Brachytherapy in craniopharyngiomas: a systematic review and meta-analysis of long-term follow-up.

OBJECTIVE: Brachytherapy has been indicated as an alternative option for treating cystic craniopharyngiomas (CPs). The potential benefits of brachytherapy for CPs have not yet been clarified. The purpose of this work was to conduct a meta-analysis to analyze the long-term efficacy and adverse reactions profile of brachytherapy for CPs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The relevant databases were searched to collect the clinical trials on brachytherapy in patients with CPs. Included studies were limited to publications in full manuscript form with at least 5-year median follow-up, and adequate reporting of treatment outcomes and adverse reactions data. Stata 12.0 was used for data analysis. RESULTS: According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 6 clinical trials involving 266 patients with CPs were included in this meta-analysis. The minimum average follow-up was 5 years. The results of the meta-analysis showed that 1-year, 2-3 years and 5 years progression free survival rates (PFS) are 75% (95%CI: 66-84%), 62% (95%CI: 52-72%) and 57% (95%CI: 22-92%), respectively. At the last follow-up, less than 16% of patients with visual outcomes worser than baseline in all included studies. While, for endocrine outcomes, less than 32% of patients worser than baseline level. CONCLUSION: In general, based on the above results, brachytherapy should be considered as a good choice for the treatment of CP.

The allostery and modification of hGHRH molecules and specific dimer produced significant fertility effect by proliferating and activating in-situ ovarian mesenchymal stem cells.

The negative coordination of growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHS-R) and growth hormone-releasing hormone receptor (GHRH-R) involves in the repair processes of cellular injury. The allosteric U- or H-like modified GHRH dimer Grinodin and 2Y were comparatively evaluated in normal Kunming mice and hamster infertility models induced by CPA treatment. 1-3-9 µg of Grinodin or 2Y per hamster stem-cell-exhaustion model was subcutaneously administered once a week, respectively inducing 75-69-46 or 45-13-50 % of birth rates. In comparison, the similar mole of human menopausal gonadotropin (hMG) or human growth hormone (hGH) was administered once a day but caused just 25 or 20 % of birth rates. Grinodin induced more big ovarian follicles and corpora lutea than 2Y, hMG, hGH. The hMG-treated group was observed many distorted interstitial cells and more connective tissues and the hGH-treated group had few ovarian follicles. 2Y had a plasma lifetime of 21 days and higher GH release in mice, inducing lower birth rate and stronger individual specificity in reproduction as well as only promoting the proliferation of mesenchymal-stem-cells (MSCs) in the models. In comparison, Grinodin had a plasma lifetime of 30 days and much lower GH release in mice. It significantly promoted the proliferation and activation of ovarian MSCs together with the development of follicles in the models by increasing Ki67 and GHS-R expressions, and decreasing GHRH-R expression in a dose-dependent manner. However, the high GH and excessive estrogen levels in the models showed a dose-dependent reduction in fertility. Therefore, unlike 2Y, the low dose of Grinodin specifically shows low GHS-R and high GHRH-R expressions thus evades GH and estrogen release and improves functions of organs, resulting in an increase of fertility.

Research progress on the generation of NDMA by typical PPCPs in disinfection treatment of water environment in China: A review.

The drugs and personal care products in water sources are potential threats to the ecological environment and drinking water quality. In recent years, the presence of PPCPs has been detected in multiple drinking water sources in China. PPCPs are usually stable and resistant to degradation in aquatic environments. During chlorination, chloramination, and ozonation disinfection processes, PPCPs can act as precursor substances to generate N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) which is the most widely detected nitrosamine byproduct in drinking water. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the impact of PPCPs in China's water environment on the generation of NDMA during disinfection processes to better understand the correlation between PPCPs and NDMA generation. Chloramine is the most likely to form NDMA with different disinfection methods, so chloramine disinfection may be the main pathway for NDMA generation. Activated carbon adsorption and UV photolysis are widely used in the removal of NDMA and its precursor PPCPs, and biological treatment is found to be a low-cost and high removal rate method for controlling the generation of NDMA. However, there are still certain regional limitations in the investigation and research on PPCPs, and other nitrosamine by-products such as NMEA, NDEA and NDBA should also be studied to investigate the formation mechanism and removal methods.

