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We calculated the group velocity of light in internal conical refraction in a biaxial crystal as a function of the direction of the electric displacement vector, or the vibration direction, of its carrier wave. Our method represents group velocity through the electromagnetic fields of light, rather than its wave normal or ray direction. The travel time of a light pulse traversing a parallel plate biaxial crystal in internal conical refraction is found to vary as a sinusoidal function of twice the vibration angle of the light wave. Our method distinguishes the four directions of the two optic axes in monoclinic and triclinic crystals. Numerical examples are given for KNbO3 at the wavelength of 400 nm, and for Sn2P2S6 at the wavelength of 550 nm.

The utilization of powdery semi-coke as a power fuel in pulverized coal-fired power plants has become a new and potential technique to consume the excess powdery semi-coke. The characteristic of low volatile results in poor combustion performance and high NOx emission, and to co-fire with bituminous coal is a practical strategy to address this problem. However, the co-combustion characteristics and the inherent interaction between semi-coke and coal remain insufficiently understood. In addition, the influences of secondary air arrangement, the boiler operation load, and the fuel type on co-combustion process are still unclear, which is urgent to be further explored. In the present study, experiments and numerical simulations were jointly utilized to inquire into the co-combustion behaviors and NOx emission features of semi-coke and coal. The results demonstrated that the “out-furnace method” was a suitable choice for small-capacity boiler when the proportion of semi-coke was 33%, due to the limited combinations of the semi-coke injection position. It was recommended that semi-coke was preferred to be injected from the middle layers of the furnace under the “in-furnace method” to improve the overall co-combustion performance. The critical value of the separated over fire air ratio in this study was 27.5%, over which a slight drop of carbon content in fly ash could come about. Moreover, the elevation in the proportion of separated over fire air gave rise to the significant decline of NOx concentration. The constricted secondary air arrangement was preferred to be employed due to the high boiler efficiency. The separated over fire air and the surrounding air needed to maintain a wide-open degree to prevent the increase of NOx emissions and the coking of nozzles. For the load reduction regulation method adopted in this study, the NOx concentration first rose and then dropped, while the burnout ratio decreased obviously as the operation load was reduced. Different combinations of coal and semi-coke generated significant influences on co-combustion behaviors within the furnace. The NOx generated by high-volatile fuel (bituminous coal) combustion was mainly affected by volatile-N, while the NOx generated by low-volatile fuel (semi-coke) was mainly impacted by char-N. This study is of guiding significance for the efficient and clean utilization and beneficial to the large-scale application of powder semi-coke in power plants.

Semi-coke briquette used in stoves could reduce the primary PM2.5 emission and lower the material cost advantages. While the manufacturing cost of semi-coke briquette is relatively high due to the ...

Co-combustion of semicoke and coal under oxy-fuel conditions is a promising approach for the utilization of semicoke with a low volatile fraction. The devolatilization and gasification of fuels at ...

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has evolved over several thousands of years, which has been shown to be efficacious in the treatment of ischemic heart disease. Three classical TCM prescriptions, namely Xuefu Zhuyu Decoction, Zhishi Xiebai Guizhi Decoction, and Gualou Xiebai Banxia Decoction, have been extensively used in the treatment of coronary heart disease (CHD). Based on molecular network modeling, we performed a comparative pharmacogenomic analysis to systematically determine the drug-targeting spectrum of the three prescriptions at molecular level. Wide-area target molecules of CHD were covered, which was a common feature of the three decoctions, demonstrating their therapeutic functions. Meanwhile, collective signaling involved metabolic/pro-metabolic pathways, driving and transferring pathways, neuropsychiatric pathways, and exocrine or endocrine pathways. These organized pharmacological disturbance was mainly focused on almost all stages of CHD intervention, such as anti-atherosclerosis, lipid metabolism, inflammation, vascular wall function, foam cells formation, platelets aggregation, thrombosis, arrhythmia, and ischemia-reperfusion injury. In addition, heterogeneity analysis of the global pharmacological molecular spectrum revealed that signaling crosstalk, cascade convergence, and key targets were tendentious among the three decoctions. After all, it is unadvisable to rank the findings on targeting advantages of the three decoctions. Comparative pharmacological evidence may provide an appropriate decoction scheme for individualized intervention of CHD.

Combination therapy with increased efficacy and reduced toxicity plays a crucial role in treating complex diseases, such as stroke, but it remains an insurmountable barrier to elucidate the mechanisms of synergistic effects. Here, we present a Driver-induced Modular Screening (DiMS) strategy integrated synergistic module and driver gene identification to elucidate the additive mechanisms of Baicalin (BA) and Jasminoidin (JA) on cerebral ischemia (CI) therapy. Based on anti-ischemia genomic networks BA, JA, and their combination (BJ), we obtained 4, 3, and 9 On-modules of BA, JA, and BJ by modular similarity analysis. Compared with the monotherapy groups, four additive modules (Add-module, BJ_Mod-4, 7, 9, and 13), 15 driver genes of BJ were identified by modular similarity and network control methods, and seven driver proteins (PAQR8, RhoA, EMC10, GGA2, VIPR1, FAM120A, and SEMA3F) were validated by animal experiments. The functional analysis found neuroprotective roles of the Add-modules and driver genes, such as the Neurotrophin signaling pathway and FoxO signaling pathway, which may reflect the additive mechanisms of BJ. Moreover, such a DiMS paradigm provides a new angle to explore the synergistic mechanisms of combination therapy and screen multi-targeted drugs for complex diseases.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global pandemic and there is an urgent need to discover the therapy for COVID-19. In our original article, we first obtained the target proteins of acupuncture and related target genes of COVID-19 by searching English and Chinese databases, then Gene Ontology biological processes and enrichment analysis were performed on the overlapping targets of acupuncture with COVID-19. Moreover, the compound-target and compound-disease-target network was constructed. This is an innovative attempt to predict the potential benefits of acupuncture treatment for COVID-19. In this letter, we answered reader Zheng's comments.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can induce multiple inflammations. The biofilm formed by MRSA is resistant to a variety of antibiotics and is extremely difficult to cure, which seriously threatens human health. Herein, w e report a nanoparticle encapsulating berberine with polypyrrole core and pH sensitive shell to provide chemo-photothermal dual therapy for MRSA infection. By integrating photothermal agent polypyrrole (PPy), berberine, acid-degradable crosslinker and acid-induced charge reversal polymer, the nanoparticle exhibited highly efficient MRSA infection treatment. In normal uninfected area and bloodstream, nanoparticles showed negatively charged, demonstrating high biocompatibility and excellent hemocompatibility. However, once arriving the MRSA infection site, the nanoparticle could penetrate and accumulate in the biofilm within 2 h. Simultaneously, berberine could be released into biofilm rapidly. Under the combined effect of photothermal response and berberine inhibition, 88.7% of the biofilm w ere removed at 1000 µg/mL. Moreover, the nanoparticles have excellent inhibitory effect on biofilm formation, the biofilm inhibition capacity could reach up to 90.3%. Taken together, this pH tunable nanoparticle could be employed as new generation treatment strategy to fight against the fast-growing MRSA infection. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

In China, Xiyanping (XYP) has been widely used in combination with Ribavirin (RB) for the treatment of infectious diseases. It has been found that this combination may change the severity of XYP-associated adverse events (AEs).To provide a comprehensive review about the clinal features of AEs of XYP-RB combination from randomized controlled trials, cohort studies, case-control studies, case reports, case series, and data from the National Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring Information System (NADRMIS).Seven electronic databases were searched in March 2021. Articles on AEs associated with XYP published from January 2004 to December 2020 in the NADRMIS were included. Data on the incidence of AEs, distribution of AEs, occurrence time of AEs, type and possible signal of AEs, primary diseases, allergic history, family history of allergies, dosage, and combination interval were extracted.We included 228 cases of AEs with XYP-RB combination (63 cases from randomized controlled trials, 1 from a cohort study, and 164 from the NADRMIS). The most common primary disease was hand-foot-and-mouth disease. The main age distribution was 0-6 years (118 cases, 72%) and 8 cases (6.8%) experienced serious AEs. The combination group showed a significant reduction than the RB group in the incidence of AEs in those with hand-foot-and-mouth disease (risk ratio = 0.54, 95% confidence interval = 0.38-0.78, P = 0.0008) and children with viral pneumonia (risk ratio = 0.36, 95% confidence interval = 0.14-0.95, P = 0.04). Allergic history and infusion interval were not described in the randomized controlled trials. AEs were reported in 57.9% of cases in the first combination (XYP-RB were combined for the first time) (NADRMIS), 56.4% of which were skin and appendage reactions, and the risk signal of skin and appendage reactions was a maximum (Information Component = 6.21).The major AE associated with XYP-RB combination was skin and appendage reactions. Most of the combination AEs were pseudo-allergic reactions. These findings suggest that we should increase awareness about the safety of XYP-RB combination treatment and standardize medication protocol, especially for children. Unless absolutely necessary, children should avoid combination therapy. More rigorous high-quality studies are needed to obtain more evidence.

