Behavioral decision-making of the government, farmer-specialized cooperatives, and farmers regarding the quality and safety of agricultural products.

The quality and safety of agricultural products is very important for farmers' professional cooperatives. This study incorporates the government, farmers' professional cooperatives and farmers into the evolutionary game model to explore the game relationship and evolutionary path of decision-making among the three parties related to the quality and safety of agricultural products. Through the dynamic analysis of decision-making replication, the analysis of strategy evolution stability and the verification of numerical simulation experiments, it is shown that the decision-making behavior of the government, farmers' professional cooperatives and farmers under the conditions of agricultural product quality and safety is the result of the game between three stakeholders; the government, farmers' professional cooperatives and farmers The evolution process of the decision-making behavior to the ideal state is affected by many factors, and the value ranges of different factors have different effects on the convergence speed of the three stakeholders to the ideal state; when certain conditions are met, the government, farmers' professional cooperatives and farmers' three The decision-making behavior of each stakeholder can evolve into an ideal state, and effective government supervision can promote the cooperatives to manage the green production of farmers, and then effectively encourage farmers to take the initiative in green production. In order to provide useful suggestions for the government to make safety supervision decisions, to effectively manage cooperatives, and to stimulate active green production behaviors by farmers.

A Systemic Insight into Exohedral Actinides and Endohedral Borospherenes: An&Bm and An@Bn (An=U, Np, Pu; m = 28, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40; n = 36, 38, 40).

A series of exohedral actinide borospherenes, An&Bm, and endohedral borospherenes, An@Bn (An=U, Np, Pu; m = 28, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40; n = 36, 38, 40), have been characterized by density functional theory calculations. The electronic structures, chemical bond topological properties and spectra have been systematically investigated. It was found that An@Bn is more stable than An&Bn in terms of structure and energy, and UB36 in an aqueous solution is the most stable molecular in this research. The IR and UV-vis spectra of An&Bm and An@Bn are computationally predicted to facilitate further experimental investigations. Charge-transfer spectroscopy decomposes the total UV-Vis absorption curve into the contributions of different excitation features, allowing insight into what form of electronic excitation the UV-Vis absorption peak is from the perspective of charge transfer between the An atoms and borospherenes.

The Temporal and Spatial Changes of Th17, Tregs, and Related Cytokines in Epilepsy Lesions.

The cellular and molecular mechanisms in pathogenesis and development of epilepsy are still unclear. Specific inflammatory mediators and immune cells may play an important role. The aim of the present study was to investigate the temporal and spatial changes of Th17, Tregs, and related cytokines in epilepsy lesions. LiCl-pilocarpine-induced temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) rat models were established, sensorimotor function was examined using modified neurological severity score (mNSS), cognitive function was evaluated by Morris water maze (MWM) test, pathological damages were detected by H&E staining and Nissl staining, helper T cells 17 (Th17), regulatory CD4+ T cells (Tregs), and their related cytokines were detected by Western blotting and immune staining. Results showed that Th17 and its related cytokines in epilepsy lesions played a role mainly at acute phase of epilepsy, and they were positively correlated with the pathological changes in the hippocampus and neurological and cognitive dysfunction caused by epilepsy. Conversely, Tregs and their related cytokines mainly played a role at progressive phase and had the opposite effect. Th17 and Tregs restricted each other during the recovery phase to achieve functional balance. Our results suggested that Th17, Tregs, and related cytokines in epilepsy lesions played an important role in the pathogenesis and development of epilepsy and balancing Th17 and Tregs may be efficacious therapeutics for patients with epilepsy.

Orexin-A exerts neuroprotective effect in experimental intracerebral hemorrhage by suppressing autophagy via OXR1-mediated ERK/mTOR signaling pathway.

Background: Orexin-A (OXA) is a polypeptide produced in the hypothalamus, which binds to specific receptors and exerts multiple physiological effects. Autophagy plays a vital role in early brain injury (EBI) after intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). However, the relationship between OXA and autophagy after ICH has not been confirmed. Methods: In this study, the protective role of OXA was investigated in a model of hemin-induced injury in PC12 cells and blood-injection ICH model in rats, and its potential molecular mechanism was clarified. Neurobehavioral tests, brain water content, and pathologic morphology were assessed after ICH. Cell survival rate was determined using Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8), while apoptosis was detected using flow cytometry. The autophagy protein LC3 that was originally identified as microtubule-associated protein 1 light 3 was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. The ultrastructural changes of cells following ICH were observed by transmission electron microscopy. Western blotting was performed to determine the expression levels of LC3, p62/SQSTM1 (p62), phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (p-ERK1/2), total extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (t-ERK1/2), mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), and phosphorylated mammalian target of rapamycin (p-mTOR). Results: OXA treatment significantly improved neurofunctional outcomes, reduced brain edema, and alleviated neuronal apoptosis. OXA administration upregulated p-mTOR and p62, while it downregulated p-ERK1/2 and LC3; this effect was reversed by the orexin receptor 1 (OXR1) antagonist SB-334867. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that OXA suppresses autophagy via the OXR1-mediated ERK/mTOR signaling pathway to exert neuroprotective effects, and it might provide a novel therapeutic approach in patients suffering from ICH.

