blew process, it is more feasible and accurate than watching by operators. At the same time, by using deep learning algorithm, this paper makes the control process get automatic learning ability and achieve intelligent production so that we can provide a basis for solving the problem of predicting the end-point carbon content in molten steel during the blowing process

Characteristics of the Temporal Variation in Temperature and Precipitation in China’s Lower Yellow River Region

We analyzed the spatial and temporal distributions of temperature and precipitation in China’s Yellow River Region between 1960 and 2001 by compiling meteorological data using anomalies, climate trend rate, linear regression, trend analysis, spline functions, and other methods. The results show that the average temperatures in the Region have an upward trend at a rate of 0.19°C every 10 years. There are no significant changes in the Region’s summers, but the winters have become visibly warmer, with the temperatures significantly increasing from the 1980s. The average annual precipitation rate has shown a downwards trend at a rate of −11.7 mm every 10 years. Even though the precipitation rate shows variations, the amount of precipitation is inconsistent with the most significant decrease in precipitation rates being seen during summer followed by autumn, while the rates actually slightly increased during spring and winter. Over the 42 years, the Region as a whole showed a trend of climate warming and drying with 77% of the total sites studied showing these combined trends. Before the 1980s, mainly a drying and cooling trend was observed. In the mid-to-late 80s the temperatures rose, resulting in the change to a warming and drying trend

Vacuum synthesis and determination of the ionization energies of different molecular orbitals for BrOBr and HOBr

Pure BrOBr and HOBr were synthesized in vacuum by heterogeneous reactions of the dried bromine vapor and Br2/H2O mixture vapors (5:1) with HgO, respectively, and then characterized by He I photoelectron spectroscopy (PES) and augmented by ab initio GAUSSIAN 2 and the outer valence Green's functional calculations. The first PE band at 10.26 eV with vibrational spacing 550±60 cm–1 and the second PE band at 11.23 eV with vibrational spacing 240±60 cm–1 are, respectively, assigned as ionizations of the electrons of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO)(6b1(39)) and the SHOMO(13b2(38)) orbitals of BrOBr. The first PE band at 10.73 eV with vibrational spacing 750±60 cm–1 and the second PE band at 11.56 eV with vibrational spacing 650±60 cm–1 are, respectively, assigned as ionizations of the electrons of the HOMO(6a[double-prime](22)) and the SHOMO(16a[prime](21)) orbitals of HOBr. The study does not only provide vacuum synthesis conditions for preparing pure BrOBr and HOBr, but also provide experimental PES results along with theoretical ionization energies of different molecular orbitals for BrOBr and HOBr

Some observations on the effects of EGR, oxygen concentration, and engine speed on the homogeneous charge combustion of n-heptane

Paper presented at the 2004 SAE Fuels and Lubricants Meeting and Exhibition, June 2004, Toulouse, France. Retrieved 3/16/2006 from http://www.mem.drexel.edu/cnf/.NOx and soot emissions remain critical issues in diesel engines. One method to address these problems is to achieve homogeneous combustion at lower peak temperatures – the goal of research on controlled autoignition. In this paper n-heptane is used to represent a large hydrocarbon fuel and some of the effects of internal and external EGR, oxygen concentration, and engine speed on its combustion have been examined through simulation and experiment. Simulations were conducted using our existing skeletal chemical kinetic model, which combines the chemistry of the low, intermediate, and high temperature regimes. Experiments were carried out in a single cylinder, four-stroke, air cooled engine and a single cylinder, two stroke, water cooled engine. In the four-stroke engine experiments the effects of EGR were examined using heated N2 addition as a surrogate for external EGR and engine modifications to increase internal EGR. Two-stage ignition was observed in both the simulations and experiments. The modeling results indicate that the ignition times were sensitive to EGR through both thermal and chemical effects. High levels of EGR completely suppressed autoignition. The most apparent effect of oxygen concentration is a shortening of the time between the first stage and second stage ignition. The modeling shows that EGR or extra air are key factors in eliminating knock during mid-load conditions. For higher load operation knock is serious and the only way to avoid it is to control reaction timing through the use of spark ignition. The experimental and modeling results from the two-stroke engine show that autoignition can be avoided by increasing the engine speed. This appears to result from shortened reaction time at lower temperatures thereby reducing the extent of the low and intermediate temperature chemical reactivity. The two-stroke engine experiments indicate that high levels of internal EGR (obtained by increasing the engine back pressure) can enable spark ignition at lean/dilute conditions. Based on the similarity between two-stoke and four-stroke engines, spark ignition may be possible at higher load conditions using internal EGR (simultaneously keeping peak temperature lower) for four-stroke engines

Licorice extract inhibits the cGAS-STING pathway and protects against non-alcoholic steatohepatitis

Background: Inflammation and fibrosis are typical symptoms of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which is one of the most common chronic liver diseases. The cGAS-STING signaling pathway has been implicated in the progression of NASH, and targeting this pathway may represent a new therapeutic strategy. Licorice is a widely used herb with anti-inflammatory and liver-protective properties. In this study, we assessed the effect of licorice extract on the cGAS-STING pathway.Methods: Bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs) were treated with licorice extract and then stimulated with HT-DNA, 2'3'-cGAMP, or other agonists to activate the cGAS-STING pathway. Quantitative real-time PCR and western blot were conducted to analyze whether licorice extract could affect the cGAS-STING pathway. Methionine and choline-deficient diet (MCD) was used to induce NASH in mice, which were treated with licorice extract (500 mg/kg) by gavage and/or c-176 (15 mg/kg) by intraperitoneal injection every 2 days. After 6 weeks of treatment, histological analysis of liver tissue was performed, along with measurements of plasma biochemical parameters.Results: Licorice extract inhibits cGAS-STING pathway activation. Mechanistically, it might function by inhibiting the oligomerization of STING. Treatment with licorice extract reduced inflammation and fibrosis in MCD diet-induced NASH mice models. Furthermore, we found that the therapeutic effect of combination treatment with licorice extract and C-176 (STING inhibitor) on the pathology and fibrosis of MCD diet-induced NASH models was similar to that of licorice extract or C-176 administered alone.Conclusion: Licorice extract can inhibit the cGAS-STING pathway and improve hepatic inflammation and fibrosis in NASH mice models. It strongly suggests that licorice extract may be a candidate therapeutic for NASH