Role function and job satisfaction of community nurses in China: A cross-sectional study.

AIM: To evaluate role function and job satisfaction, determine their relationship, and explore the factors influencing job satisfaction among community nurses in China. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. METHODS: This study was conducted between March and June 2020 on a cluster random sampling of 302 community nurses from 24 community health centres and stations in Xi'an, China. Self-reported data were collected using the Demographics Questionnaire, Role Function of Community Nurses Questionnaire, and Job Satisfaction of Community Nurses Scale. Descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression analyses were performed to analyse data. RESULTS: Community nurses' main role function was organiser and manager (M = 2.56, SD = 0.987) and coordinator (M = 2.43, SD = 0.971). The lowest job satisfaction was for salary and benefits (M = 3.12, SD = 0.891) and personal development (M = 3.65, SD = 0.738). A positive correlation was found between the roles of caregiver, educator, navigator, and salary and benefits (p < 0.05) among community nurses. Multiple linear regression analyses indicated that monthly income and working experience in nursing explained 61.1% of the variance in job satisfaction.

Blood Lipid Disorders in Post-Operative Craniopharyngioma Children and Adolescents and the Improvement with Recombinant Human Growth Hormone Replacement.

Context: The high prevalence of hypothalamic obesity (HO) and dyslipidemia in individuals with craniopharyngioma (CP) following surgery is a cause for increasing concern. However, few studies have explored the lipid profile in pediatric CP patients, with inconsistent findings. In addition, the role of recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) replacement remains unclear in these patients. Objective: To compare the blood lipid profile among post-operative craniopharyngioma children and adolescents with that among healthy controls and to reveal the effects of rhGH replacement. Methods: Data of 79 post-operative craniopharyngioma children and adolescents in our center were retrospectively collected. Sixty patients underwent rhGH replacement during the follow-ups. We selected 36 patients who received rhGH replacement therapy, while 20 patients received rhGH replacement for at least 1 year and had complete lipid data before and after treatment and compared them with 19 patients who did not receive rhGH replacement therapy. Results: Craniopharyngioma patients had higher total cholesterol (TC) (5.17 vs 3.77 mmol/L), triglyceride (TG) (1.51 vs 0.73 mmol/L), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) (3.14 vs 2.10 mmol/L), and lower high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (1.06 vs 1.39 mmol/L) than controls (all p < 0.001). The lipid profile of obese and non-obese patients was not significantly different. After rhGH replacement, TC was 0.90 mmol/L lower (p = 0.002) and LDL-C was 0.73 mmol/L lower (p = 0.010) than baseline. Although the baseline LDL-C was higher, patients with rhGH replacement had lower LDL-C (-0.73 mmol/L adjusted for age and sex, p = 0.045) after the initiation of replacement compared with patients without rhGH replacement. Conclusion: The lipid profile of obese and non-obese children and adolescents with craniopharyngioma was unfavorable, and rhGH replacement could improve their lipid profile.

Magnetic resonance imaging of knees: a novel approach to predict recombinant human growth hormone therapy response in short-stature children in late puberty.

