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Summary Smoking is mainly sustained by nicotine dependence (ND), which varies across ethnic groups principally due to genetic as well as environmental factors. The Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND) and biomarkers of tobacco exposure are two important approaches to assess ND. However, the relationship between ND and FTND of Chinese smokers has not been studied. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between FTND scores and nicotine, cotinine, 3′-hydroxycotinine (3HC) and nicotine metabolite ratio (NMR, the concentration ratio of 3HC to cotinine) in Chinese smokers. FTND was carried out and general characteristics were collected using a self-administered smoking questionnaire with 289 smokers. Nicotine, cotinine and 3HC in urine were simultaneously determined by liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The concentrations of nicotine, cotinine and 3HC in the urine of smokers with a high FTND score were higher than in the urine of those with a low FTND score. There were significant correlations between urinary biomarker and FTND scores. Except for FTND item 2 (difficulty to refrain), the other items showed significant associations with the urinary biomarkers. No relationship was found between the nicotine metabolite ratio (NMR, 3′-hydroxycotinine/cotinine) and FTND scores or general characteristics of the participants. In conclusion, biomarkers of tobacco exposure levels are significantly associated with FTND scores. However, FTND Item 2 and NMR were not found to be associated with nicotine dependence in Chinese smokers.

Background: Heart failure as an important issue in global public health, has brought a heavy economic burden. Traditional Chinese medicine injections (TCMIs) have significant effects on heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). However, it is difficult for clinicians to identify the differences in clinical efficacy and safety of various TCMIs. The purpose of this study is to compare the efficacy and safety of various TCMIs for treating HFrEF by conducting a Bayesian network meta-analysis (NMA) and to further provide references for clinical decision-making.Methods: The clinical randomized controlled trials of TCMIs for treating HFrEF were searched in seven database from inception to August 3rd, 2021. The Cochrane collaboration’s tool was used to assess the risk of bias. NMA was performed in a Bayesian hierarchical framework. The surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA), the multi-dimensional efficacy analysis, the comparison-adjusted funnel plot, and the node-splitting analysis were conducted using R software.Results: A total of 107 eligible RCTs involving 9,073 HFrEF patients and 6 TCMIs were included. TCMIs include Huangqi injection (HQ) also called Astragalus injection, Shenfu injection (SF), Shengmai injection (SGM), Shenmai injection (SM), Xinmailong injection (XML), and Yiqifumai lyophilized injection (YQFM). The results of NMA and SUCRA showed that with conventional treatment (CT) as a common control, in terms of clinical efficacy, CT + XML was most effective in New York Heart Association cardiac functional classification efficiency, brain natriuretic peptide, and N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide; the CT + SM was most effective in 6-min walking test, left ventricular end-diastolic diameter, left ventricular end-systolic diameter and cardiac output; the CT + YQFM was most effective in left ventricular ejection fraction; the CT + HQ was most effective in stroke volume; the CT + SF was most effective in Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire. In terms of safety, there was no significant difference between CT + TCMIs and CT.Conclusion: This Bayesian network meta-analysis results show that the combination of qualified TCMIs and CT is more effective for HFrEF patients than CT alone, and CT + XML and CT + SM may be one of the potential optimal treatments. Also, the safety of these TCMIs needs to be further observed. However, due to some limitations, the conclusions need to be verified by more large-sample, double-blind, multi-center RCTs.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emergent infectious pneumonia caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is highly contagious and pathogenic. COVID-19 has rapidly swept across the world since it was first discovered in December 2019 and has drawn significant attention worldwide. During the early stages of the outbreak in China, traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) were involved in the whole treatment process. As an indispensable part of TCM, Chinese patent medicines (CPMs) played an irreplaceable role in the prevention and treatment of this epidemic. Their use has achieved remarkable therapeutic efficacy during the period of medical observation and clinical treatment of mild, moderate, severe, and critical cases and during convalescence. In order to better propagate and make full use of the benefits of TCM in the treatment of COVID-19, this review will summarize the potential target of SARS-CoV-2 as well as the theoretical basis and clinical efficacy of recommended 22 CPMs by the National Health Commission and the Administration of TCM and local provinces or cities in the treatment of COVID-19. Additionally, the study will further analyze the drug composition, potential active ingredients, potential targets, regulated signaling pathways, and possible mechanisms for COVID-19 through anti-inflammatory and immunoregulation, antiviral, improve lung injury, antipyretic and organ protection to provide meaningful information about the clinical application of CPMs.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emergent infectious pneumonia caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is highly contagious and pathogenic. COVID-19 has rapidly swept across the world since it was first discovered in December 2019 and has drawn significant attention worldwide. During the early stages of the outbreak in China, traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) were involved in the whole treatment process. As an indispensable part of TCM, Chinese patent medicines (CPMs) played an irreplaceable role in the prevention and treatment of this epidemic. Their use has achieved remarkable therapeutic efficacy during the period of medical observation and clinical treatment of mild, moderate, severe, and critical cases and during convalescence. In order to better propagate and make full use of the benefits of TCM in the treatment of COVID-19, this review will summarize the potential target of SARS-CoV-2 as well as the theoretical basis and clinical efficacy of recommended 22 CPMs by the National Health Commission and the Administration of TCM and local provinces or cities in the treatment of COVID-19. Additionally, the study will further analyze the drug composition, potential active ingredients, potential targets, regulated signaling pathways, and possible mechanisms for COVID-19 through anti-inflammatory and immunoregulation, antiviral, improve lung injury, antipyretic and organ protection to provide meaningful information about the clinical application of CPMs.

