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Objective To reform the teaching content of acupuncture and moxibustion for undergraduate of Nursing College and to evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching reform, so to provide constructive information for optimizing the curriculum. Methods To revise the teaching content of Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) acupuncture course based on the results of previous questionnaires, including reducing boring theoretical knowledge, increasing commonly used acupuncture techniques and clinical case analysis, organizing all undergraduates attending the TCM teaching in the Nursing College of Peking Union Medical College to fill out the “Acupuncture Course Content Questionnaire”in 2023. The content covers four aspects: students' basic cognition of acupuncture and moxibustion before the course, students' learning feedback,students'learning effectiveness after the course and students' suggestions for further optimization of acupuncture and moxibustion course. Results Totally 149 students participated in the questionnaire survey and 73.15% of them were interested in the acupuncture course. There were 62.42% of the students thought that the most difficult part of the course was the “Acupuncture Points”, and 71.81% of them complained the most constraining factor to the learning effectiveness was the difficulty of memorizing the meridians and acupoints. The most interesting part of the course was “Overview of Acupuncture Treatment and Acupuncture Treatment of Common Diseases”, which accounted for 44.3% of the students. Through the study, 88.59% of the students were willing to recommend acupuncture treatment to patients with indications.Students' suggestions for improvement of the acupuncture course was increase of classroom practice or learning by observation of operation videos. Conclusions The reformed acupuncture course highlights the practicability, improves the learning interest and subjective initiative, but the training of practice skill still needs to be strengthened.

Background: The immunoregulatory functions of regulatory T cells (Tregs) in the development and progression of some chronic infectious diseases are mediated by immune checkpoint molecules and immunosuppressive cytokines. However, little is known about the immunosuppressive functions of Tregs in human brucellosis, which is a major burden in low-income countries. In this study, expressions of immune checkpoint molecules and Treg-related cytokines in patients with acute and chronic Brucella infection were evaluated to explore their impact at different stages of infection.Methods: Forty patients with acute brucellosis and 19 patients with chronic brucellosis admitted to the Third People's Hospital of Linfen in Shanxi Province between August 2016 and November 2017 were enrolled. Serum and peripheral blood mononuclear cells were isolated from patients before antibiotic treatment and from 30 healthy subjects. The frequency of Tregs (CD4+ CD25+ FoxP3+ T cells) and expression of CTLA-4, GITR, and PD-1 on Treg cells were detected by flow cytometry. Levels of Treg-related cytokines, including IL-35, TGF-β1, and IL-10, were measured by customised multiplex cytokine assays using the Luminex platform.Results: The frequency of Tregs was higher in chronic patients than in healthy controls (P = 0.026) and acute patients (P = 0.042); The frequency of CTLA-4+ Tregs in chronic patients was significantly higher than that in healthy controls (P = 0.011). The frequencies of GITR+ and PD-1+ Tregs were significantly higher in acute and chronic patients than in healthy controls (P < 0.05), with no significant difference between the acute and chronic groups (all P > 0.05). Serum TGF-β1 levels were higher in chronic patients (P = 0.029) and serum IL-10 levels were higher in acute patients (P = 0.033) than in healthy controls. We detected weak correlations between serum TGF-β1 levels and the frequencies of Tregs (R = 0.309, P = 0.031) and CTLA-4+ Tregs (R = 0.302, P = 0.035).Conclusions: Treg cell immunity is involved in the chronicity of Brucella infection and indicates the implication of Tregs in the prognosis of brucellosis. CTLA-4 and TGF-β1 may contribute to Tregs-mediated immunosuppression in the chronic infection stage of a Brucella infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A mathematical formulation for optimal scheduling of multistage multi-product batch plant with parallel units is presented. The allocations of tasks, units and stages are described by a set of binary variables. The sequence-dependent setup times of orders and the ready times of units are considered. Based on the due dates and the processing times of orders, the predefined processing sequence of orders is achieved. The continuous time representation mode is also used in the proposed model. The computations on several classic scheduling examples and comparisons with other existing models in the literatures demonstrate the proposed scheduling model can obtain the optimal solutions in a shorter time and has much fewer binary variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The characteristics of the mechanical drive system and the rules of the type choice were analyzed. A fuzzy and quantitative method describing the characters of the drive system was presented. A drive type decision system based on one-against-one mode of support vector machine through identification of the characteristics and the type decisions was built. Simulation was given to support the theoretical result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the effect of short hairpin RNA (shRNA)-mediated silencing of CTGF and TIMP-1 in hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) on mRNA expression of TIMP-1, CTGF, and procollagen type-I (PC I), as well as secretion of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins. Two recombinant expression plasmids harboring shRNAs against CTGF and TIMP-1 (psiRNA-GFP-CTGF and psiRNA-GFP-TIMP-1) were transfected alone or together into TGFb1-activated HSC-T6 cells. The mRNA expression levels of CTGF, TIMP-1, and PC I were detected by fluorescence quantitative PCR (FQ-PCR). The concentrations of secreted PC type-III, hyaluronate (HA), and laminin (LN) were measured by radioimmunoassay (RIA) of culture supernatants. FQ-PCR analysis showed that CTGFshRNA and TIMP-1shRNA specifically inhibited the expression of CTGF, TIMP-1, and PC I mRNA in activated HSC-T6 cells. The concentrations of secreted PC III, HA, and LN were decreased significantly in HSC-T6 cells with shRNA-silenced CTGF or TIMP-1 (P less than 0.01 or P less than 0.05). Moreover, HSC-T6 cells with shRNA-silenced CTGF and TIMP-1 showed a more robust decrease in synthesis of PC III, HA and LN (all, P less than 0.01), as well as in mRNA expression of PC I (P less than 0.05). CTGFshRNA and TIMP-1shRNA effectively inhibit expression of the respective target genes, as well as of PC I, and decrease secretion of ECM components from HSC-T6 cells. Silencing of both CTGF and TIMP-1 produces more robust effects than either in isolation. These data suggest that CTGF and TIMP-1 may be effective targets of shRNA-based gene therapy to treat liver fibrosis.