Aims: To identify a minimum set of efficacy and adverse events for patients with acute heart failure (AHF) among different stakeholders in clinical trials of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine.Methods and Analysis: First, we will develop a preliminary long list of outcomes that includes efficacy and adverse events/reactions via three steps: (i) systematic reviews of efficacy and safety outcomes for clinical trials of AHF; (ii) drugs included in the National Medical Insurance Catalog, the National Essential Medicines Catalog, and the WHO Essential Medicines List will be collected and safety outcomes extracted from the package inserts; and (iii) patients' or caregivers' semi-structured interviews will be carried out to add new viewpoints to the list. Second, after merging outcomes and grouping them under different outcome domains, questionnaires for health professionals and patients will be separately developed. Further, two rounds of Delphi survey for health professionals and a survey for patients and the public will be carried out. Third, different stakeholders will discuss and determine the final core outcome set (COS) for AHF in a consensus meeting.Ethics and Dissemination: The entire project has been approved by the Ethics Committee of the main institution. After the final COS is developed, it will be published and discussed widely in conferences.Clinical Trial Registration: This study is registered with the Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials database as study 1566 (available at: https://www.cometinitiative.org/Studies/Details/1566).

Nitrogen oxides (NOx) as the principal air pollutants are mainly from the combustion of fossil fuels. Oxy-fuel combustion is a promising clean coal technology, by which carbon dioxide (CO2) can be captured in large-scale and NOx emission can be reduced significantly. The formation of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in oxy-fuel combustion exceeds that under traditional air condition. However, the specific studies on NO2 chemistry under oxy-fuel condition are still insufficient and the functional mechanisms of minerals and combustion atmosphere on NO2 reduction have yet to be fully understood. The objective of present study is to experimentally clarify the effects of combustion atmosphere and coal char on NO2 reduction in oxy-fuel combustion using a fixed-bed reactor. Experimental results showed that the decomposition of NO2 had a strong temperature dependence and the NO2 reduction rate showed a positive variation with temperature. The strength of catalytic activity in NO2 reduction to nitric oxide (NO) was Fe2O3 > MgO > CaO > Al2O3 > Na2CO3 > K2CO3 > SiO2. In addition, the increased concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) and CO2 could promote the reduction of NO2, while the low content of CO2 only established a slight impact on NO2 reduction. However, the increase of oxygen (O2) concentration displayed an inhibition effect on NO2 reduction to a certain extent. The variation of atmosphere in oxy-fuel combustion generated a substantial influence on the creation and reduction of NO2. The char prepared in lower temperature exhibited a higher promotion effect on the consumption of NO2. Higher contents of fixed carbon and basic oxides had more obvious stimulation effects on NO2 reduction. Fixed carbon had a superior activity in NO2 reduction than ash. The kinetic analysis indicated that high content of CO and the presence of char could reduce the apparent activation energy of NO2 reduction. The present study can be helpful to improve the understanding of NO2 chemistry in oxy-fuel combustion.