At present, the oil-paper insulation structure is mainly composed of traditional mineral oil and cellulose insulation paper. The hots pot of future research is to select better insulation oil to improve the overall insulation life of the system. Compared with traditional mineral insulation oil, gas to liquid(GTL) oil made from base oil refined by natural gas liquefaction technology by Fischer-Tropsch(FT) method are characterized by high oxidative stability and low sulfur content. In this paper, the space charge accumulation, distribution and attenuation characteristics of oil-impregnated paper composed of GTL oil and traditional mineral oil were studied. The space trap energy level and trap density distribution of two oil-impregnated papers were obtained according to isothermal decay current(IDC) method. The experimental results show that in the voltage-on stage, traditional mineral oil-impregnated paper is more prone to charge injection and the injection speed is faster. In the voltage-off stage, the traditional mineral oil-impregnated paper attenuates the charge faster, and the GTL oil-impregnated paper has more residual charge. Moreover, the trap level of GTL oil-impregnated paper is deeper than that of traditional mineral oil-impregnated paper.

Eggs continue to be significant in terms of the world economy and human nutrition. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of foodborne pathogens in a cross section of egg production types in China and to examine the virulence features of the isolated pathogens. Three hundred eggs from three provinces were tested for Salmonella , Escherichia coli , Staphylococcus aureus , and Campylobacter . Two eggs were positive for Salmonella , one was positive for both E. coli and S. aureus , and none were positive for Campylobacter . When comparing different egg laying systems, there were no significant differences in findings between packaged and unpackaged eggs and between battery cage and cage-free eggs, but there were significant differences in the findings among pathogens and among provinces. Other potential foodborne pathogens were identified in addition to the targeted pathogens. The virulence of Serratia marcescens was higher than that of the isolated Salmonella Typhimurium, and the virulence of Staphylococcus saprophyticus was comparable to that of the isolated S. aureus . These findings are important for local risk assessments concerning possible human foodborne infections via cross-contamination of eggs.

Transformer life management has gained remarkable recognition due to its crucial role for safe operation of the power grid. Since transformer life is dominated by insulating state of its oil-paper insulation, the DP value has been traditionally regarded as the primary indicator. However, the DP sampling procedure is destructible and inconvenient. In this paper, we present an effective principal component regression method to assess the insulating state of oil-paper through indirectly estimating the degree of polymerization based on the aging characteristic parameter in oil. Thermal aging experiments were firstly conducted on palm oil and mineral oil impregnated paper, respectively. After aging experiments, aging characteristic parameters of oil were tested, including moisture, acidity, 2-furan, surface tension, dissolved gas-in-oil analysis, methanol, and ethanol. Principal component regression method was then performed to find the principal component and build a relationship between the degree of polymerization and the aging characteristic parameters of oil. After computation, the estimation of degree of polymerization value can be obtained with a high goodness of fitting, which is 0.92 and 0.78 for mineral oil and palm oil impregnated paper respectively. The estimation could be improved by data processing.

