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Chronic inflammation is a significant contributor to the development of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and other illnesses. In the academic field, there is a constant demand for effective methods to alleviate inflammation. Astragalin (AST), a type of flavonoid glycoside that is the primary component in several widely used traditional Chinese anti-inflammatory medications in clinical practice, has garnered attention from numerous experts and scholars. This article focuses on the anti-inflammatory effects of AST and conducts research on relevant literature from 2003 to 2023. The findings indicate that AST demonstrates promising anti-inflammatory potential in various models of inflammatory diseases. Specifically, AST is believed to possess inhibitory effects on inflammation-related factors and protein levels in various in vitro cell models, such as macrophages, microglia, and epithelial cells. In vivo studies have shown that AST effectively alleviates neuroinflammation and brain damage while also exhibiting potential for treating moderate diseases such as depression and stroke; it also demonstrates significant anti-inflammatory effects on both large and small intestinal epithelial cells. Animal experiments have further demonstrated that AST exerts therapeutic effects on colitis mice. Molecular biology studies have revealed that AST regulates complex signaling networks, including NF-κB, MAPK, JAK/STAT pathways, etc. In conclusion, this review will provide insights and references for the development of AST as an anti-inflammatory agent as well as for related drug development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tunnel stability is mainly concerned with the object of symmetric tunnels, shallow buried unsymmetric(SBU) tunnels should also be emphasized as the focus of the computational analysis of tunnel engineering. It is especially important to solve the expressions of ultimate support force and damage surface function for SBU tunnels. In this paper, considering the effect of unsymmetrical action, based on the Hoke-Brown(H-B) damage criterion, the optimal upper bound(UB) solution expression is derived by using the limit analysis method. The expression can be used to express the support force and collapse pattern of a SBU rectangular tunnel. The results show that q1 and q2 decrease with the increase of parameters A and σc, and increase with the increase of parameters B, γ, and h. q1 increases with the increase of α, and vice versa for q2. The range of damage surface decreases with increasing parameter A, σc and increases with increasing parameter B, γ, d, h. After the feasibility study and results analysis, it is concluded that the results obtained in this study are consistent with common engineering knowledge. The training results using Feedforward neural network verify the feasibility of the method for SBU tunnels and can be generalized for shallow buried(SB) symmetrical tunnels. The proposed method can provide a theoretical basis for the support design of SBU tunnels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanolasers are the essential components of modern photonic chips due to their low power consumption, high energy efficiency and fast modulation. As nanotechnology has advanced, researchers have proposed a number of nanolasers operating at both wavelength and sub-wavelength scales for application as light sources in photonic chips. Despite the advances in chip technology, the quality of the optical cavity, the operating threshold and the mode of operation of the light source still limit its advanced development. Ensuring high-performance laser operation has become a challenge as device size has been significantly reduced. A potential solution to this problem is the emergence of a novel optical confinement mechanism using photonic topological insulator lasers. In addition, gain media materials with perovskite-like properties have shown great potential for lasers, a role that many other gain materials cannot fulfil. When combined with topological laser modes, perovskite materials offer new possibilities for the operation and emission mechanism of nanolasers. This study introduces the operating mechanism of topological lasers and the optical properties of perovskite materials. It then outlines the key features of their combination and discusses the principles, structures, applications and prospects of perovskite topological lasers, including the scientific hurdles they face. Finally, the future development of low-dimensional perovskite topological lasers is explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is a dearth of research or inconsistency in findings of behaviours among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and children with intellectual disability (ID) as well as children who are typically developing (TD). This study compared 7 behavioural domains of 96 behaviours among Chinese children. Method: There were 803 children, including 426 children with low-functioning ASD (LFASD), 193 children with high-functioning ASD (HFASD), 128 children with ID, and 56 TD children. Ages ranged from 36 to 84 months. Each individual was administered the Chinese Autism Diagnostic Scale by a group of Chinese professionals. Results: All 7 domains were found to be more impaired for the children with ASD than the other groups. Three domains contained the most distinctive behaviours: Play behaviours, Social-Interactive behaviours, and Receptive Language behaviours. The Expressive Language domain was different for the LFASD group versus the group with ID. Conclusion: Children with ASD differed from children without ASD by several specific behaviours. These behaviours also differentiated performances by the children with HFASD and LFASD.

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs), heavily used as flame retardant in plastics, are harmful to environment and human health. It is of great importance for method development to determine PBDEs and PBBs in plastics. A review of developments on the analysis of PBDEs and PBBs in plastics is presented in this paper. The analytical procedures including sample pretreatment, extraction, clean-up/fractionation, and detection are carefully discussed. The drawbacks and merits of each method are summarized. The aim of this review is to improve the analytical accuracy, and precision for the determination of PBDEs and PBBs in plastics on the basis of the published papers.