Experimental studies were conducted by thermogravimetric analyzer and drop tube furnace to clarify the co-combustion and NO formation characteristics of semi-coke and bituminous coal. The same experiments were carried out on the blend of anthracite and bituminous coal for comparison. Results indicated that the ignition and burnout temperatures of the blends decreased as the blending ratio of bituminous coal increased, and there existed significant interaction between semi-coke (or anthracite) and bituminous coal. The ignition index C and comprehensive combustion index S presented negative correlations with fuel ratio, and the relationships of C = 6.31–0.35FR and S = 3.87–0.26FR can be used to estimate the co-combustion characteristics of bituminous coal and semi-coke (or anthracite). The addition of bituminous coal gave rise to two competitive effects on semi-coke burnout and NO formation. When the bituminous coal accounted for 80%, the promotion on burnout was superior and the inhibition on NO formation was significant. Fuel ratio, rather than nitrogen content played more important role in the NO formation, and relationship of XNO = 40.96–4.24 N + 1.60FR was established to predict the NO formation during co-combustion of binary coal-based fuels. Besides, semi-coke had better combustion behavior and lower NO conversion ratio compared to anthracite, which mainly resulted from the more porous structure in semi-coke.

The potential biological relationship between type‐2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has been focused in numerous studies. To investigate the molecular associations among T2DM, prostate cancer (PCa), and chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), using a biomolecular network enrichment analysis. We obtained a list of disease‐related genes and constructed disease networks. Then, GO enrichment analysis was performed to identify the significant functions and pathways of overlapping modules in the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery (DAVID) database. More than 75% of these overlapping genes were found to be consistent with the findings of previous studies. In the three diseases, we found that Sarcoglycan delta (SGCD) and Rho family GTPase 3 (RND3) were the overlapping genes and identified negative regulation of apoptotic process and negative regulation of transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter RNA as the two overlapping biological functions. CML and PCa were the most closely related, with 34 overlapping genes, five overlapping modules, 27 overlapping biological functions, and nine overlapping pathways. There were 13 overlapping genes, one overlapping modules, four overlapping biological functions and one overlapping pathway (FoxO signaling pathway) were found in T2DM and CML.And T2DM and PCa were the least related pair in our study, with only six overlapping genes, five overlapping modules, and one overlapping biological function. SGCD and RND3 were the main gene‐to‐gene relationship among T2DM, CML, and PCa; apoptosis, development, and transcription from RNA polymerase II promote processes were the main functional connections among T2DM, CML, and PCa by network enrichment analysis. There is a “scalene” relationship among T2DM, CML, and PCa at gene, pathway, biological process, and module levels: CML and PCa were the most closely related, the second were T2DM and PCa, and T2DM and PCa were the least related pair in our study. Our study provides a new avenue for further studies on T2DM and cancers, which may promote the discovery and development of novel therapeutic and can be used to treat multiple diseases.

Co-firing semicoke and coal in utility boilers is a promising approach to cleanly and efficiently utilize semicoke, while the co-combustion characteristics have yet to be fully understood, includin...

We have proved that compared to phase velocity and ray velocity surfaces, the group velocity surface of a monoclinic crystal has a reduced symmetry, due to the loss of the two mirror planes that contain the crystallographic b axis. We have derived a formula for calculation of the group velocity of the extraordinary light traveling in a principal plane of a biaxial crystal, which takes into account the rotation of the dielectric frame due to frequency dispersion. The maximum asymmetry of the group velocity of light traveling in the a − c plane is found to be 2.4% at 365 nm in B i B 3 O 6 and 1.4% at 550 nm in S n 2 P 2 S 6 .

We theoretically prove that the group velocity of a light pulse traveling in an optic ray axis direction of a biaxial crystal depends on the polarization state of the light. Our calculation shows that the group index varies as a sinusoidal function of twice the polarization angle of the light pulse. For monoclinic and triclinic crystals, in general the four directions of the two optic ray axes need to be distinguished. Numerical examples show that in KNbO3 the group velocity varies by 2.7% at 400 nm wavelength, and in Sn2P2S6 it varies by 3.9% at 550 nm wavelength, when the polarization state of the light is changing.