BACKGROUND: There is no appropriate tool to predict recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) response before therapy initiation in short-stature children in late puberty. The current study aimed to explore the associations between magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) stages of the knee growth plates and rhGH response in short-stature children in late puberty. METHODS: In this prospective cohort study, short-stature children in late puberty were treated with rhGH and followed up for 6 months. We proposed a novel knee MRI staging system according to the growth plate states of distal femurs or proximal tibias and divided the participants into three groups: unclosed growth plate group, marginally closed growth plate group, and nearly closed growth plate group. The primary outcomes were height gain and growth velocity (GV), which were assessed three months later. RESULTS: Fifty participants were enrolled, including 23 boys and 27 girls. GV and height gain after 6 months of rhGH therapy decreased successively in the three groups with an increased degree of growth plate fusion, especially when grouped by proximal tibias (GV1-3 mon from 9.38 to 6.08 to 4.56 cm/year, GV4-6 mon from 6.75 to 4.92 to 3.25 cm/year, and height gain from 4.03 to 2.75 to 1.95 cm, all P < 0.001). Moreover, the MRI stages of growth plates independently served as a significant variable for GV and height gain after therapy, especially when grouped by proximal tibias (all P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: The MRI staging method is expected to be an effective tool for predicting rhGH response before therapy initiation in short-stature children in late puberty.

On-chip Y-junction with adaptive power splitting toward ultrabroad bandwidth.

Growing research interests have been directed to the emerging optical communication band at 2-µm wavelengths. The silicon photonic components are highly desired to operate over a broad bandwidth covering both C-band and the emerging 2-µm wave band. However, the dispersions of the silicon waveguides eventually limit the optical bandwidth of the silicon photonic devices. Here, we introduce a topology-optimized Y-junction with a shallow-etched trench and its utility to reverse the detrimental dispersion effect. The shallow trench enables the Y-junction to have an adaptive splitting capability over a broad spectral range. The 0.2-dB bandwidth of the power splitter exceeds 800 nm from 1400 nm to 2200 nm. The device has a compact footprint of 3 µm × 1.64 µm. The device is characterized at the C-band and 2-µm band with a measured excess loss below 0.4 dB for a proof-of-concept demonstration.

Uncovering the metabolic pathway of novel Burkholderia sp. for efficient triclosan degradation and implication: Insight from exogenous bioaugmentation and toxicity pressure.

Triclosan (TCS), a synthetic and broad-spectrum antimicrobial agent, is frequently detected in various environmental matrices. A novel TCS degrading bacterial strain, Burkholderia sp. L303, was isolated from local activated sludge. The strain could metabolically degrade TCS up to 8 mg/L, and optimal conditions for TCS degradation were at temperature of 35 °C, pH 7, and an increased inoculum size. During TCS degradation, several intermediates were identified, with the initial degradation occurring mainly through hydroxylation of aromatic ring, followed by dechlorination. Further intermediates such as 2-chlorohydroquinone, 4-chlorocatechol, and 4-chlorophenol were produced via ether bond fission and C-C bond cleavage, which could be further transformed into unchlorinated compounds, ultimately resulting in the complete stoichiometric free chloride release. Bioaugmentation of strain L303 in non-sterile river water demonstrated better degradation than in sterile water. Further exploration of the microbial communities provided insights into the composition and succession of the microbial communities under the TCS stress as well as during the TCS biodegradation process in real water samples, the key microorganisms involved in TCS biodegradation or showing resistance to the TCS toxicity, and the changes in microbial diversity related to exogenous bioaugmentation, TCS input, and TCS elimination. These findings shed light on the metabolic degradation pathway of TCS and highlight the significance of microbial communities in the bioremediation of TCS-contaminated environments.

