Dose-dependent effect of ghrelin on gastric emptying in rats and the related mechanism of action

AbstractThe aim of this study was to investigate the dose-dependent effect of ghrelin on gastric emptying in rats and the related mechanism of action. Sixty Wistar rats were randomized into control and test groups, which respectively received intraperitoneal injection of normal saline and ghrelin at different doses (0.5 nmol/kg, 1.0 nmol/kg, 1.5 nmol/kg, 2.0 nmol/kg, and 2.5 nmol/kg). After 45 minutes, all rats were gavaged with semisolid paste. The gastric emptying rate was determined 30 minutes later, and the plasma cholecystokinin level was tested by radioimmunoassay. The mean gastric emptying rate in the test groups was significantly higher than in the control group (38.24 ± 7.15% and 27.18 ± 2.37%, respectively, p < 0.05). Medium and high doses of ghrelin (1.0 nmol/kg, 1.5 nmol/kg, 2.0 nmol/kg, and 2.5 nmol/kg), but not low dose (0.5 nmol/kg), accelerated the gastric emptying. In addition, the plasma cholecystokinin level in the test groups was significantly higher than in the control group (p < 0.01). The gastric emptying rate was positively correlated with the plasma cholecystokinin level (p < 0.01). Intraperitoneal injection of ghrelin at medium and high doses significantly accelerated gastric emptying in rats

Nonequilibrium dynamics of the localization-delocalization transition in the non-Hermitian Aubry-Andr\'{e} model

In this paper, we investigate the driven dynamics of the localization transition in the non-Hermitian Aubry-Andr\'{e} model with the periodic boundary condition. Depending on the strength of the quasi-periodic potential $\lambda$, this model undergoes a localization-delocalization phase transition. We find that the localization length $\xi$ satisfies $\xi\sim \varepsilon^{-\nu}$ with $\varepsilon$ being the distance from the critical point and $\nu=1$ being a universal critical exponent independent of the non-Hermitian parameter. In addition, from the finite-size scaling of the energy gap between the ground state and the first excited state, we determine the dynamic exponent $z$ as $z=2$. The critical exponent of the inverse participation ratio (IPR) for the $n$th eigenstate is also determined as $s=0.1197$. By changing $\varepsilon$ linearly to cross the critical point, we find that the driven dynamics can be described by the Kibble-Zurek scaling (KZS). Moreover, we show that the KZS with the same set of the exponents can be generalized to the localization phase transitions in the excited states

A Sliding Mode based Cascade Observer for Estimation and Compensation Controller

The sliding mode observer can estimate the system state and the unknown disturbance, while the traditional single-layer one might still suffer from high pulse when the output measurement is mixed with noise. To improve the estimation quality, a new cascade sliding mode observer containing multiple discontinuous functions is proposed in this letter. It consists of two layers: the first layer is a traditional sliding mode observer, and the second layer is a cascade observer. The measurement noise issue is considered in the source system model. An alternative method how to design the observer gains of the two layers, together with how to examine the effectiveness of the compensator based closed-loop system, are offered. A numerical example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The observation structure proposed in this letter not only smooths the estimated state but also reduces the control consumption