Orofacial inflammatory pain affects the expression of MT1 and NADPH-d in rat caudal spinal trigeminal nucleus and trigeminal ganglion

Very little is known about the role of melatonin in the trigeminal system, including the function of melatonin receptor 1. In the present study, adult rats were injected with formaldehyde into the right vibrissae pad to establish a model of orofacial inflammatory pain. The distribution of melatonin re- ceptor 1 and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate diaphorase in the caudal spinal trigeminal nucleus and trigeminal ganglion was determined with immunohistochemistry and histo- chemistry. The results show that there are significant differences in melatonin receptor 1 expression and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate diaphorase expression in the trigeminal ganglia and caudal spinal nucleus during the early stage of orofacial inflammatory pain. Our findings sug- gest that when melatonin receptor 1 expression in the caudal spinal nucleus is significantly reduced, melatonin＇s regulatory effect on pain is attenuated.

Age-dependent loss of cholinergic neurons in learning and memory-related brain regions and impaired learning in SAMP8 mice with trigeminal nerve damage

The tooth belongs to the trigeminal sensory pathway. Dental damage has been associated with impairments in the central nervous system that may be mediated by injury to the trigeminal nerve. In the present study, we investigated the effects of damage to the inferior alveolar nerve, an important peripheral nerve in the trigeminal sensory pathway, on learning and memory be-haviors and structural changes in related brain regions, in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. Inferior alveolar nerve transection or sham surgery was performed in middle-aged （4-month-old） or elderly （7-month-old） senescence-accelerated mouse prone 8 （SAMP8） mice. When the middle-aged mice reached 8 months （middle-aged group 1） or 11 months （middle-aged group 2）, and the elderly group reached 11 months, step-down passive avoidance and Y-maze tests of learn-ing and memory were performed, and the cholinergic system was examined in the hippocampus （Nissl staining and acetylcholinesterase histochemistry） and basal forebrain （choline acetyltrans-ferase immunohistochemistry）. In the elderly group, animals that underwent nerve transection had fewer pyramidal neurons in the hippocampal CA1 and CA3 regions, fewer cholinergic ifbers in the CA1 and dentate gyrus, and fewer cholinergic neurons in the medial septal nucleus and vertical limb of the diagonal band, compared with sham-operated animals, as well as showing impairments in learning and memory. Conversely, no signiifcant differences in histology or be-havior were observed between middle-aged group 1 or group 2 transected mice and age-matched sham-operated mice. The present ifndings suggest that trigeminal nerve damage in old age, but not middle age, can induce degeneration of the septal-hippocampal cholinergic system and loss of hippocampal pyramidal neurons, and ultimately impair learning ability. Our results highlight the importance of active treatment of trigeminal nerve damage in elderly patients and those with Alzheimer’s disease, and indicate that tooth extraction should be avoided in these populations.

Melatonin in Pain Modulation: Analgesic or Proalgesic?

Melatonin, as an endogenous hormone produced mainly in the pineal gland in a clear circadian fashion, has diverse physiological functions, such as the control of circadian rhythms, sleep regulation, antioxidant, etc. Recently, accumulating researches about melatonin and pain have been reported. In this review, comparison and summary about analgesic/proalgesic effect of melatonin in inflammatory and neuropathic pain will be made. Some possible pathways of melatonin involved in dual pain modulation might help to explain all these conflicting results in various situations.

Bi Layer Formation at the Anode Interface in Cu/Sn-58Bi/Cu Solder Joints with High Current Density

Bi layer formation in Cu/Sn-58Bi/Cu solder joints was investigated with different current densities and solder thickness. Uniform and continuous Bi layers were formed at the anode interface which indicated that Bi was the main diffusing species migrating from the cathode to the anode. The electromigration force and Joule heating took on the main driving forces for Bi diffusion and migration. In addition, two appearance types of Bi layers, planar-type and groove-type, were found during current stressing. The morphology and thickness of Bi layers were affected by current density and current stressing time.

China's battery electric vehicles lead the world:achievements in technology system architecture and technological breakthroughs

Developing new energy vehicles has been a worldwide consensus,and developing new energy vehicles characterized by pure electric drive has been China's national strategy.After more than 20 years of high-quality development of China's electric vehicles(EVs),a technological R&D layout of“Three Verticals and Three Horizontals”has been created,and technological advantages have been accumulated.As a result,China's new energy vehicle market has ranked first in the world since 2015.To systematically solve the key problems of battery electric vehicles(BEVs)such as“driving range anxiety,long battery charging time,and driving safety hazards”,China took the lead in putting forward a“system engineering-based technology system architecture for BEVs”and clarifying its connotation.This paper analyzes the research status and progress of the three core components of this architecture,namely,“BEV platform,charging/swapping station,and real-time operation monitoring platform”,and their key technological points.The three major demonstration projects of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games,the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics,and the intelligent and connected autonomous battery electric bus project are discussed to specify the applications of BEVs in China.The key research directions for upgrading BEV technologies remain to be further improving the vehicle-level all-climate environmental adaptability and all-day safety of BEVs,systematically solving the charging problem of BEVs and improving their application convenience,and safeguarding safety with early warning and implementing active/passive safety protection for the whole life cycle of power batteries on the basis of BEVs'operation big data.BEVs have acquired new technological features such as intelligent and networked technology empowerment,extensive integration of control-by-wire systems,a platform of chassis hardware,and modularization of functional software.