Rhein lysinate protects renal function in diabetic nephropathy of KK/HlJ mice.

The purpose of the present study was to assess the protective effects of rhein lysinate (RHL) in a KK/HlJ mouse model of diabetic nephropathy (DN) and to explore its mechanism of action. A total of 4 groups were established: C57BL/J control, the KK/HlJ model and 25 and 50 mg/kg/day RHL-treated KK/HlJ groups. The KK/HlJ mouse model of DN was established by streptozotocin injection, followed by maintenance on a specific diet. The albumin-to-creatinine ratio (ACR) was determined at 5 weeks and at 16 weeks, the kidneys were harvested, and morphological examination and immunohistochemical analysis were performed. The levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), as well as superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-px) activities in the kidneys were measured using appropriate assay kits. The expression of inflammatory factors and associated proteins was analyzed using western blot analysis. At 5 weeks, the levels of ACR in KK/HlJ mice were increased, which was inhibited by treatment with RHL. Treatment with RHL (50 mg/kg/day) decreased the body weight of KK/HlJ mice. Compared with the C57BL/J control, the KK/HlJ model mice had a significantly lower activity of SOD and GSH-px in the kidneys, but had significantly higher levels of MDA. Treatment of KK/HlJ mice with RHL significantly increased the activities SOD and GSH-px, and reduced the MAD level in the kidneys. Renal tubular epithelial cell edema was observed in KK/HlJ mice but not in C57BL/J mice. RHL decreased the incidence of renal tubular epithelial cell edema and significantly decreased the expression of TNF-α and IL-6 as well as the expression and phosphorylation of NF-κB in the kidneys. Therefore, DN is associated with the expression of inflammatory factors, renal tubular epithelial cell edema and renal dysfunction in KK/HlJ mice. RHL improves renal function by decreasing kidney inflammation.

Study on stability and rotating speed stable region of magnetically suspended rigid rotors using extended Nyquist criterion and gain-stable region theory.

This paper presents a novel and simple method to analyze the absolute stability and the rotor speed stable region of a magnetically suspended rotor (MSR). At the beginning of the paper, a complex variable is introduced to describe the movement of the MSR and a complex coefficient transfer function is obtained accordingly. The equivalent stability relationship between this new variable and the two traditional deflection angles is also demonstrated in a simple way. The detailed characteristics of the open-loop MSR system with time delay are studied carefully based on the characteristics of its Nyquist curve. A sufficient and necessary condition of absolute stability is then deduced by using an extended complex Nyquist stability criterion for MSRs. Based on the relationship between the rotor speed and gain-stable region proposed in this paper, the rotor speed stable region can be solved simply and directly. The usefulness and effectiveness of the proposed approaches are validated by examples and simulations.

A Dictionary Learning Method with Total Generalized Variation for MRI Reconstruction.

Reconstructing images from their noisy and incomplete measurements is always a challenge especially for medical MR image with important details and features. This work proposes a novel dictionary learning model that integrates two sparse regularization methods: the total generalized variation (TGV) approach and adaptive dictionary learning (DL). In the proposed method, the TGV selectively regularizes different image regions at different levels to avoid oil painting artifacts largely. At the same time, the dictionary learning adaptively represents the image features sparsely and effectively recovers details of images. The proposed model is solved by variable splitting technique and the alternating direction method of multiplier. Extensive simulation experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method consistently recovers MR images efficiently and outperforms the current state-of-the-art approaches in terms of higher PSNR and lower HFEN values.

Effects of rhein lysinate on D-galactose-induced aging mice.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the anti-aging effects of rhein lysinate (RHL), and to explore its mechanism of action in a D-galactose-induced aging mouse model. Aging was induced by D-galactose (100 mg/kg/day) that was subcutaneously injected to animals for 8 weeks. RHL was simultaneously administered once a day by intragastric gavage. The appetite, mental condition, body weight and organ index of the mice were monitored. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activities were determined, and the levels of malondialdehyde (MDA) in the liver, kidney and serum were measured by appropriate assay kits. Western blot analysis was used to detect proteins associated with age. The results indicated that RHL may improve the appetite, mental state and organ conditions of the model mice, improve the activities of SOD and GSH-Px, reduce MDA levels and modulate the expression of age-associated proteins (Sirtuin 1, p21 and p16) in D-galactose-induced mice. Therefore, RHL may be effective at suppressing the aging process through a combination of enhancing antioxidant activity, scavenging free radicals and modulating aging-associated gene expression.

Gambogic Acid lysinate induces apoptosis in breast cancer mcf-7 cells by increasing reactive oxygen species.