Isolation and characterization of Rhodococcus sp. GG1 for metabolic degradation of chloroxylenol.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has significantly increased the demand of disinfectant use. Chloroxylenol (para-chloro-meta-xylenol, PCMX) as the major antimicrobial ingredient of disinfectant has been widely detected in water environments, with identified toxicity and potential risk. The assessment of PCMX in domestic wastewater of Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR) showed a positive correlation between PCMX concentration and population density. An indigenous PCMX degrader, identified as Rhodococcus sp. GG1, was isolated and found capable of completely degrading PCMX (50 mg L-1) within 36 h. The growth kinetics followed Haldane's inhibition model, with maximum specific growth rate, half-saturation constant, and inhibition constant of 0.38 h-1, 7.64 mg L-1, and 68.08 mg L-1, respectively. The degradation performance was enhanced by optimizing culture conditions, while the presence of additional carbon source stimulated strain GG1 to alleviate inhibition from high concentrations of PCMX. In addition, strain GG1 showed good environmental adaptability, degrading PCMX efficiently in different environmental aqueous matrices. A potential degradation pathway was identified, with 2,6-dimethylhydroquinone as a major intermediate metabolite. Cytochrome P450 (CYP450) was found to play a key role in dechlorinating PCMX via hydroxylation and also catalyzed the hydroxylated dechlorination of other halo-phenolic contaminants through co-metabolism. This study characterizes an aerobic bacterial pure culture capable of degrading PCMX metabolically, which could be promising in effective bioremediation of PCMX-contaminated sites and in treatment of PCMX-containing waste streams.

MedShift: Automated Identification of Shift Data for Medical Image Dataset Curation.

Automated curation of noisy external data in the medical domain has long been in high demand, as AI technologies need to be validated using various sources with clean, annotated data. Identifying the variance between internal and external sources is a fundamental step in curating a high-quality dataset, as the data distributions from different sources can vary significantly and subsequently affect the performance of AI models. The primary challenges for detecting data shifts are - (1) accessing private data across healthcare institutions for manual detection and (2) the lack of automated approaches to learn efficient shift-data representation without training samples. To overcome these problems, we propose an automated pipeline called MedShift to detect top-level shift samples and evaluate the significance of shift data without sharing data between internal and external organizations. MedShift employs unsupervised anomaly detectors to learn the internal distribution and identify samples showing significant shiftness for external datasets, and then compares their performance. To quantify the effects of detected shift data, we train a multi-class classifier that learns internal domain knowledge and evaluates the classification performance for each class in external domains after dropping the shift data. We also propose a data quality metric to quantify the dissimilarity between internal and external datasets. We verify the efficacy of MedShift using musculoskeletal radiographs (MURA) and chest X-ray datasets from multiple external sources. Our experiments show that our proposed shift data detection pipeline can be beneficial for medical centers to curate high-quality datasets more efficiently.

Self-supervised semantic segmentation of retinal pigment epithelium cells in flatmount fluorescent microscopy images.

MOTIVATION: Morphological analyses with flatmount fluorescent images are essential to retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) aging studies and thus require accurate RPE cell segmentation. Although rapid technology advances in deep learning semantic segmentation have achieved great success in many biomedical research, the performance of these supervised learning methods for RPE cell segmentation is still limited by inadequate training data with high-quality annotations. RESULTS: To address this problem, we develop a Self-Supervised Semantic Segmentation (S4) method that utilizes a self-supervised learning strategy to train a semantic segmentation network with an encoder-decoder architecture. We employ a reconstruction and a pairwise representation loss to make the encoder extract structural information, while we create a morphology loss to produce the segmentation map. In addition, we develop a novel image augmentation algorithm (AugCut) to produce multiple views for self-supervised learning and enhance the network training performance. To validate the efficacy of our method, we applied our developed S4 method for RPE cell segmentation to a large set of flatmount fluorescent microscopy images, we compare our developed method for RPE cell segmentation with other state-of-the-art deep learning approaches. Compared with other state-of-the-art deep learning approaches, our method demonstrates better performance in both qualitative and quantitative evaluations, suggesting its promising potential to support large-scale cell morphological analyses in RPE aging investigations. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: The codes and the documentation are available at: https://github.com/jkonglab/S4_RPE.

Insights into the release of triclosan from microplastics in aquatic environment assessed with diffusive gradient in thin-films.