Acupuncture is an important part of Chinese medicine that has been widely used in the treatment of inflammatory diseases. During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, acupuncture has been used as a complementary treatment for COVID-19 in China. However, the underlying mechanism of acupuncture treatment of COVID-19 remains unclear. Based on bioinformatics/topology, this paper systematically revealed the multi-target mechanisms of acupuncture therapy for COVID-19 through text mining, bioinformatics, network topology, etc. Two active compounds produced after acupuncture and 180 protein targets were identified. A total of 522 Gene Ontology terms related to acupuncture for COVID-19 were identified, and 61 pathways were screened based on the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes. Our findings suggested that acupuncture treatment of COVID-19 was associated with suppression of inflammatory stress, improving immunity and regulating nervous system function, including activation of neuroactive ligand–receptor interaction, calcium signaling pathway, cancer pathway, viral carcinogenesis, Staphylococcus aureus infection, etc. The study also found that acupuncture may have additional benefits for COVID-19 patients with cancer, cardiovascular disease and obesity. Our study revealed for the first time the multiple synergistic mechanisms of acupuncture on COVID-19. Acupuncture may play an active role in the treatment of COVID-19 and deserves further promotion and application. These results may help to solve this pressing problem currently facing the world.

Currently, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which can lead to severe respiratory failure and death, is now a global pandemic with no specific anti-viral drugs or vaccines. However, It is worth noting that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), especially Chinese herbal medicine (CHM), has been widely applied in mainland China since outbreak, bringing new hope for the prevention and control of COVID-19. A comprehensive literature searching was conducted in 7 electronic databases from their inception up to June 21, 2020 to evaluate the efficacy and safety of CHM for COVID-19. Eighteen randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving 2275 patients were enrolled. Most of CHMs were originated from classical Chinese herbal formulas. Liquoric Root (Gancao, Radix Glycyrrhizae), Baical Skullcap Root (Huangqin, Radix Scutellariae Baicalensis), Pinellia Rhizome (Banxia, Rhizoma Pinelliae Tematae), Forsythia Fruit (Lianqiao, Fructus Forsythiae Suspensae), and Bitter Apricot Seed (Kuxingren, Semen Armeniacae Amarum) were most frequently used Chinese herbs. The most commonly used dosage formulation was decoction. Our meta-analyses found that comparing CHM group and conventional western medicine group, CHM group has improvements in several clinical parameters including lung CT, clinical cure rate, ranging from mild to critical cases, length of hospital stay, total score of clinical symptoms, fever reduction time, symptom score of fever, number of cough reduction cases, symptom score of cough, number of fatigue reduction cases, symptom score of fatigue, disappearing time of fatigue, TCM syndrome, viral nucleic acid testing, and inflammatory biomarkers (C-reactive protein). Besides, no severe adverse effects was identified by CHM. CHM, especially classical Chinese herbal formulas, could be used as potential candidates for COVID-19 in this battle.

Aim The variable mechanisms on additive and synergistic effects of jasminoidin (JA)-Baicalin (BA) combination and JA-ursodeoxycholic acid (UA) combination in treating cerebral ischemia are not completely understood. In this study, we explored the differential pure mechanisms of additive and synergistic effects based on pathway analysis that excluded ineffective interference. Methods The MCAO mice were divided into eight groups: sham, vehicle, BA, JA, UA, Concha Margaritifera (CM), BA-JA combination (BJ), and JA-UA combination (JU). The additive and synergistic effects of combination groups were identified by cerebral infarct volume calculation. The differentially expressed genes based on a microarray chip containing 16,463 oligoclones were uploaded to GeneGo MetaCore software for pathway analyses and function catalogue. The comparison of specific pathways and functions crosstalk between different groups were analyzed to reveal the underlying additive and synergistic pharmacological variations. Results Additive BJ and synergistic JU were more effective than monotherapies of BA, JA, and UA, while CM was ineffective. Compared with monotherapies, 43 pathways and six functions were found uniquely in BJ group, with 33 pathways and three functions in JU group. We found six overlapping pathways and six overlapping functions between BJ and JU groups, which mainly involved central nervous system development. Thirty-seven specific pathways and 10 functions were activated by additive BJ, which were mainly related to cell adhesion and G-protein signaling; and 27 specific pathways and three functions of synergistic JU were associated with regulation of metabolism, DNA damage, and translation. The overlapping and distinct pathways and functions may contribute to different additive and synergistic effects. Conclusion The divergence pathways of pure additive effect of BJ were mainly related to cell adhesion and G-protein signaling, while the pure synergistic mechanism of JU depended on metabolism, translation and DNA damage. Such a systematic analysis of pathways may provide an important paradigm to reveal the pharmacological mechanisms underlying drug combinations.