Gambogic acid (GA) inhibits the proliferation of various human cancer cells. However, because of its water insolubility, the antitumor efficacy of GA is limited. Objectives. To investigate the antitumor activity of gambogic acid lysinate (GAL) and its mechanism. Methods. Inhibition of cell proliferation was determined by MTT assay; intracellular ROS level was detected by staining cells with DCFH-DA; cell apoptosis was determined by flow cytometer and the mechanism of GAL was investigated by Western blot. Results. GAL inhibited the proliferation of MCF-7 cells with IC50 values 1.46 µmol/L comparable with GA (IC50, 1.16 µmol/L). GAL promoted the production of ROS; however NAC could remove ROS and block the effect of GAL. GAL inhibited the expression of SIRT1 but increased the phosphorylation of FOXO3a and the expression of p27Kip1. At knockdown of FOXO3a, cell apoptosis induced by GAL can be partly blocked. In addition it also enhanced the cleavage of caspase-3. Conclusions. GAL inhibited MCF-7 cell proliferation and induced MCF-7 cell apoptosis by increasing ROS level which could induce cell apoptosis by both SIRT1/FOXO3a/p27Kip1 and caspase-3 signal pathway. These results suggested that GAL might be useful as a modulation agent in cancer chemotherapy.

Human colon carcinogenesis is associated with increased interleukin-17-driven inflammatory responses.

Inflammation is known to contribute to carcinogenesis in human colorectal cancer. Proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-17 (IL-17 or IL-17A) has been shown to play a critical role in colon carcinogenesis in mouse models. However, few studies have investigated IL-17A in human colon tissues. In the present study, we assessed IL-17-driven inflammatory responses in 17 cases of human colon adenocarcinomas, 16 cases of human normal colon tissues adjacent to the resected colon adenocarcinomas, ten cases of human ulcerative colitis tissues from biopsies, and eight cases of human colon polyps diagnosed as benign adenomas. We found that human colon adenocarcinomas contained the highest levels of IL-17A cytokine, which was significantly higher than the IL-17A levels in the adenomas, ulcerative colitis, and normal colon tissues (P<0.01). The levels of IL-17 receptor A (IL-17RA) were also the highest in human colon adenocarcinomas, followed by adenomas and ulcerative colitis. The increased levels of IL-17A and IL-17RA were accompanied with increased IL-17-driven inflammatory responses, including activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)1/2 and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) pathways, increase in expression of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)9, MMP7, MMP2, B-cell lymphoma (Bcl-2), and cyclin D1, decrease in Bcl-2-associated X protein (BAX) expression, and increase in vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and VEGF receptor (VEGFR) expression that were associated with increased angiogenesis. These findings suggest that IL-17 and its signaling pathways appear as promising new targets in the design and development of drugs for cancer prevention and treatment, particularly in colorectal cancer.

Hybrid polylingual object model: an efficient and seamless integration of Java and native components on the Dalvik virtual machine.

JNI in the Android platform is often observed with low efficiency and high coding complexity. Although many researchers have investigated the JNI mechanism, few of them solve the efficiency and the complexity problems of JNI in the Android platform simultaneously. In this paper, a hybrid polylingual object (HPO) model is proposed to allow a CAR object being accessed as a Java object and as vice in the Dalvik virtual machine. It is an acceptable substitute for JNI to reuse the CAR-compliant components in Android applications in a seamless and efficient way. The metadata injection mechanism is designed to support the automatic mapping and reflection between CAR objects and Java objects. A prototype virtual machine, called HPO-Dalvik, is implemented by extending the Dalvik virtual machine to support the HPO model. Lifespan management, garbage collection, and data type transformation of HPO objects are also handled in the HPO-Dalvik virtual machine automatically. The experimental result shows that the HPO model outweighs the standard JNI in lower overhead on native side, better executing performance with no JNI bridging code being demanded.

Sequence variations of the partially dominant DELLA gene Rht-B1c in wheat and their functional impacts.

Rht-B1c, allelic to the DELLA protein-encoding gene Rht-B1a, is a natural mutation documented in common wheat (Triticum aestivum). It confers variation to a number of traits related to cell and plant morphology, seed dormancy, and photosynthesis. The present study was conducted to examine the sequence variations of Rht-B1c and their functional impacts. The results showed that Rht-B1c was partially dominant or co-dominant for plant height, and exhibited an increased dwarfing effect. At the sequence level, Rht-B1c differed from Rht-B1a by one 2kb Veju retrotransposon insertion, three coding region single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), one 197bp insertion, and four SNPs in the 1kb upstream sequence. Haplotype investigations, association analyses, transient expression assays, and expression profiling showed that the Veju insertion was primarily responsible for the extreme dwarfing effect. It was found that the Veju insertion changed processing of the Rht-B1c transcripts and resulted in DELLA motif primary structure disruption. Expression assays showed that Rht-B1c caused reduction of total Rht-1 transcript levels, and up-regulation of GATA-like transcription factors and genes positively regulated by these factors, suggesting that one way in which Rht-1 proteins affect plant growth and development is through GATA-like transcription factor regulation.