Comparison of raw and processed Radix Polygoni Multiflori (Heshouwu) by high performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Radix Polygoni Multiflori </it>is the dried root tuber of <it>Polygonum multiflorum </it>Thunb. (Fam. Polygonaceae). According to Chinese medicine theory, raw (R-RPM) and processed (P-RPM) <it>Radix Polygoni Multiflori </it>possess different properties. The present study investigates the differences in chemistry between raw and processed <it>Radix Polygoni Multiflori</it>.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Five pairs of R-RPM and P-RPM as well as 15 commercial decoction pieces were analyzed with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and mass spectrometry (MS).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Two anthraquinones, namely emodin-8-<it>O</it>-(6'-<it>O</it>-malonyl)-glucoside and physcion-8-<it>O</it>-(6'-<it>O</it>-malonyl)-glucoside disappeared or decreased significantly and 2,3,5,4'-tetrahydroxystilbene-2-<it>O</it>-<it>β</it>-<it>D</it>-glucopyranoside, emodin-8-<it>O</it>-<it>β</it>-<it>D</it>-glucopyranoside and physcion-8-<it>O</it>-<it>β</it>-<it>D</it>-glucopyranoside decreased after the R-RPM samples being processed. On the other hand, the contents of emodin and physcion generally increased after processing.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The present study indicates that processing <it>Radix Polygoni Multiflori </it>may change the contents and types of chemicals in it. These changes are probably responsible for the various pharmacological effects of R-RPM and P-RPM as well as hepatotoxicity.</p

A Characterization for Compact Sets in the Space of Fuzzy Star-Shaped Numbers with L

By means of some auxiliary lemmas, we obtain a characterization of compact subsets in the space of all fuzzy star-shaped numbers with Lp metric for 1≤p<∞. The result further completes and develops the previous characterization of compact subsets given by Wu and Zhao in 2008

Sensing Task Allocation for Heterogeneous Channels in Cooperative Spectrum Sensing

In the traditional centralized cooperative spectrum sensing, all secondary users sense the same channel. But, for a given channel, there exists detection performance diversity among all the users, due to the different signal-fading process. Involving the user with poor performance in cooperative sensing will not only deteriorate the detection correctness but also waste the sensing time. In the heterogeneous channels, the problem is even severe. A novel idea is to allocate the secondary users to sense different channels. We analyze the allocation problem before formulate it to be an optimization problem, which is a NP-hard problem. Then we propose the declined complexity algorithm in equal secondary user case and the two-hierarchy approach algorithm in unequal case. With the simulation, we verify the near optimality of the proposed algorithms and the advantage of the task allocation

Bis(μ-2,2′-{[4-(carb­oxy­meth­oxy)phen­yl]aza­nedi­yl}diacetato)­bis­[(1,10-phenanthroline)copper(II)]

The crystal structure of the binuclear title compound, [Cu2(C12H11NO7)2(C12H8N2)2], consists of a complex mol­ecule, which lies about a crystallographic inversion centre with one half-mol­ecule in the asymmetric unit. The CuII cation is bonded to three N atoms and three O atoms, in a Jahn–Teller-distorted octa­hedral geometry. The basal plane is defined by the two N atoms from the 1,10-phenathroline and two deprotonated O atoms of the polycarboxyl­ate ligand. The axial positions are occupied by the azane N atom and a bridging carboxyl­ate O atom from the second polycarboxyl­ate ligand. The complex mol­ecules are linked through O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds into extended chains running parallel to [010]

Investigation of food consumption of Jinuo ethnic minority residents in Jinghong district

ObjectiveTo analyze the dietary structure and food consumption status of Jinuo ethnic minority residents in Yunnan Province.MethodsThree hundred and ninty two Jinuo ethnic minority residents aged from 20 to 80 were selected from 12 inhabited neighborhood of Jinghong distrisct in Yunnan Province by stratified cluster sampling method. Their dietary structure were investigated by dietary survey and questionnaire. T-test and the nonparametric Wilcoxon rank sum test were utilized to analyze their dietary intake and nutritional status.ResultsThe average intake per standard person day was calculated. The amount of cereal and potato intake was 297.1 g （rice and its products 264.5 g， flour and their products 13.0 g， other cereals 0.4 g， potato 19.2 g）. The intake of vegetable was 228.3 g （dark vegetable 49.7 g， light vegetable 178.6 g）. The intakes of fruit， animalistic food， aquatic products， milk and its products， beans and its products， nuts， cooking oil and salt were 59.3， 137.2， 29.0， 7.0， 27.5， 5.0， 42.0， 8.4 g， respectively. The intakes of fruit， animal food， beans and its products， aquatic products， nuts and cooking oil were higher than the average dietary intake for Chinese residents in Yunnan Province from 2010 to 2013， while the intakes of cereal and potato food， vegetable， fruit， eggs， milk and its products and salt were lower（P<0.05）.ConclusionIt showed that the intake of nutrients in Jinuo ethnic minority residents aged from 20 to 80 years were insufficient in Jinghong district， Yunnan Province. Nutrition education and intervention need to be enhanced to promote better food consumption behavior to improve the nutrition status and health