Organic chemicals associated with microplastics (MPs) can be released and thus pose potential risks during weathering processes. However, the thermodynamics and kinetics of their release processes still need to be better understood. Herein, the adsorption and desorption kinetics of triclosan on polystyrene (PS) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) were investigated by using both batch experiments and diffusive gradients in thin-films (DGT) technique. The pseudo-second-order model fitted the data best, implying that both intraparticle diffusion and external liquid film diffusion influence the adsorption and desorption processes. DGT continuously accumulated triclosan from MP suspensions but slower than theoretical values, indicating some restrictions to desorption. The DGT-induced fluxes in Soils/Sediment (DIFS) model, employed to interpret DGT data, gave distribution coefficients for labile species (Kdl) of 5000 mL g-1 (PS) and 1000 mL g-1 (PVC) and the corresponding response times (Tc) were 10 s and 1000 s, respectively. Higher Kdl but smaller Tc for PS than PVC showed that more triclosan adsorbed on PS could be rapidly released, while there were some kinetic limitations for triclosan on PVC. A novel finding was that pH and ionic strength individually and interactively affected the supply of triclosan to DGT. This is the first study to quantify interactions of organics with MPs by using DGT, aiding our understanding of MPs' adsorption/desorption behavior in the aquatic environment.

Folded Digital Meta-Lenses for on-Chip Spectrometer.

In-plane diffractive optical networks based on meta-surfaces are promising for on-chip application. The design constraints of regular antenna unit place ultimate limits on the functionalities of the meta-systems. This fundamental limitation has been reflected by the large footprints of cascaded meta-surfaces. Here, we propose a digital meta-lens with a large degree of design freedom, enabling significantly improved beam focusing, collimation, and deflection capabilities. A highly dispersive and compact diffractive optical system is constructed for spectrometer via five layers of meta-lenses in a folded configuration. The device only occupies a 100 µm × 100 µm chip area on a silicon photonic platform. Sparse and continuous spectra reconstruction is achieved over a 35 nm bandwidth. Fine spectral lines separated by 0.14 nm are resolved. In addition to such a compact and high-resolution on-chip spectrometer, it is also expected to be promising for imaging, optical computing, and other applications due to the great versatility of the digital lens design.

Plantamajoside Alleviates Substantia Nigra Damage in Parkinson's Disease Mice by Inhibiting HDAC2/MAPK Signaling and Reducing Microglia Polarization.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder caused by dopaminergic neuron progressive degeneration. Inhibition of microglial activation may contribute to the treatment and prevention of PD. Plantamajoside (PMS) is a natural compound extracted from plantain seeds. It has a wide range of biological activities, including anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, as well as antitumor effects. However, its possible effects on PD are still unclear. In this study, lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was first injected into the right midbrain substantia nigra (SN) of male C57BL/6 mice to establish the PD mouse model. We found that PMS improved LPS-induced behavioral dysfunction in PD mice. PMS attenuated LPS-induced SN injury in PD mice. PMS could suppress LPS-induced microglial overactivation in PD mice. In addition, MS inhibited LPS-induced activation of the HDAC2/MAPK pathway in PD mice and BV-2 cells. It further revealed that PMS alleviated microglia polarization by inhibiting HDAC2. The limitation of this study was the lack of experiments for investigating the further molecular mechanism and in vivo animal validation, which needs to be further confirmed in the future. Collectively, our data suggested that PMS could serve as a promising drug for PD.

Reutilization of different bamboo residue fiber as sustainable asphalt modifier: performance evaluation and parameter recommendation.

