Geometric bionics: Lotus effect helps polystyrene nanotube films get good blood compatibility

Various biomaterials have been widely used for manufacturing biomedical applications including artificial organs, medical devices and disposable clinical apparatus, such as vascular prostheses, blood pumps, artificial kidney, artificial hearts, dialyzers and plasma separators, which could be used in contact with blood^1^. However, the research tasks of improving hemocompatibility of biomaterials have been carrying out with the development of biomedical requirements^2^. Since the interactions that lead to surface-induced thrombosis occurring at the blood-biomaterial interface become a reason of familiar current complications with grafts therapy, improvement of the blood compatibility of artificial polymer surfaces is, therefore a major issue in biomaterials science^3^. After decades of focused research, various approaches of modifying biomaterial surfaces through chemical or biochemical methods to improve their hemocompatibility were obtained^1^. In this article, we report that polystyrene nanotube films with morphology similar to the papilla on lotus leaf can be used as blood-contacted biomaterials by virtue of Lotus effect^4^. Clearly, this idea, resulting from geometric bionics that mimicking the structure design of lotus leaf, is very novel technique for preparation of hemocompatible biomaterials

Particle Swarm and Bacterial Foraging Inspired Hybrid Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm for Numerical Function Optimization

Artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm has good performance in discovering the optimal solutions to difficult optimization problems, but it has weak local search ability and easily plunges into local optimum. In this paper, we introduce the chemotactic behavior of Bacterial Foraging Optimization into employed bees and adopt the principle of moving the particles toward the best solutions in the particle swarm optimization to improve the global search ability of onlooker bees and gain a hybrid artificial bee colony (HABC) algorithm. To obtain a global optimal solution efficiently, we make HABC algorithm converge rapidly in the early stages of the search process, and the search range contracts dynamically during the late stages. Our experimental results on 16 benchmark functions of CEC 2014 show that HABC achieves significant improvement at accuracy and convergence rate, compared with the standard ABC, best-so-far ABC, directed ABC, Gaussian ABC, improved ABC, and memetic ABC algorithms

Chlorido{μ-2,6-bis­[(2-amino­eth­yl)imino­meth­yl]-4-chloro­phenolato}-μ-oxido-dicopper(II) trihydrate

In the title dinuclear complex, [Cu2(C14H20ClN4O)ClO]·3H2O, one CuII cation assumes a distorted square-planar coordination geometry and the other a distorted square-pyramidal coordination geometry. Both CuII cations are N,N′,O-chelated by one arm of the 2,6-bis­[(2-amino­eth­yl)imino­meth­yl]-4-chloro­phenolate anion, and one oxide anion bridges the two CuII cations, forming a dinuclear complex. One of the CuII cations is further coordinated by an Cl− anion in the apical direction. In the crystal, lattice water mol­ecules are linked with the complex mol­ecule via O—H⋯Cl hydrogen bonds while O—H⋯O hydrogen bonding occurs between lattice water mol­ecules , forming three-dimensional network structure

Rapid Remission in Peripheral T-Cell Lymphoma of the Nasal Type by the Bortezomib plus CHOP Therapy

Peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) is rare and difficult to treat for its high relapse rate. The authors report a case of PTCL of the skin, regarding which clinical and pathological features, treatment, and prognosis were discussed. A 66-year-old woman was admitted with complaints of enlarging erythematous noduloplaques on the right anterior tibial skin for one year and similar lesions on the left for 6 months. Surgical resection of right leg lesion and biopsy of enlarged inguinal lymph nodes histologically indicated a PTCL of the nasal type. The patient was treated by CHOP plus bortezomib, reached complete remission just after two courses of chemotherapy and then received another two as consolidation. The patient remained in remission for 11 months until local relapse. As for cutaneous lesions, detailed lymph node examination and prompt tissue biopsy are judicious choices prior to any medical management. The chemotherapy consisting of bortezomib and CHOP is safe and efficient in PTCL of the skin

Effect of Zicao ointment on second-degree burns in rats

Purpose: To investigate the healing effect of Zicao Ointment (ZCO) on second-degree burns in rats.Methods: Male Sprague Dawley (SD) rats, weighing 200 – 220 g, were subjected to deep seconddegree skin burns by electrical scald instrument. The animals were divided into three groups as follows: (1) second-degree burns (control) group, (2) burns treated with 1 % silver sulfadiazine (SSD) group, and (3) second-degree burns treated with ZCO group. On days 3, 7 and 14 following administration of thedrug or ZCO, wound area and histopathological changes of rat epidermis were evaluated for the various groups.Results: On day 14, mean wound area of ZCO treatment group (0.28 ± 0.04 cm2) was significantly smaller than that of the control rats (2.63 ± 0.19 cm2, p < 0.01). Histological results indicate that inflammatory cells disappeared and were replaced by new granulation tissue by day 14 in the group treated with ZCO. Compared with SSD group rats, the inflammatory cells decreased and fibroblast and granulation tissues increased significantly in burnt rats treated with ZCO.Conclusion: Zicao Ointment is effective for the treatment of second-degree burns in rats and may be suitable for clinical therapy of second-degree burns.Keywords: Zicao ointment, Second-degree burns, Healing, Rat epidermis, Silver sulfadiazin