Efficient organic solar cells enabled by simple non-fused electron donors with low synthetic complexity

Abstract Fused‐ring electron donors boost the efficiency of organic solar cells (OSCs), but they suffer from high cost and low yield for their large synthetic complexity (SC > 30%). Herein, the authors develop a series of simple non‐fused‐ring electron donors, PF1 and PF2, which alternately consist of furan‐3‐carboxylate and 2,2′‐bithiophene. Note that PF1 and PF2 present very small SC of 9.7% for their inexpensive raw materials, facile synthesis, and high synthetic yield. Compared to their all‐thiophene‐backbone counterpart PT‐E, two new polymers feature larger conjugated plane, resulting in higher hole mobility for them, especially a value up to ≈10 −4 cm 2 V −1 ·s for PF2 with longer alkyl side chain. Meanwhile, PF1 and PF2 exhibit larger dielectric constant and deeper electronic energy level versus PT‐E. Benefiting from the better physicochemical properties, the efficiencies of PF1‐ and PF2‐based devices are improved by ≈16.7% and ≈71.3% relative to that PT‐E‐based devices, respectively. Furthermore, the optimized PF2‐based devices with introducing PC 71 BM as the third component deliver a higher efficiency of 12.40%. The work not only indicates that furan‐3‐carboxylate is a simple yet efficient building block for constructing non‐fused‐ring polymers but also provides a promising electron donor PF2 for the low‐cost production of OSCs.A simple structure non‐fused‐ring electron donor PF2 alternately consisting of furan‐3‐carboxylate and 2,2′‐bithiophene presents very small synthetic complexity of 9.7% as well as low material cost of ≈19.0 $ g −1 . More importantly, PF2 delivers a high efficiency of 12.4% coupled with strong operational stability. imag

An H5N1 M2e-based multiple antigenic peptide vaccine confers heterosubtypic protection from lethal infection with pandemic 2009 H1N1 virus

Background. A 2009 global influenza pandemic caused by a novel swine-origin H1N1 influenza A virus has posted an increasing threat of a potential pandemic by the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus, driving us to develop an influenza vaccine which confers cross-protection against both H5N1 and H1N1 viruses. Previously, we have shown that a tetra-branched multiple antigenic peptide (MAP) vaccine based on the extracellular domain of M2 protein (M2e) from H5N1 virus (H5N1-M2e-MAP) induced strong immune responses and cross-protection against different clades of HPAI H5N1 viruses. In this report, we investigated whether such M2e-MAP presenting the H5N1-M2e consensus sequence can afford heterosubtypic protection from lethal challenge with the pandemic 2009 H1N1 virus. Results. Our results demonstrated that H5N1-M2e-MAP plus Freund's or aluminum adjuvant induced strong cross-reactive IgG antibody responses against M2e of the pandemic H1N1 virus which contains one amino acid variation with M2e of H5N1 at position 13. These cross-reactive antibodies may maintain for 6 months and bounced back quickly to the previous high level after the 2nd boost administered 2 weeks before virus challenge. H5N1-M2e-MAP could afford heterosubtypic protection against lethal challenge with pandemic H1N1 virus, showing significant decrease of viral replications and obvious alleviation of histopathological damages in the challenged mouse lungs. 100% and 80% of the H5N1-M2e-MAP-vaccinated mice with Freund's and aluminum adjuvant, respectively, survived the lethal challenge with pandemic H1N1 virus. Conclusions. Our results suggest that H5N1-M2e-MAP has a great potential to prevent the threat from re-emergence of pandemic H1N1 influenza and possible novel influenza pandemic due to the reassortment of HPAI H5N1 virus with the 2009 swine-origin H1N1 influenza virus. © 2010 Zhao et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.published_or_final_versio