The large-scale application of bamboo has led to the production of enormous amounts of waste in the form of bamboo residue. In order to reuse the bamboo residue, three types of bamboo fiber (sinocalamus affinis fiber (SAF), green bamboo fiber (GBF), and phyllostachys pubescens fiber (PPF)) extracted from bamboo residues were studied. The properties of bamboo fiber modified asphalt were evaluated by ductility test, cone penetration test, rheological test, and low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) test. Furthermore, the dispersion properties of bamboo fiber were analyzed by dispersion uniformity test. The results show that the mechanical and high-temperature properties of the bamboo fiber modified asphalt are obviously improved while the low-temperature crack resistance is only slightly weakened. Meanwhile, the signal intensities of SAF modified asphalt and GBF modified asphalt are basically the same before and after aging. It proved the viscosity is not changed much, which verified the good anti-aging properties of SAF modified asphalt and GBF modified asphalt. However, PPF is the best dispersed uniformly in the asphalt. The maximum allowable length and dosage of bamboo fibers is recommended as follows: SAF (9 mm, 2.0%), GBF (6 mm, 1.5%), and PPF (6 mm, 2.0%). The application of bamboo residue in asphalt not only emphasizes the recycling value of bamboo residue waste but also provides an optional natural fiber material for asphalt pavement construction, which meets the requirements of sustainable development.

Sorption and desorption of bisphenols on commercial plastics and the effect of UV aging.

Plastics gradually degrade in the natural environment from the effect of irradiation, which can change the surface properties of plastics and affect the migration behaviour of pollutants. Up to now, studies on the sorption/desorption behaviour of organic pollutants on aged plastics are still limited. In this study, several types of commercial plastics (polyurethane (PU), polyamide (PA), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), expanded polystyrene (EPS)) were selected to investigate the sorption and release behaviour for four kinds of bisphenols (bisphenol-F, A, B, AP). The results from Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis showed evidence of oxidization and surface cracks of plastics after irradiation. The sorption behaviour for both fresh and aged plastics were dominated by hydrophobicity. In addition, the electrostatic force, H-bonding interaction, and π-π interaction were also the important factors impacting the sorption process. The desorption kinetics behaviour indicates that desorption becomes faster after aging. Hydrophobicity is also an important factor that affects desorption behaviour. This study showed that sorption capacity for most fresh and aged plastics was enhanced by the impact of salinity and dissolved organic matter (DOM). Increased temperature could increase the desorption of bisphenols on both fresh and aged plastics, which illustrated that warm environments would promote more pollutants be released from plastics to water bodies.

Zinc and copper supplements enhance trichloroethylene removal by Pseudomonas plecoglossicida in water.

The effects of two microelements, zinc and copper, on the aerobic co-metabolic removal of trichloroethylene (10 mg/L) by the isolate Pseudomonas plecoglossicida were investigated. The strain was previously isolated from a petroleum-contaminated site using toluene (150 mg/L) as substrate. Different concentrations (1, 10 and 100 mg/L) of microelements provided with SO42- and Cl- were tested. The results showed the supplement of Zn2+ and Cu2+ at the low concentration (1 mg/L) significantly enhanced cell growth. The removal efficiencies for toluene and trichloroethylene were also enhanced at the low concentration (1 mg/L) of Zn2+ and Cu2+. Compared to the control without zinc supplement, higher concentrations of zinc (10 and 100 mg/L) enhanced the removal efficiencies for both toluene and trichloroethylene in the first three days but showed some inhibitory effect afterward. However, the higher concentrations of Cu2+ (10 and 100 mg/L) always showed inhibitory to the toluene removal while showing inhibitory to the TCE removal after three days. For both Zn2+ and Cu2+, the anions SO42- and Cl- did not show significant difference in their effects on the toluene removal. A possible mechanism for Zn2+ and Cu2+ to enhance the removal of toluene and trichloroethylene would be their involvement in toluene oxygenase-based transformation processes. In addition, high concentrations of Zn2+ and Cu2+ ions could be removed from the liquid by the cells accordingly. The results imply a potential of supplementing low concentrations of zinc and copper to enhance bioremediation of the sites co-contaminated with toluene and trichloroethylene.

How to improve the diagnosis of neoplastic transformation of gastric hyperplastic polyps in the context of autoimmune gastritis?: A case report and lierature review.