Long-range and short-range tumor-stroma networks synergistically contribute to tumor-associated epilepsy

Epileptic seizures are frequently caused by brain tumors. Traditional anti-epileptic treatments do not acquire satisfactory responses. Preoperative and postoperative seizures seriously influence the quality of life of patients. Thus, tumor-associated epilepsy (TAE) is an important subject of the current research. The delineation of the etiology of epileptogenesis in patients with primary brain tumor may help to find the novel and effective drug targets for treating this disease. In this review, we describe the current status of treatment of TAE. More importantly, we focus on the factors that are involved in the functional connectivity between tumors and stromal cells. We propose that there exist two modes, namely, long-range and short-range modes, which likely trigger neuronal hyperexcitation and subsequent epileptic seizures. The long-range mode is referred to as factors released by tumors including glutamate and GABA, binding to the corresponding receptor on the cellular membrane and causing neuronal hyperactivity, while the short-range mode is considered to involve direct intracellular communication between tumor cells and stromas. Gap junctions and tunneling nanotube network are involved in cellular interconnections. Future investigations focused on those two modes may find a potential novel therapeutic target for treating TAE

Coupling meteorological variables with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer atmospheric products for estimating global solar radiation

Global solar radiation is a crucial variable for scientific researches and solar energy application, while it is measured at very few sites mainly due to the technical and fiscal obstacles. Developing robust and accurate models for estimating global solar radiation had been being a focus for many studies. This study was conducted to develop integrated models combining Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer atmospheric products and meteorological variables. 43 empirical models based on the meteorological variables were collected. A total of 645 integrated models incorporating atmospheric constituents into the empirical models were developed. The researched models were evaluated and compared at Chongqing in Three Gorges Reservoir Area, China. The results showed that the integrated models outperformed the empirical models. The best integrated model had the root mean square error of 0.817 MJ m−2 and relative root mean square error of 8.11%. On average, the integrated models had the root mean square error of 1.071 MJ m−2, 15.6% smaller than the empirical models. The results suggest that coupling Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer atmospheric products with meteorological variables can enhance the performance of the conventional empirical models, which may provide a promising alternative to generate global solar radiation data with better accuracy

Cross-cultural validation of the Health Care Provider HIV/AIDS Stigma Scale (HPASS) in China

The study aimed to validate the Health Care Provider HIV/AIDS Stigma Scale among medical staff in China. The validation was conducted in four steps from March to December 2017: translation and back-translation; content validity test with six experts; test–retest reliability testing with 63 medical staff with 2 weeks interval; and structural validation with 349 medical staff from 52 hospitals with a convenience sample,using exploratory factor analysis,including principal component analysis and varimax rotation. The scale content validity index average was 0.88, while for test–retest reliability, the ICC was 0.87. Three factors of “discrimination”, “prejudice” and “stereotype” with 16 items were extracted and explained 59.61% variance. The Cronbach’s alpha value for the total scale was of 0.88, and for the three factors, the values were 0.89, 0.86 and 0.74, respectively. The discrimination factor showed identical means between Canadian medical students and Chinese medical staff, while the prejudice and stereotype factors had higher mean scores in the Chinese sample. The three-factor structure of Health Care Provider HIV/AIDS Stigma Scale was confirmed in Chinese medical staff with a simpler solution. This could provide a basis for trans-cultural application and comparison

The Spatially Resolved Properties of the GW170817 Host Galaxy

GW170817 is the unique gravitational-wave (GW) event that is associated to the electromagnetic (EM) counterpart GRB 170817A. NGC 4993 is identified as the host galaxy of GW170817/GRB 170817A. In this paper, we particularly focus on the spatially resolved properties of NGC 4993. We present the photometric results from the comprehensive data analysis of the high spatial-resolution images in the different optical bands. The morphological analysis reveals that NGC 4993 is a typical early-type galaxy without significant remnants of major galaxy merger. The spatially resolved stellar population properties of NGC 4993 suggest that the galaxy center has passive evolution with the outskirt formed by gas accretion. We derive the merging rate of the compact object per galaxy by a co-evolution scenario of supermassive black hole and its host galaxy. If the galaxy formation is at redshift 1.0, the merging rate per galaxy is $3.2\times 10^{-4}$ to $7.7\times 10^{-5}$ within the merging decay time from 1.0 to 5.0 Gyr. The results provide the vital information for the ongoing GW EM counterpart detections. The HST data analysis presented in this paper can be also applied for the Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST) research in the future.Comment: RAA accepte