Oxy-fuel combustion of high-alkali coal is beneficial for near-zero emission of pollutants in power plants and has the potential for extensive, efficient, and safe utilization of Zhundong coal in future. The present work was performed on oxy-fuel combustion of Zhundong coal, while the effects of silicoaluminate oxide and coal blending on oxy-fuel combustion characteristics and kinetics of high-alkali coal were further studied using thermogravimetric analysis. The thermogravimetric curves of Zhundong coals present two obvious stages but the contrastive coals are different. The increase in oxygen content weakens the impact of coal property on oxy-fuel combustion behavior of high-alkali coal. The addition of Al2O3 and kaolin results in a slight decline of the peak combustion rate, while the influences of SiO2 and diatomite additives are negligible. The additive fraction of silicoaluminate oxide gives rise to a non-monotonic impact on combustion characteristics of Zhundong coal. The interaction effect within blended coal could cause a reduction in reaction rate during the intense combustion stage, while its influence on kinetics is intensified during the later stage of oxy-fuel combustion. The impact extent of silicoaluminate oxide and coal blending on oxy-fuel combustion kinetics of high-alkali coal is highly associated with additive species and individual coals.

Huang-Lian-Jie-Du Decoction (HLJDD) is a "Fangji" made up of well-designed Chinese herb array and widely used to treat ischemic stroke. Here we aimed to investigate pharmacological mechanism by introducing an inter-module analysis to identify an overarching view of target profile and action mode of HLJDD. Stroke-related genes were obtained from OMIM (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man). And the potential target proteins of HLJDD were identified according to TCMsp (Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform). The two sets of molecules related to stroke and HLJDD were respectively imported into STRING database to construct the stroke network and HLJDD network, which were dissected into modules through MCODE, respectively. We analyzed the inter-module connectivity by quantify "coupling score" (CS) between HLJDD-modules (H-modules) and stroke-modules (S-module) to explore the pharmacological acting pattern of HLJDD on stroke. A total of 267 stroke-related proteins and 15 S-modules, 335 HLJDD putative targeting proteins, and 13 H-modules were identified, respectively. HLJDD directly targeted 28 proteins in stroke network, majority (16, 57.14%) of which were in S-modules 1 and 4. According to the modular map based on inter-module CS analysis, H-modules 1, 2, and 8 densely connected with S-modules 1, 3, and 4 to constitute a module-to-module bridgeness, and the enriched pathways of this bridgeness with top significance were TNF signaling pathway, HIF signaling pathway, and PI3K-Akt signaling pathway. Furthermore, through this bridgeness, H-modules 2 and 4 cooperatively work together to regulate mitochondrial apoptosis against the ischemia injury. Finally, the core protein in H-module 4 account for mitochondrial apoptosis was validated by an in vivo experiment. This study has developed an integrative approach by inter-modular analysis for elucidating the "shotgun-like" pharmacological mechanism of HLJDD for stroke.

To evaluate the efficacy and safety of blood-letting therapy (BLT) in treatment of hypertension. A comprehensive electronic and manual bibliographic searches were performed in Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Excerpt Medica Database (EMBASE), PubMed, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, and Wanfang Database to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in which hypertensive patients were treated with BLT or BLT plus antihypertensive drugs (BPAD) against placebo, no treatment or antihypertensive drugs. The Cochrane Risk Assessment Tool was used to assess the methodological quality of trials. The Review Manager 5.3 software was used for meta-analysis. A total of 7 RCTs with 637 hypertensive patients from 1989 to 2017 were identified. Compared with antihypertensive drugs, blood pressure was significantly reduced by BLT (RR=1.21, 95% CI: 1.01 to 1.44, P=0.03; heterogeneity: P=0.06, I2=60%) and BPAD (RR=1.25, 95% CI, 1.02 to 1.53, P=0.03; heterogeneity: P= 0.01, I2=71%). Moreover, a significant improvement in Chinese medicine syndrome by BLT (RR=1.32; 95% CI: 1.14 to 1.53, P=0.0002; heterogeneity: P=0.53, I2=0%) and BPAD (RR=1.47; 95% CI: 1.06 to 2.04, P=0.02; heterogeneity: P=0.13, I2=56%) was identified. The reported adverse effects were well tolerated. Although some positive findings were identified, no definite conclusions regarding the efficacy and safety of BLT as complementary and alternative approach for treatment of hypertension could be drew due to the generally poor methodological design, significant heterogeneity, and insufficient clinical data. Further rigorously designed trials are warranted to confirm the results.

