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Introduction Myocardial infarction (MI) is the most dangerous complication in patients with coronary heart disease. In China, there is an increasing number of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for treating MI. However, the inconsistency of outcome reporting means that a large number of clinical trials cannot be included in systematic reviews to provide the best evidence for clinical practice. The aim of this study is to develop a core outcome set (COS) for future TCM clinical trials of MI, which may improve the consistency of outcome reporting and facilitate the synthesis of data across studies in systematic reviews. Methods and analysis We will conduct a systematic review of MI clinical trials with any intervention. Semistructured interviews will be conducted to obtain the perspectives of patients with MI. The outcomes from the systematic review and semistructured interviews will be grouped and used to develop a questionnaire. The questionnaire will be developed as a supplement for the TCM syndromes of MI and will be constructed from the results of a systematic review, existing medical records and a cross-sectional study. Then two rounds of the Delphi survey will be conducted with different stakeholders (TCM experts and Western medicine experts in cardiovascular disease, methodologists, magazine editors and patients) to determine the importance of the outcomes. Only the TCM experts will need to response to the questionnaire for core TCM syndromes. A face-to- face consensus meeting will be conducted to create a final COS and recommend measurement time for each outcome. Ethics and dissemination This project has been approved by the Ethics Committee of Dongzhimen Hospital, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. The final COS will be published and freely available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tree peony is a perennial deciduous shrub with great ornamental and medicinal value. A limitation of its current functional genomic research is the lack of effective molecular genetic tools. Here, the first application of a Tobacco rattle virus (TRV)-based virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) in the tree peony species Paeonia ostii is presented. Two different approaches, leaf syringe-infiltration and seedling vacuum-infiltration, were utilized for Agrobacterium-mediated inoculation. The vacuum-infiltration was shown to result in a more complete Agrobacterium penetration than syringe-infiltration, and thereby determined as an appropriate inoculation method. The silencing of reporter gene PoPDS encoding phytoene desaturase was achieved in TRV-PoPDS-infected triennial tree peony plantlets, with a typical photobleaching phenotype shown in uppermost newly-sprouted leaves. The endogenous PoPDS transcripts were remarkably down-regulated in VIGS photobleached leaves. Moreover, the green fluorescent protein (GFP) fluorescence was detected in leaves and roots of plants inoculated with TRV-GFP, suggesting the capability of TRV to silence genes in various tissues. Taken together, the data demonstrated that the TRV-based VIGS technique could be adapted for high-throughput functional characterization of genes in tree peony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Chinese patent medicine Tongxinluo capsule (TXL) is commonly used for cardio-cerebrovascular diseases. Previous research had demonstrated that TXL exhibited great clinical effects on the treatment of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), however there is a lack of systematic review. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential effectiveness and safety of TXL for secondary prevention in patients with AMI. Method: We searched 6 databases to identify relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from inceptions to December 30, 2017. Two review authors independently assessed the methodological quality and analyzed data by the RevMan 5.3 software. The publication bias was assessed through funnel plot and Begg's test. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach was used for evaluating the quality of evidence. Results: We included 19 RCTs in this review and performed a meta-analysis based on 16 studies. There were statistical differences of TXL treatment group in reducing primary cardiovascular events (cardiac death [RR = 0.27, 95%CI: 0.08~0.95, I² = 0%], recurrent myocardial reinfarction [RR = 0.38, 95%CI: 0.20~0.74, I² = 0%], arrhythmia [RR = 0.44, 95%CI: 0.30~0.66, I² = 0%], recurrent angina pectoris [RR = 0.34, 95%CI: 0.17~0.69, I² = 0%]). TXL could improve cardiac function (LVEF [MD = 4.10, 95%CI: 3.95~4.25, I² = 0%]), regulate blood lipid TC [MD = -0.66, 95%CI: -0.94 ~ -0.37, I² = 74%], TG [MD = -0.38, 95%CI: -0.62 ~ -0.14, I² = 70%], LDL-C[-0.40, 95%CI: -0.65 ~ -0.16, I² = 88%), decrease the level of hs-CRP (4-week: MD = -0.78, 95%CI: -0.97 ~ -0.60, I² = 20%; Over 4- week: MD = -1.36, 95%CI: -1.55 ~ -1.17, I² = 20%). However, TXL has little effects on revascularization [RR = 0.45, 95%CI: 0.13~1.56, I² = 0%], recurrent heart failure (RR = 0.83, 95%CI: 0.27~2.57, I² = 0%), and HDL-C (MD = 0.14, 95%CI: 0.00 ~0.29, I² = 73%). Furthermore, TXL treatment group was more prone to suffer gastrointestinal discomfort. Conclusion: Chinese patent medicine TXL seemed beneficial for secondary prevention after AMI. This potential benefit needs to be further assessed through more rigorous RCTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buried depth of grounding grids is one of the important factors to determine the grounding performance in substations, however, the real buried depth of grounding grids is changed and unknown due to the drawing loss and backfill during the reconstruction of the grounding grids. This paper proposes a derivative-based method to detect the buried depth of different metal conductors. First, the theoretical basis for the derivative-based method to detect the buried depth is described, and an example calculation on buried depth detection according to the magnetic derivation characteristic is carried out for a single conductor case. The results indicate that the main-side-peaks characteristic of the derivative method can determine the buried depth of metal conductor effectively. Then, the analysis of grounding grids is carried out to verify its validation in grounding grid buried depth detection, and results indicate that the method is effective in the cases of magnetic field superimposing, different buried depths of grounding grid, and nonuniform distribution of current in grounding grid. Finally, the experimental results prove that the derivative method works well with low error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topology and breakpoints of the grounding grid will directly affect its working performance. This paper proposed a resistivity reconstruction method based on magnetic detection electrical impedance tomography (MDEIT) to measure the topology and breakpoints of the grounding grid. First, this paper describes the forward problem of grounding grid detection in MDEIT, and calculates the magnetic-field distribution above the grounding grid. Then, the resistivity reconstruction method based on the least squares method is proposed. Finally, this paper verifies the feasibility of the proposed method by a numerical example, which shows that the proposed method can be applied to measure the topology and breakpoints of the grounding grid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptive control algorithm is a key technique for an adaptive array. It is necessary to find a fast and efficient algorithm for gaining rapid interference suppression. Convergence speed of conventional gradient-based algorithms is extremely slow and very sensitive to eigenvalue spread of autocorrelation matrix. This paper presents the Kalman filtering method to adaptive array processing. It has good transient response and achieves faster convergence speed, so it is most suitable for complicated adaptive systems. We analyzed its convergence performance which proved to be related to initial value for P(0). Computer simulation by applying four elements array to null steering was carried out. It is shown that fast convergence needs only 2 M numbers of iteration. The less the value was selected for P(0), the slower convergence was found. Further, if P(0) were too small, the method would not be able to converge. On the other hand, bigger values of P(0) can not achieve more improvement in convergence performance. Simulation also discovered steady response denoted with SNIR dependent on the power of reference signal. These results demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the Kalman type adaptive antenna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]