Dual neuronal response to tumor necrosis factor-alpha following spinal cord injury

BACKGROUND： Numerous studies have shown that tumor necrosis factor α （TNF-α） is closely correlated with spinal cord injury （SCI）, but the mechanisms of TNF-α and therapeutic treatments for SCI are still poorly understood. OBJECTIVE： To determine the role of TNF-α in the pathogenesis of SCI. DESIGN, TIME AND SETTING： An in vivo experiment based on genetically engineered animals was performed at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, USA, between June 2007 and October 2008. MATERIALS： TNF-α transgenic rats （Xenogen Biosciences in Cranbury, New Jersey, USA） were utilized in this study. METHODS： TNF-α transgenic （tg） and wild-type （WT） rats underwent a complete single-level laminectomy at the 10^th thoracic vertebra （T10）. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES： Motor function of rat hindlimb was assessed using the Basso, Beattie, and Bresnahan hindlimb locomotor rating scale. Histological evaluation of spinal cord tissue loss was conducted. Immunohistochemistry for astrocytes, microglia/macrophages, and TNF receptors （TNFRs） was performed on spinal cord tissue sections. TNF-α mRNA expression was detected by real-time polymerase chain reaction. The concentrations of nerve growth factor （NGF） and brain-derived neurotrophic factor （BDNF） in the supernatant were determined using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit for rat NGF or BDNF, respectively. The rats were injected subcutaneously with etanercept to verify that TNF-α was the direct effect of the modulation of behavioral and neurodegenerative outcomes in the TNF-α tg rats. RESULTS： TNF-α tg rats showed higher expression of TNF-α mRNA in the spinal cord prior to SCI. TNF-α tg rats showed worse motor deficits than WT rats in the acute period （〈 3 days） after SCI （P 〈 0.01）, while in the chronic period, TNF-α tg rats exhibited persistent elevated baseline levels of TNF-α mRNA and improved recovery in motor function and tissue healing compared to WT rats （P 〈 0.01 ）. Following SCI, the number of microglia/macrophages in TNF-α tg rat was always greater than in WT rat （P 〈 0.01）. There were no significant differences in NGF and BDNF levels in the supernatant of spinal cord homogenates. TNFR1 expression was significantly greater in the TNF-α tg rats compared to the WT rats （P 〈 0.01）. However, TNFR2 expression did not reveal a significant increase in the TNF-α tg rats compared to the WT rats. Finally, treatment with etanercept reduced injury acutely, but exacerbated the injury chronically. CONCLUSION： Overexpression of TNF-α is deleterious in the acute phase, but beneficial in the chronic phase in the response to SCI. The role of TNF-α post-injury may depend on TNF-α expression in the spinal cord and its differential binding to TNFRI. Our observations may have clinical relevance that antagonists or inhibitors of TNF-α could be administered within the early time window post-injury, and appropriate amounts of TNF-α could be administered during the chronic stage, in order to improve the final neurological recovery in patients with SCI.

Relations among Main Operating Parameters of Gasifier in IGCC

Gasification unit is one of the key subsystems in the IGCC power system;the operating parameters of gasifier directly affect syngas quality and performance of whole IGCC system. The system model of gasification unit with coal water slurry gasifier was simulated and calculated using THERMOFLEX software, and the relations of oxygen coal ratio (Roc), water coal ratio (Rsc), gasification pressure, gasification temperature and cold gas efficiency were mostly researched. The results show that Roc and Rsc have effect of mutual restriction on gasification temperature, cold gas efficiency and syngas composition. Gasification pressure mainly determines the capacity of the gasifier, little effects on syngas composition.

