Anti-NLRP3 Inflammasome Natural Compounds: An Update

The nucleotide-binding domain and leucine-rich repeat related (NLR) family, pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome is a multimeric protein complex that recognizes various danger or stress signals from pathogens, the host, and the environment, leading to activation of caspase-1 and inducing inflammatory responses. This pro-inflammatory protein complex plays critical roles in pathogenesis of a wide range of diseases including neurodegenerative diseases, autoinflammatory diseases, and metabolic disorders. Therefore, intensive efforts have been devoted to understanding its activation mechanisms and to searching for its specific inhibitors. Approximately forty natural compounds with anti-NLRP3 inflammasome properties have been identified. Here, we provide an update about new natural compounds that have been identified within the last three years to inhibit the NLRP3 inflammasome and offer an overview of the underlying molecular mechanisms of their anti-NLRP3 inflammasome activities

Effect of Wu-Wei-Gui-Shao decoction on complete Freund's adjuvant-induced arthritis rats

Purpose: To investigate the anti-rheumatic potential of Wu-Wei-Gui-Shao decoction (WGD) and its possible mechanism of action. Methods: Adjuvant arthritis (AA) rats were established using complete Freund's adjuvant. The rats were then given different doses of WGD (100, 200, and 400 mg/kg, for 28 days). The anti-arthritic effects of WGD were evaluated. Furthermore, the in vitro anti-arthritic effects of WGD and its related mechanisms were also determined in MH7A cells. Results: WGD (100 - 400 mg/kg) exhibited significant anti-rheumatic properties after 28 days of treatment, inhibiting paw edema in AA rats, reducing arthritis score and thymus and spleen index, and inhibiting the tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and the interleukin (IL)-6. In addition, the results of in vitro cell experiments also confirmed that WGD reduced the release of cytokines, as well as mRNA levels of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) -2, -3, and -9. Conclusion: These findings suggest that WGD can be further developed as a traditional Chinese medicine to treat rheumatic arthritis. Keywords: Wu-Wei-Gui-Shao decoction, Complete Freund's adjuvant, Arthritis, Molecular mechanism, Traditional Chinese Medicin

Comparative Research on Air Conditioner with Gas-injected Rotary Compressor through Injection Port on Blade

Rotary compressors are widely utilized in air conditionders and heat pumps. However, when rotary compressors were applied in room air conditioners, VRFs and domestic water heaters, the systems will experience heavily degradation of the heating capacity and COP as the ambient temperature goes low. Aimed at these problems, considerable research has been carried out to raise a series of solutions, such as economizer technology, cascade-type vapor compression heat pump system and two stage coupling heat pump system. At present, economizer technology has become a critical method to improve the performance of air source heat pumps with rotary compressors in low ambient temperature. A novel vapor injection structure on a blade for a rotary compressor has been proposed in previous paper to overcome the drawback of the traditional cylinder injection structure. Based on a verified numerical model, the performance of air source heat pumps with rotary compressors with different economizer technology including a two-stage rotary compressor, a single-stage rotary compressor with traditional injection structure and a single rotary compressor with the novel injection structure has been investigated. The results indicate that: compared to rotary compressors with traditional injection structure, air source heat pump with a rotary compressor with proposed injection structure can enhance the heating capacity and COP by 13%~15% and 4.8%~9.6%, respectively; and compared to the twin-cylinder rotary compressor, the performance of air source heat pump with a rotary compressor with proposed injection structure is almost the same, so the rotary compressor with the novel injection structure could be considered to replace the two-stage rotary compressor

A Novel Vapor Injection Structure on the Blade for Rotary Compressor

Rotary compressors have been extensively used in room air conditioners and household refrigerators for their advantages, including high efficiency, strong adaptability, and low cost. However, when air source heat pumps with rotary compressors are applied in cold regions, a series of problems appear. The gas injection has been proved an effective technology to enhance both the heating capacity and COP of scroll, screw, and rotary compressors. In the one-cylinder rotary compressor with gas injection, the compressor injection port is often opened on the cylinder wall. In order to extend the injection time for injecting more refrigerant, the injection port is settled as close as possible to the discharge port. However, the limited area of the injection port and the unavoidable back-flowing of the injection refrigerant into the suction tube diminish the merits of gas injection on the one-cylinder rotary compressor. A novel vapor injection structure on the blade for the rotary compressor has been proposed in this paper to overcome the back-flowing drawback of the traditional cylinder injection structure and increase the injection area. Based on a verified numerical model, the performance of a rotary compressor with the blade injection structure has been investigated. The results indicate that: the proposed vapor injection structure can eliminate the back-flowing of the injected refrigerant; compared to the traditional injection structure, the new structure can enhance the volumetric efficiency and mass flow-rate by 1.8~2.7% and 26.6~57.2%, respectively; and compared to the traditional injection structure, the new structure can increase the heating capacity and COP by 23.1~48.9% and 3.2~8.0%, respectively

XML security in XML data integrity, authentication, and confidentiality

The widely application of XML has increasingly required high security. XML security confronts some challenges that are strong relating to its features. XML data integrity needs to protect element location information and contextreferential meaning as well as data content integrity under fine-grained security situations. XML data authentication must satisfy a signing process under a dependent and independent multi-signature generation scenario. When several different sections are encrypted within the XML data, it cannot query the encrypted contents without decrypting the encrypted portions. The technologies relating to XML security demand further development. This thesis aims to improve XML security relative technologies, and make them more practicable and secure. A novel revocation information validation approach for X.509 certificate is proposed based on the XML digital signature technology. This approach reduces the complexity of XKMS or PKI systems because it eliminates the requirement for additional revocation checking from XKMS or CA. The communication burden between server and client could be alleviated. The thesis presents the context-referential integrity for XML data. An integrity solution for XML data is also proposed based on the concatenated hash function. The integrity model proposed not only ensures XML data content integrity, but also protects the structure integrity and elements’ context relationship within an XML data. If this model is integrated into XML signature technology, the signature cannot be copied to another document still keeping valid. A new series-parallel XML multi-signature scheme is proposed. The presented scheme is a mixed order specified XML multi-signature scheme according to a dependent and independent signing process. Using presented XML data integrity-checking pool to provide integrity-checking for decomposed XML data, it makes signing XPath expression practicable, rather than signing XML data itself. A new labeling scheme for encrypted XML data is presented to improve the efficiency of index information maintenance which is applied to support encrypted XML data query processing. The proposed labelling scheme makes maintenance index information more efficient, and it is easy to update XML data with decreasing the number of affected nodes to the lowest. In order to protect structural information for encrypted XML data, the encrypted nodes are removed from original XML data, and structural information is hidden. A case study is carried out to demonstrate how the proposed XML security relative approaches and schemes can be applied to satisfy fine-grained XML security in calibration certificate management.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo