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With a wide range of shadows in many collected images, shadow removal has aroused increasing attention since uncontaminated images are of vital importance for many computer vision tasks. Current methods consider the same convolution operations for both shadow and non-shadow regions while ignoring the large gap between the color mappings for the shadow region and the non-shadow region, leading to poor quality of reconstructed images and a heavy computation burden. To solve this problem, this paper introduces a novel plug-and-play Shadow-Aware Dynamic Convolution (SADC) module to decouple the interdependence between the shadow region and the non-shadow region. Inspired by the fact that the color mapping of the non-shadow region is easier to learn, our SADC processes the non-shadow region with a lightweight convolution module in a computationally cheap manner and recovers the shadow region with a more complicated convolution module to ensure the quality of image reconstruction. Given that the non-shadow region often contains more background color information, we further develop a novel intra-convolution distillation loss to strengthen the information flow from the non-shadow region to the shadow region. Extensive experiments on the ISTD and SRD datasets show our method achieves better performance in shadow removal over many state-of-the-art methods. Codes have been made available at https://github.com/xuyimin0926/SADC. • We propose a plug-and-play shadow-aware dynamic convolution module to handle the shadow regions and non-shadow regions separately. • We design a specific intra-convolution distillation loss to enhance the shadow removal performance based on the non-shadow convolution results. • Extensive experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed SADC module. existing state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ginsenoside Rg 1 (GR), a major bioactive compound of traditional Chinese medicine, such as Panax ginseng or Radix Notoginseng, has been shown to exert neuroprotective effects against ischemic stroke. However, pharmacokinetic studies have suggested that GR could not be efficiently transported through the blood–brain barrier. The mechanism by which GR attenuates cerebral ischemic injury in vivo remains largely unknown. Therefore, this study explored potential neuro-protective effects of GR through its systemic metabolic regulating mechanism by using mass spectrometry–based metabolomic profiling. Rats with middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) were treated with GR intravenously. Their metabolic profiles in serum were measured by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry on 1 and 3 days after MCAO. GR exhibited a potent neuro-protective effect by significantly decreasing the neurological scores and infarct volume in the MCAO rats. Moreover, 18 differential metabolites were tentatively identified, all of which appeared to correlate well with these disease indices. Our findings suggested that GR carries a therapeutic potential in stroke possibly through a feed-back mechanism by regulating systematic metabolic mediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 95% ethanol extract and its EtOAc and n -BuOH fractions obtained from the leaves and twigs of Schefflera rubriflora C. J. Tseng & G. Hoo showed significant inhibitory activities (33.6%, 35.7% and 40.6%, respectively) against croton oil-induced ear inflammation in mice. Bioactivity-guided isolation and separation gave eight previously undescribed terpenes or terpene glycosides. Structural elucidation was based on UV, IR, and NMR spectroscopy, MS, experimental and calculated ECD data, and Mosher's method. To identify anti-inflammatory components from the extract, all the compounds were evaluated for tumor necrosis factor- α (TNF- α) and interleukine-6 (IL-6) inhibitory activities. Four undescribed compounds inhibited mRNA expression of TNF- α and IL-6 with IC 50 values of 15.3–52.4 μ M. Bioassay-guided fractionation of the 95% EtOH extract from Schefflera rubriflora led to the isolation and characterization of eight previously undescribed terpenes or terpene glycosides. Four of these compounds inhibited the mRNA expression of TNF- α and IL-6. Image 1 • Schefflera rubriflora twigs and leaves were extracted with EtOH and fractionated. • Eight previously undescribed terpenes or terpene glycosides were isolated. • Three of them are featured by dihydrophaseyl groups linked to phenolic glycosides. • Two of them were elucidated by modified Mosher's method. • Four terpenes or terpene glycosides exhibited TNF- α and IL-6 inhibitory activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Two water-soluble polysaccharides, BSP-1 and BSP-2, were extracted and purified from the tuber of Bletilla striata. The molecular weights of BSP-1 and BSP-2 were 83.54 kDa and 12.60 kDa, respectively. The composition and proportion of BSP-1 and BSP-2 were mannose and glucose in molar ratios of 4.0:1.0 and 3.0:1.0 respectively. The two polysaccharides had a linear backbone, consisting mainly of repeating β‑1,4‑linked d ‑mannosyl residues and β‑1,4‑linked d ‑glucosyl residues. BSP-1 exhibited immunomodulatory effects by increasing the thymus and spleen indices of immunocompromised model mice. Highlights • Two polysaccharides were isolated from the tuber of Bletilla striata. • The molecular weights of BSP-1, BSP-2 were 83.54 kDa, 12.60 kDa respectively. • The backbone consisted of 1,4‑linked mannosyl and 1,4‑linked glucosyl residues. • BSP-1 was shown to have immunomodulatory effects in vivo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three new diterpenoids ( 1 – 3 ) and three new esterifying lignans ( 4 – 6 ) were isolated from the leaves of Tripterygium wilfordii . The structures of these compounds were elucidated on the basis of spectroscopic techniques (UV, IR, NMR, HRESIMS, and ECD method). At 10 μmol/L, compounds 4 – 6 showed moderate inhibitory effects on nitric oxide production in LPS-induced macrophages with inhibitory rate >80%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL), a key effector cell in aplastic anemia (AA) immune injury, is shown to be a potential target for AA drug therapy. However, there is no candidate for this target till now. Oriented by the inhibition activity of CTL and macrophage derived nitric oxide (NO), a series of novel sinomenine derivatives on rings A and C are designed, synthesized and screened. Among them, compound 3a demonstrates the best inhibitory activity on CTL with an IC 50 value of 2.3 μM, and a 97.1% inhibiton rate on macrophage NO production without significant cytotoxicity. Further, compound 3a exhibits substantial therapeutic efficacy on immune-mediated BM failure in AA model mice by improving the symptoms of anemia and the function of BM hematopoiesis, and shows more advantages in life quality improving than cyclosporine A (CsA). Its efficacy on AA at least partly comes from targeting on activated cluster of differentiation (CD)8+ T cell. Additionally, 3a also shows much less toxicity (LD 50 > 10.0 g/kg) than sinomenine (LD 50 = 1.1 g/kg) in preliminary acute toxicity assessment in mice, and has a low risk to inhibit hERG to cause cardiotoxicity. These results indicate that compound 3a merits further investigation for AA treatment by targeting on CTL. [Display omitted] • A series of novel sinomenine derivatives are designed and synthesized. • 3a shows the best in vitro inhibitory activity. • 3a shows substantial therapeutic efficacy on mice model of aplastic anemia. • The efficacy of 3a at least partly comes from targeting on activated CD8+ T cell. • 3a shows good safety in vivo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seven previously unidentified polycyclic polyprenylated acylphloroglucinol (PPAP) derivatives hypseudohenrins A–G, along with six known analogs, were isolated from the aerial portion of Hypericum pseudohenryi. Their structures were determined by NMR, ECD and X-ray crystallographic spectroscopy. These compounds were screened for anti-inflammatory activity, and hypseudohenrins B and G (at the concentration of 10 μM) showed NO production inhibition ratios of 52.56% and 54.01%, respectively, which imply good anti-inflammatory activity. In particular, uraloidin A exhibited an NO inhibition ratio of 90.61%, while that ratio of the positive control compound dexamethasone was 94.88%. Additionally, anti-cancer and neural-protective activities were screened, but none of these compounds showed desirable activity. [Display omitted] • Seven new polycyclic polyprenylated acylphloroglucinol derivatives, hypseudohenrins A–G, were isolated. • Hypseudohenrins A and B bore a 6/6/5/6 ring system, their biosynthetic precursors were also obtained. • The biosynthetic pathways of hypseudohenrins A–E were proposed. • Hypseudohenrins F and G were a pair of epimers, and hypseudohenrin F was obtained as colorless crystal. • The absolute configurations of all new compounds were identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]