A simple vacuum sample chamber for small-angle X-ray scattering at Beijing synchrotron radiation facility

Objective A vacuum sample chamber for SAXS measurement of solutions was developed to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the instrument at Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility(BSRF).Methods We developed a vacuum sample chamber which could be connected to the upstream and the downstream vacuum tubes by bellows.Horizontal and vertical linear slides were mounted in the vacuum chamber to adjust the sample position by 35 mm in the horizontal and vertical directions to align the sample in the light path.The liquid sample holder of the chamber was sealed with polyimide film by squeezing instead of gluing to avoid the potential influence of sealant on the solution.Results The chamber had been used for SAXS measurements of water and bovine serum albumin solution at BSRF.The results showed that the background scattering intensity in air was much higher than that in vacuum,especially in the smallangle area near the beamstop.When the q value is 0.142 nm−1,1.01 nm−1 and 1.25 nm−1,the background scattering intensity in air is 45,6.8 and 4.6 times of that in vacuum,respectively.And the background-subtracted scattering curves of bovine serum albumin solution(10 mg/ml)in air and vacuum differ in intensity by a factor of about 2.When the q value is 2 nm−1,the signal-to-noise ratios of scattering intensity of BSA in air and vacuum are 0.79 and 8.51,respectively.Conclusion We designed a simple vacuum sample chamber to be used on the SAXS instrument at 1W2A station of BSRF.The scattering of the background and protein solution in air and vacuum was tested and compared,and the signal-to-noise ratio was clearly improved.

Effect of arteriosclerotic intracranial arterial vessel wall enhancement on downstream collateral flow

Background:The effect of arteriosclerotic intracranial arterial vessel wall enhancement(IAVWE)on downstream collateral flow found in vessel wall imaging(VWI)is not clear.Regardless of the mechanism underlying IAVWE on VWI,damage to the patient’s nervous system caused by IAVWE is likely achieved by affecting downstream cerebral blood flow.The present study aimed to investigate the effect of arteriosclerotic IAVWE on downstream collateral flow.Methods:The present study recruited 63 consecutive patients at the Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University from January 2021 to November 2021 with underlying atherosclerotic diseases and unilateral middle cerebral artery(MCA)M1-segment stenosis who underwent an magnetic resonance scan within 3 days of symptom onset.The patients were divided into 4 groups according to IAVWE and the stenosis ratio(Group 1,n=17;Group 2,n=19;Group 3,n=13;Group 4,n=14),and downstream collateral flow was analyzed using three-dimensional pseudocontinuous arterial spin labeling(3D-pCASL)and RAPID software.The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale(NIHSS)scores of the patients were also recorded.Two-factor multivariate analysis of variance using Pillai’s trace was used as the main statistical method.Results:No statistically significant difference was found in baseline demographic characteristics among the groups.IAVWE,but not the stenosis ratio,had a statistically significant significance on the late-arriving retrograde flow proportion(LARFP),hypoperfusion intensity ratio(HIR),and NIHSS scores(F=20.941,P<0.001,Pillai’s trace statistic=0.567).The between-subject effects test showed that IAVWE had a significant effect on the three dependent variables:LARFP(R^(2)=0.088,F=10.899,P=0.002),HIR(R^(2)=0.234,F=29.354,P<0.001),and NIHSS(R^(2)=114.339,F=33.338,P<0.001).Conclusions:Arteriosclerotic IAVWE significantly reduced downstream collateral flow and affected relevant neurological deficits.It was an independent factor affecting downstream collateral flow and NIHSS scores,which should be a focus of future studies.Trial Registration:ChiCTR.org.cn,ChiCTR2100053661.

Recognition of abnormal body surface characteristics of oplegnathus punctatus

To identify the abnormal characteristics of the oplegnathus punctatus is great importance to the detection of iridovirus disease in the breeding environment.In this paper,an advanced neural network model to identify the characteristics of the oplegnathus puncta-tus and predict its different periods of suffering from iridovirus disease is proposed based on the establishment of a data set.First of all,a standard format data set of oplegnathus punctatus and an abnormal format date set are established in order to verify the effective-ness of the method in this paper.And then,the feature extraction fusion method is used for preprocessing in terms of the abnormal format data set,which combines the edge fea-tures extracted by the improved multi-template Sobel operator and the color features extracted by the HSV model.Finally,an improved VGG-GoogleNet network recognition model comes into being through the fusion and improvement of the VGG and GoogleNet neural network structure.The experiments results show that the prediction accuracy rate for oplegnathus punctatus suffering from iridovirus disease in the the abnormal format data set and the standard format data set are improved,which reach 98.55%and 69.18%.