Effects of a traditional Chinese medicine, Longdanxiegan formula granule, on Toll-like receptor pathway in female guinea pigs with recurrent genital herpes

AbstractObjectiveThe aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of Longdanxiegan formula granule (LDXGFG), a Chinese traditional medicine on Toll-like receptor (TLR) pathway in recurrent genital herpes.Materials and MethodsAn experimental recurrent genital herpes model was constructed using herpes guinea pig model. The effect of LDXGFG on expression levels of TLR pathway genes were detected using real-time polymerase chain reaction. Furthermore, the dendritic cells and Langerhans cells were isolated and the TLR pathway genes of these cells were assayed after LDXGFG treatment.ResultsThe result suggested two different expression patterns of TLR pathway genes in genital herpes and recurrent genital herpes, including upregulated genes and downregulated genes. TLR1, TLR4, TLR6, TLR7, TLR8, TLR9, and TLR10 showed a significant decrease while, TLR2, TLR3, and TLR5 increased in genital herpes and recurrent genital herpes guinea pigs. Meanwhile, the downregulated genes in genital herpes and recurrent genital herpes were stimulated by LDXGFG. By contrast, the upregulated genes decreased significantly after LDXGFG treatment. In both dendritic cells and Langerhans cells, the TLR pathway genes exhibited same pattern: the LDXGFG corrected the abnormal expression of TLR pathway genes.ConclusionThe present results suggest that LDXGFG is an alternative, inexpensive, and lasting-effect medicine for herpes simplex virus 2 infection

Research on Comprehensive Evaluation of Electricity Market Risk Based on Subjective and Objective Weighting

[Introduction] With the emphasis and promotion of the electricity market system construction by the government, the electricity market is constantly growing towards a deeper and more unified direction. In order to promote the electricity market construction, the influence factors of the electricity market risk and its evaluation remain to be studied further. [Method] Based on the consideration of the whole cycle of electricity market trading, this paper took pre-trade risk, during-trade risk, and post-trade riskas the entry points, integrated the existing risks in each stage of electricity market, and established the risk evaluation index system for electricity market. Based on the thought of subjective and objective weighting, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and entropy weight method were used to assign weights to the index system respectively, and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE) was adopted to evaluate the comprehensive risk level of the electricity market. [Result] The rationality, comprehensiveness and validity of the proposed model are verified through the analysis of the calculation examples of different electricity markets. [Conclusion] The model eatablished in this paper can conduct a comprehensive risk evaluation for the electricity market, and provide a theoretical reference for the construction of the risk system of the electricity market and its future development direction

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Controlling the morphology, size and phase of Nb2O5 crystals for high electrochemical performance

The morphology, size and phase of the material play a crucial role in its electrochemical performance. Herein, the nano-sized niobium pentoxide (Nb2O5) with different morphologies and phase structures are synthesized through a very simple thermal treatment method, including the pseudohexagonal Nb2O5 nanosheets and pseudohexagonal Nb2O5 nanoparticles, orthorhombic Nb2O5 nanoparticles. The synthesized pseudohexagonal Nb2O5 nanosheets and orthorhombic Nb2O5 nanoparticles exhibit better cycling and rate performance than the pseudohexagonal Nb2O5 nanoparticles due to the different morphologies and phase structures. The T-Nb2O5-700 nanoparticles show the higher capacity (175 mAh/g) than that of TT-Nb2O5-500 nanosheets (127 mAh/g) and TT-Nb2O5-600 nanoparticles (39 mAh/g) at a current density of 50 mA/g and good rate performance with a capacity of 140 mAh/g at 1.0 A/g. The excellent rate capability and cycling stability of orthorhombic T-Nb2O5 may be ascribed to the dominant contribution of pseudocapacitive effect. This material has the great potential as a practical high-rate anode material for lithium-ion batteries

Recovery of Te for the scrap of Bi2Te3-based alloys by vacuum metallurgy

Every year a large amount of scrap can be produced from the Bi _2 Te _3 -based alloys when processing. A clean, new vacuum distillation method is proposed to purify Te from the scrap of Bi _2 Te _3 -based alloys. In this work, the saturated vapor pressure, distillation rate and separation coefficient of each metal element in Bi _2 Te _3 -based alloys are theoretically analyzed. The effects of distillation temperature and time on the volatilization and condensation behavior of elements are studied under the dynamic vacuum of 0.1 Pa. According to the research results, a multi-stage distillation method is proposed, and Te was purified from 41.53% to 98.88% while the total impurity content was reduced to 1.12% through this procedure. Moreover, Te of the scrap of Bi _2 Te _3 -based alloys can be separated and recovered effectively via this three-step vacuum distillation. The results lay the foundation for the industrial purification of Te and provide a low-cost, simple and green recycling process of thermoelectric scrap, which has important practical significance