RATIONALE: Gastric hyperplastic polyp (GHP) commonly arises in the abnormal background mucosa, which makes it easy to be misdiagnosed and missed, and has a potential risk of malignant transformation over time. Here, we present a case of neoplastic transformation of GHP in a context of autoimmune gastritis (AIG). PATIENT CONCERNS: In 2020, a 67-year-old woman was admitted for endoscopic review 6 years after gastric polyp resection, the histological diagnosis of gastric polyp was neoplastic transformation of GHP as before. The patient had undergone multiple polypectomies at the same part. Then histological examination revealed that partial epithelial hyperplasia and dysplasia, and the neoplastic areas were interlaced with normal mucosa. DIAGNOSES AND INTERVENTIONS: We further found that the background diagnosis was AIG. These results supported the diagnosis of neoplastic transformation of GHP in a context of AIG. With the doubt of missed diagnose, we retrospectively analyzed the medical history in 2014, 2015 and 2016, confirmed the presence of AIG. Unfortunately, serological tests and special treatment were not performed. OUTCOMES: The correct diagnosis was eventually confirmed in 2020, which enables patients to receive normal treatment and monitoring, and avoids further deterioration of the disease. LESSONS: The purpose of this case report is to increase clinical awareness of neoplastic transformation of GHP in a context of AIG, and hope promise for early diagnosis and treatment.

Zishen Pill alleviates diabetes in Db/db mice via activation of PI3K/AKT pathway in the liver.

BACKGROUND: The rising global incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) highlights a need for new therapies. The Zishen Pill (ZSP) is a traditional Chinese herbal decoction that has previously shown hypoglycemic effects in C57BL/KsJ-db/db mice, although the therapeutic mechanism remains unknown. This study aims to explore the underlying mechanisms of ZSP's hypoglycemic effects using db/db mice. METHODS: Db/db mice were divided into two groups: model group and ZSP group, while wt/wt mice were used as a normal control. ZSP was given to mice by gavage for 40 days. During treatment, blood glucose level and body weight were monitored continuously. Oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was performed at day 35. Blood and tissue samples were collected at the end of treatment for further analyses. Mice liver samples were analyzed with mRNA transcriptomics using functional annotation and pathway enrichment to identify potential mechanisms that were then explored with qPCR and Western Blot techniques. RESULTS: ZSP treatment significantly reduced weight gain and glycemic severity in db/db mice. ZSP also partially restored the glucose homeostasis in db/db mice and increased the hepatic glycogen content. Transcriptomic analyses showed ZSP increased expression of genes involved in glycolysis including Hk2, Hk3, Gck and Pfkb1, and decreased expression of G6pase. Additionally, the gene and protein expression of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (AKT) pathway, and Csf1 and Flt3 mRNA expression were significantly upregulated in ZSP group. CONCLUSION: ZSP treatment reduced the severity of diabetic symptoms in db/db mice. ZSP increased expression of genes associated with glycogen synthesis and glycolysis, and decreased gluconeogenesis via the enhancement of the PI3K/AKT signaling in the liver.

Inverse design of a dual-mode 3-dB optical power splitter with a 445†nm bandwidth.

Optical power splitters are fundamental blocks for photonic integrated circuits. Conventional 3-dB power splitters are either constrained to single-mode regime or to the limited optical bandwidth. In this paper, an alternative design approach is proposed via combined method of topology optimizations on both analog and digital meta-structure. Based on this approach, a dual-mode power splitter is designed on silicon-on-insulator with an ultra-broad bandwidth from 1588 nm - 2033nm and an ultra-compact footprint of only 5.4 µm × 2.88 µm. The minimum feature size is 120 nm which can be compatible with silicon photonic foundry process. The simulated excess loss and crosstalk over this wavelength range for the two lowest TE modes are lower than 0.83 dB and -22 dB, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this is a record large optical bandwidth for an integrated dual-mode 3-dB power splitter on silicon.