In this paper, the effect of co-firing semi-coke in a 300 MW tangentially fired boiler was numerically investigated. The results indicate that the incomplete combustion heat loss and NO x emission both increase with semi-coke co-fired ratio. Semi-coke may be injected into the furnace at a different height, which can lead to different thermal efficiency and NO x emission. It is suggested that semi-coke should not be fed from the top or bottom layer burners, since this could give rise to high carbon content respectively in fly ash and bottom slag. In addition, injecting semi-coke from the top burners could significantly increase the NO x emission. Under 1/2 co-firing ratio, the optimal fuel allocation is that feeding semi-coke from the B, D, and E layer burners. The growth in semi-coke particle size could increase the unburned carbon loss and NO x emission. It is highly recommended to reduce the unburned carbon loss under semi-coke co-fired condition by increasing the stoichiometric ratio of primary air for semi-coke. As it is increased from 0.25 to 0.3, the combustion efficiency of the co-fired condition is 99.47%, the same as when only firing bituminous coal, and the NO x emission is about 30% higher.

Identifying the variation of core modules and hubs seems to be critical for characterizing variable pharmacological mechanisms based on topological alteration of disease networks. We first identified a total of eight core modules by using an approach of multiple modular characteristic fusing (MMCF) from different targeted networks in ischemic mice. Interestingly, the value of module disturbance intensity (MDI) increased in drug combination group. Second, we redefined a weak allosteric module and a strong allosteric module. Then, we identified 15 pharmacological module drivers (PMDs) by leave‐one‐out screening with a cutoff of two folds, which were at least, in part, validated by expression and variation of topological contribution. Finally, we revealed the fusional and emergent variation of PMD in core modules contributing to multidimensional synergistic mechanism in ischemic mice and rats. Our findings provide a new set of drivers that might promote the pharmacological modular flexibility and offer a potential avenue for disease treatment.

Both baicalin (BA) and jasminoidin (JA) are active ingredients in Chinese herb medicine Scutellaria baicalensis and Fructus gardeniae, respectively. They have been shown to exert additive neuroprotective action in ischemic stroke models. In this study we used transcriptome analysis to explore the pure therapeutic mechanisms of BA, JA and their combination (BJ) contributing to phenotype variation and reversal of pathological processes. Mice with middle cerebral artery obstruction were treated with BA, JA, their combination (BJ), or concha margaritifera (CM). Cerebral infarct volume was examined to determine the effect of these compounds on phenotype. Using the hippocampus microarray and ingenuity pathway analysis (IPA) software, we exacted the differentially expressed genes, networks, pathways, and functions in positive-phenotype groups (BA, JA and BJ) by comparing with the negative-phenotype group (CM). In the BA, JA, and BJ groups, a total of 7, 4, and 11 specific target molecules, 1, 1, and 4 networks, 51, 59, and 18 canonical pathways and 70, 53, and 64 biological functions, respectively, were identified. Pure therapeutic mechanisms of BA and JA were mainly overlapped in specific target molecules, functions and pathways, which were related to the nervous system, inflammation and immune response. The specific mechanisms of BA and JA were associated with apoptosis and cancer-related signaling and endocrine and hormone regulation, respectively. In the BJ group, novel target profiles distinct from mono-therapies were revealed, including 11 specific target molecules, 10 functions, and 10 pathways, the majority of which were related to a virus-mediated immune response. The pure additive effects between BA and JA were based on enhanced action in virus-mediated immune response. This pure mechanistic analysis may provide a clearer outline of the target profiles of multi-target compounds and combination therapies.