Unmasking the conversation on masks: Natural language processing for topical sentiment analysis of COVID-19 Twitter discourse

In this exploratory study, we scrutinize a database of over one million tweets collected from March to July 2020 to illustrate public attitudes towards mask usage during the COVID-19 pandemic. We employ natural language processing, clustering and sentiment analysis techniques to organize tweets relating to mask-wearing into high-level themes, then relay narratives for each theme using automatic text summarization. In recent months, a body of literature has highlighted the robustness of trends in online activity as proxies for the sociological impact of COVID-19. We find that topic clustering based on mask-related Twitter data offers revealing insights into societal perceptions of COVID-19 and techniques for its prevention. We observe that the volume and polarity of mask-related tweets has greatly increased. Importantly, the analysis pipeline presented may be leveraged by the health community for qualitative assessment of public response to health intervention techniques in real time.

An experimental study of effect of curcumin on improvementof bone microarchitecture and bone quality inhigh-fat-diet C57BL/6J mice and its association with cathepsin K / 中国药理学通报

Aim To investigate the effect of curcumin against high-fat-diet induced C57BL/6J mice bone changes and the correlation between the expression of cathepsin K and curcumin.Methods Curcumin treated C57BL/6J mice had been on high fat diet for 12 weeks.The HE, Alizarin red S staining and Safranin O/fast green staining of femur were employed to evaluate bone microstructure, bone metabolism and bone development.The expressions of cathepsin K were assessed by Western blot and immunohistochemical staining.Results Histopathological results showed that curcumin could improve the destruction of trabecular bone structure, cartilage development and bone calcification.Biomechanical results proved that curcumin could improve the bone strength of the type 2 diabetic mice induced by high fat.The results of immunohistochemistry and Western blot assay indicated that curcumin could significantly inhibit the expression of cathepsin K in bone tissues of mice.Conclusion Curcumin can increase bone strength, improve bone microstructure, and enhance the degree of bone calcification, which may be achieved by inhibiting the expression of cathepsin K.

Etiology, Pathology and Prospects of TCM in Osteoporosis Treatment / 世界科学技术-中医药现代化

Osteoporosis is a progressive metabolic disease. In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), deficiency of the liver, spleen and kidney and blood stasis can induce osteoporosis. The main etiology was kidney deficiency which harmed the liver and spleen and causeqi-blood deficiency and blood stasis. The insufficiency of natural endowment and postnatal malnutrition caused poor nutrition of tendons and vessels, which induced debility of bone. This article discussed the etiology and pathogenesis of TCM understanding on osteoporosis in details. Opportunities and challenges of TCM in osteoporosis treatment were explored. The homology of Chinese medicine and food as well as the long-term of osteoporosis showed that TCM had incomparable superiority in osteoporosis treatment. While, the scientific research methods and reasonable evaluation of TCM safety were important to display its advantages in osteoporosis treatment.