As a potential alternative to mineral oil used in transformer, palm oil is an eco-friendly choice while its aging behavior and internal aging mechanism are still unclear. Since the failure in transformer oil-paper insulation is mainly caused by heat, with the purpose of better understanding the similarities and differences of palm oil compared with mineral oil during transformer operation, oil-papers respectively made from these two oils were thermally aged for different duration and then experimentally analyzed. Through the analysis of experimental results, the following conclusions were drawn. Quite different aging mechanisms were revealed for each oil-paper insulation material. That means mineral oil had been degraded by scission of main chains followed with oxidation, whereas palm oil had been degraded by scission of ester bonds followed with loss of terminal carbonyl. The different degradation mechanisms further lead to different changes in dielectric properties during thermal aging. The electron transition energy of mineral oil is more pronounced with the increase of aging degree. Besides, palm oil has a shorter wetting time in paper, and the local damage can be repaired more easily after partial discharge. On the contrary, longer wetting time of mineral oil in paper relates to easily damaged for mineral oil-paper insulation in partial discharge. This work clearly shows that palm oil should be a good substitute for traditional mineral oil not only is it eco-friendly, but also possesses even better performance to some certain extent.

Avian pathogenic E. coli (APEC) is the etiologic agent of avian colibacillosis, the most common disease responsible for chicken morbidity in the world. Although multiple virulence-associated factors were identified, their prevalence in Algeria is still poorly known. In the present research, 92 avian pathogenic E. coli (APEC) isolates were recovered from broilers with clinical signs and lesions of colibacillosis. In addition, 32 E. coli isolates collected from feces of healthy birds (AFEC) were included for comparison. All isolates were investigated by PCR for the presence of a total of 11 virulence-associated genes described for avian pathogenic (iroN, ompT, hlyF, iss, iutA, and fimC) and diarrheagenic E. coli (eae, stx, elt/est, ipaH, and aggR). The sensitivity of 39 APEC isolates to 16 antibiotics was also determined using antimicrobial pretreated microplates. Here, we report that 98% of the examined isolates host at least one of the tested virulence factors. The most prevalent genes in APEC were iutA (90.6%), ompT (86.9%), and iss (85.8%); whereas, iutA (78.1%), fimC (78.1%), and iroN (68.7%) were the highest prevalent genes in AFEC. Our data showed that none of the AFEC isolates harbor any of the tested diarrheagenic genes. Moreover, only elt/est (5.4%), stx (2.1%), and ipaH (2.1%) genes were carried by APEC isolates. We further established that ceftazodime, ceftiofur, mequindox, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, and meropenem were the most efficient antibiotics against the analyzed APEC isolates. Overall, our findings provide more insights about APEC and AFEC virulence potential in Algeria which could participate in the fight against colibacillosis.

Rosai-Dorfman disease (RDD) is a rare idiopathic, non-neoplastic histioproliferative disease. Central nervous system (CNS) manifestations are extremely rare. In this paper, we describe a 6-year-old boy with intracranial RDD mimicking multiple meningiomas both clinically and radiologically. We reviewed the literature to understand the clinical behaviour, clinicopathological features and treatment options.A PubMed (US National Library of Medicine) search using the keywords 'Rosai-Dorfman disease' and 'central nervous system' was performed and citations were reviewed.Eighty-five cases of RDD involving the CNS have been reported until date, and only 7 cases involved children. Of the 85 cases, 16 cases mimicked multiple meningiomas. Our case is the first to involve multiple lesions in a child under 14 years old.After reviewing the literature, we concluded that RDD should be considered as a differential diagnosis for lesions mimicking multiple meningiomas, especially in children. Resection of the intracranial lesion is the most effective treatment, and a definitive diagnosis should be based on histopathologic and immunocytochemical examinations.