Hierarchical predictive energy management strategy for fuel cell buses entering bus stops scenario

This paper aims to answer how to use traffic information to design energy management strategies for fuel cell buses in a networked environment.For the buses entering the bus stops scenario,this paper proposes a hierarchical energy management strategy for fuel cell buses,which considers the traffic information near the bus stops.In the upper-level trajectory planning stage,the optimal SOC trajectory under various historical traffic conditions is solved through dynamic planning.The traffic information and the best SOC trajectory are mapped through BiLSTM,which can achieve fast,real-time long-term SOC reference.In the lower-level real-time predictive energy management strategy,the optimal SOC is used as the state reference to guide the predictive energy management of fuel cell buses when entering the bus stops.Simulation results show that compared with the strategy without SOC trajectory reference,the life cost of the proposed strategy is reduced by 13.8%,and the total cost is reduced by 3.61%.The SOC of the proposed strategy is closer to the DP optimal solution.

Hierarchical Sizing and Power Distribution Strategy for Hybrid Energy Storage System

This paper proposes a hierarchical sizing method and a power distribution strategy of a hybrid energy storage system for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles(PHEVs),aiming to reduce both the energy consumption and battery degradation cost.As the optimal size matching is significant to multi-energy systems like PHEV with both battery and supercapacitor(SC),this hybrid system is adopted herein.First,the hierarchical optimization is conducted,when the optimal power of the internal combustion engine is calculated based on dynamic programming,and a wavelet transformer is introduced to distribute the power between the battery and the SC.Then,the fuel economy and battery degradation are evaluated to return feedback value to each sizing point within the hybrid energy storage system sizing space,obtaining the optimal sizes for the battery and the SC by comparing all the values in the whole sizing space.Finally,an all-hardware test platform is established with a fully active power conversion topology,on which the real-time control capability of the wavelet transformer method and the size matching between the battery and the SC are verified in both short and long time spans.

An Online Adaptive Internal Short Circuit Detection Method of Lithium-Ion Battery

Internal short circuit(ISC)is a critical cause for the dangerous thermal runaway of lithium-ion battery(LIB);thus,the accurate early-stage detection of the ISC failure is critical to improving the safety of electric vehicles.In this paper,a model-based and self-diagnostic method for online ISC detection of LIB is proposed using the measured load current and terminal voltage.An equivalent circuit model is built to describe the characteristics of ISC cell.A discrete-time regression model is formulated for the faulty cell model through the system transfer function,based on which the electrical model parameters are adapted online to keep the model accurate.Furthermore,an online ISC detection method is exploited by incorporating an extended Kalman filter-based state of charge estimator,an abnormal charge depletion-based ISC current estimator,and an ISC resistance estimator based on the recursive least squares method with variant forgetting factor.The proposed method shows a self-diagnostic merit relying on the single-cell measurements,which makes it free from the extra uncertainty caused by other cells in the system.Experimental results suggest that the online parameterized model can accurately predict the voltage dynamics of LIB.The proposed diagnostic method can accurately identify the ISC resistance online,thereby contributing to the early-stage detection of ISC fault in the LIB.

Melatonin and mitochondria in aging

The worldwide prolongation of mean life expectancy has resulted in a rapid increase of the size of the elderly population,both in numbers and as a proportion of the whole.In addition,the incidence of age-related diseases is obviously increasing as the population ages.Finding means to preserve optimal health in old age has become a primary goal of biomedical research.Aging is a multifactorial process that includes progressive cellular loss,endocrine and metabolic deficits,reduced defense mechanisms and functional losses that increase the risk of death.Mitochondria fulfill a number of essential cellular functions and play a key role in the aging process.Melatonin,which is synthesized in the pineal gland and other organs,plays a role in the biologic regulation of aging.Noctural melatonin serum levels are high during childhood and diminish substantially as people age.Melatonin preserves mitochondrial homeostasis,reduces free radical generation,e.g.,by enhancing mitochondrial glutathione levels;it also safeguards proton potential and ATP synthesis by stimulating complex I and IV activities.In this article,we review the role of melatonin and mitochondria in aging.