Experimental and numerical investigation on the influence of the clocking position on hydraulic performance of a centrifugal pump with guide vane

The investigation of the clocking effect mainly concentrates on turbines and compressors, but seldom in centrifugal pumps. In this paper, using numerical simulation and experiment, the influence of the clocking effect on the hydraulic performance of centrifugal pump with guide vane is studied. Numerical simulations with SST k-w turbulence model were applied to obtain the inner flow field of the test pump. The numerical simulations coincide with the test result, which indicates the accurate of the utilized numerical approach. The results show the clocking positions have an important effect on hydraulic performance of the centrifugal pump with guide vane. The pump demonstrates the higher efficiency and head as the tongue locate between two guide vanes. The hydraulic performance of the volute is a major factor impacting the performance of the centrifugal pump with different clocking positions. However, the clocking position has almost no effect on the performances of the impeller and diffuser. When the guide vane is close to the volute tongue, flow field of volute is more non-uniform, and the energy loss in volute appears to be larger. The results and the method of this paper can provide theoretical reference for the design and installation of guide vane in centrifugal pump

Peripheral blood T Regulatory cell counts may not predict transplant rejection

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recent evidence shows that allograft survival rates show a positive correlation with the number of circulating T regulatory cells (Tregs). This study investigated both the number and the cytokine profiles exhibited by Foxp3⁺Tregs in blood, spleen and lymph nodes of Lewis rat recipients of BN rat cardiac allografts after a single-dose of Rapamycin (RAPA).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Rats were divided into three groups: control group (containing healthy control and acute rejection group), and recipients treated with a single dose of RAPA on either Day 1 (1D group)or Day 3 (3D group) post-transplant. We analyzed the number of Foxp3+Tregs and the expression of Foxp3 and cytokines in the peripheral blood and the peripheral lymphoid tissues. No difference was found in the numbers of circulating Foxp3+ Tregs between these three groups. RAPA administration significantly increased Foxp3 expression in peripheral lymphoid tissues after a single dose of RAPA on Day 3 post-transplant. Foxp3+Tregs inhibited the activity of effector T cells (T_eff) via the secretion of TGF-β1.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The number of Tregs in the recipient's blood may not be a good predictor of transplant rejection. Foxp3+Tregs inhibit the activity of T_effcells mainly in the peripheral lymphoid tissues.</p

Enhanced Neuroprotective Effects by Inter-Ischemia Hypothermia in Cerebral Stroke

Background and Purpose. Studies have shown that inter-ischemia hypothermia is able to reduce the size of myocardial infarctions and improve their clinical outcomes. The present study determined whether inter-ischemia hypothermia induced by pharmacological approach induced stronger neuroprotection in ischemic brains. Methods. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were studied in 4 groups: (1) sham; (2) stroke; (3) stroke treated with pharmacological hypothermia before reperfusion (inter-ischemia hypothermia); and (4) stroke treated with pharmacological hypothermia after reperfusion is initiated (inter-reperfusion hypothermia). The combination of chlorpromazine and promethazine with dihydrocapsaicin was used to induce hypothermia. To compare the neuroprotective effects of drug-induced hypothermia between the groups, brain damage was evaluated using infarct volume and neurological deficits. In addition, mRNA expressions of NADPH oxidase subunits and glucose transporter subtypes were determined by real-time PCR. ROS production was measured by Flow cytometry assay at the same time points. Results: In both hypothermia groups, cerebral infarct volumes and neurological deficits were reduced. ROS production and the expressions of NOX subunits and glucose transporter subtypes were also significantly reduced in both hypothermia groups as compared to the ischemic group. While there were no statistically significant differences between the two hypothermia groups at 6 h reperfusion, brain damage was significantly further decreased by inter-ischemia hypothermia at 24 h. Conclusion: Inter-ischemia hypothermia and inter-reperfusion hypothermia after stroke induced neuroprotection by reducing oxidative injury, while neuroprotion was more effective with inter-ischemia hypothermia. This study provides a new avenue and reference for a stronger neuroprotective hypothermia before vascular recanalization in stroke patients

Effects of Qijin granules on high glucose-induced proliferation, apoptosis and expression of nuclear factor- κB and MCP-1 in rat glomerular mesangial cells

Purpose: To investigate the effects of Qijin granules on high glucose-induced proliferation and apoptosis in rat glomerular mesangial cells (MC).Methods: MC cells from rats were passaged and cultured, and randomly divided into control group (CNG), high glucose group (HGG), Western medicine group (WMG, high glucose + Benazepril + Gliquidone), and Qijin granules 1/2/3 group (high glucose + different doses of Qijin granules). Mesangial cells proliferation was measured using MTT assay. The NF-κB, MCP-1 and inflammatory factors in supernatant were determined by ELISA. Apoptosis rate and cell cycle were assessed by flow cytometry. The apoptosis-related TGF-β1/Smad signaling pathway-related protein expressions were measured by Western blot.Results: The A-value and early apoptosis rate, apoptosis rate and S-phase percentage, and protein expressions of NF-κB, MCP-1, IL-6, IL-2, TNF-ɑ, Bax, Cyt-C, caspase-3, TGF-β1, and p-Smad3 of MC cells in the HGG at 12 h, 24 h and 48 h were higher than those in the CNG. The above indices were lower in the WMG, and Qijin granules 1/2/3 groups than in the HGG. The Bcl-2, Smad7 protein expression level and the percentage of G1 and G2/M phase were lower in the HGG than in the CNG, and the above indeices were higher in the WMG and Qijin granules 1/2/3 group than in HGG.Conclusion: Qijin granules can dose-dependently inhibit high glucose-induced proliferation and apoptosis in rat MC cells, block the cell cycle and reduce inflammatory responses. This may be related to the regulation of NF-κB, MCP-1 and TGF-β1/Smad signaling pathways. These findings provide theoretical and experimental basis for the clinical treatment of early diabetic nephropathy

UniSA: Unified Generative Framework for Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis is a crucial task that aims to understand people's emotional states and predict emotional categories based on multimodal information. It consists of several subtasks, such as emotion recognition in conversation (ERC), aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA), and multimodal sentiment analysis (MSA). However, unifying all subtasks in sentiment analysis presents numerous challenges, including modality alignment, unified input/output forms, and dataset bias. To address these challenges, we propose a Task-Specific Prompt method to jointly model subtasks and introduce a multimodal generative framework called UniSA. Additionally, we organize the benchmark datasets of main subtasks into a new Sentiment Analysis Evaluation benchmark, SAEval. We design novel pre-training tasks and training methods to enable the model to learn generic sentiment knowledge among subtasks to improve the model's multimodal sentiment perception ability. Our experimental results show that UniSA performs comparably to the state-of-the-art on all subtasks and generalizes well to various subtasks in sentiment analysis.Comment: Accepted to ACM MM 202