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Atopic dermatitis is a common chronic pruritic inflammatory disease of the skin involving neuro-immune communication. Neuronal mechanism-based therapeutic treatments remain lacking. We investigated the efficacy of intravenous lidocaine therapy on atopic dermatitis and the underlying neuro-immune mechanism.Pharmacological intervention, immunofluorescence, RNA-sequencing, genetic modification and immunoassay were performed to dissect the neuro-immune basis of itch and inflammation in atopic dermatitis-like mouse model and in patients.Lidocaine alleviated skin lesions and itch in both atopic dermatitis patients and calcipotriol (MC903)-induced atopic dermatitis model by blocking subpopulation of sensory neurons. QX-314, a charged NaNa

Background Eczema is usually the first allergic manifestation to appear in life attributed to gene–environment interactions. IL13, IL4, MS4A2 and ILR4A are four key inflammatory genes associated with atopy. This study aimed to explore gene-environment interactions on eczema in early life among the above four genes and environmental factors in Chinese Han children. Methods Five hundred ninety-seven children from a birth cohort who completed two-year follow-up were enrolled and their cord blood was collected. Subjects were genotyped for six polymorphisms in the aforementioned four genes. The children were followed at 6, 12 and 24 months, with epidemiologic information and medical history of eczema collected by questionnaire and eczema assessed by dermatologists. Results Among the 597 children, 168 were diagnosed with eczema and the others were not after 2 years of follow-up. MS4A2 rs569108 GG genotype (P = 1.68E-02, odds ratio (OR) = 4.66) and antibiotic use (P = 3.75E-4, OR = 2.02) were found independently associated with development of childhood eczema. Children with both antibiotic use and MS4A2 rs569108 GG genotype were more likely to develop eczema than those with only antibiotic use or GG homozygote (OR = 6.24 VS. 2.04 or 4.68). Conclusions MS4A2 rs569108 polymorphism and antibiotic use were solely associated with eczema, and they interacted with each other to increase the risk of developing the disease in Chinese Han toddlers. Long-term follow-up along with functional and replication studies are still needed.

In the field of flow visualization, the optimization of algorithms and the improvement of visual effects have always been the focus of researchers, in recent years many research and improvement algorithms for evaluating visualization quality have been proposed. However, in the process of algorithm implementation and quality evaluation, ambiguity of flow field direction and unclear description of vector field direction and size are often encountered, in order to solve this problem, an attempt is made to apply the theory of human visual perception to the evaluation of visualization results and the improvement of visualization effects, and on the basis of research by simulation of cyclone data, the two-dimensional line integral convolution algorithm for vector field visualization is studied.

Background Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have been reported to suppress immune function. However, previous studies on prenatal exposure to PFASs and allergic disorders in offspring provided inconsistent results. We aimed to examine the association between prenatal exposure to PFASs and childhood atopic dermatitis (AD) in offspring up to 24 months of age. Methods A prospective birth cohort study involving 1056 pregnant women was conducted in two hospitals in Shanghai from 2012 to 2015. Prenatal information was collected by an interview with the women and from medical records. Fetal umbilical cord blood was collected at birth. Cord blood plasma PFASs were measured. Children were followed at 6, 12 and 24 months and information on the development of AD was recorded. AD was diagnosed by 2 dermatologists independently based on the questionnaires. Multiple logistic regression was used to compute odds ratio (OR) and corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) for the association between AD and each PFASs, adjusting for potential confounders. Results A total of 687 children completed a 2-year follow-up visit and had PFASs measurement. AD was diagnosed in 173 (25.2%) children during the first 24 months. In female children, a log-unit increase in perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) was associated with a 2.1-fold increase in AD risk (AOR 2.07, 95% CI 1.13–3.80) after adjusting for potential confounders. The corresponding risk was 2.22 (1.07–4.58) for perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA). The highest PFOA quartile was significantly associated with AD (2.52, 1.12–5.68) compared with the lowest quartile. The highest quartile of PFNA, perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDA) and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) were associated with AD with AOR (95% CI) being 2.14 (0.97–4.74), 2.14 (1.00–4.57), and 2.30 (1.03–5.15), respectively. Additionally, the second quartile of perfluorododecanoic acid (PFDoA) was associated with a 3.2-fold increase in AD risk (3.24, 1.44–7.27). However, no significant associations were found in male children. Conclusions Prenatal exposure to PFOA, PFDA, PFDoA and PFHxS significantly increased the risk of childhood AD in female children during the first 24 months of life. In addition, the associations between AD with prenatal exposure to PFNA were close to statistical significance. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12940-018-0352-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The earthquake excitation is a kind of complicated multi-dimensional motion. It is not safe and accurate enough if only considering the horizontal earthquake excitation, especially for complex and important engineering structures. Therefore, anti-earthquake measures for engineering structures considering multi-dimensional excitations have become an extremely important research topic. In this paper, a new multi-dimensional earthquake isolation and mitigation device (MEIMD) is developed and tested under different cases at both horizontal and vertical directions. Effects of excitation frequency and displacement amplitude on both horizontal and vertical properties of this device are considered. At the same time, a modified equivalent standard solid model is proposed, which can effectively describe the effects of frequency and displacement on the horizontal and vertical properties of the device. Research indicates that the MEIMD possesses high-energy dissipation capacity at both horizontal and vertical directions and the proposed model can accurately simulate the value of the storage modulus and the loss factor.

The multi-dimensional earthquake isolation and mitigation device (MEIMD) for long-span reticulated structures is a newly invented passive vibration control device. In order to explore the vertical earthquake isolation and mitigation ability of the device, vertical pseudo-dynamic tests on a 1:3 scaled long-span reticulated structure with and without devices are carried out. In the tests, dynamic responses of the structure with the devices are compared with those without the devices under different earthquake waves. It can be seen from experimental results that the devices can obviously reduce the displacement, acceleration, and members’ strain responses of a long-span reticulated structure. Moreover, the finite element analyses are also performed to verify the seismic reduction effect of MEIMD. The numerical results fit well with the experimental results and this indicates that the finite element analysis has high simulation precision.

The earthquake excitation is a complicated multidimensional motion, which will cause the damage or even collapse of structures. Consequently, some measures to prevent structure failure must be taken under multidimensional excitations, especially for long-span reticulated structures and high-rise buildings. Many earthquake isolation or mitigation devices have been manufactured to reduce the horizontal dynamic responses of structures, but there are few reports concerning the device isolating and mitigating earthquake actions both in horizontal and vertical directions simultaneously. In this paper, a new multidimensional earthquake isolation and mitigation device for long-span reticulated structures is developed and tested under different cases. Effects of excitation frequency and amplitude on vertical properties of this device are studied. Then, the modified equivalent standard solid model is proposed to describe the vertical properties of the device. Experimental and numerical studies show that this device has good capability of energy dissipation in vertical direction.

Atopic dermatitis is a chronic, relapsing form of inflammatory skin disorder that is affected by genetic and environmental factors. We performed a genome-wide association study of atopic dermatitis in a Chinese Han population using 1,012 affected individuals (cases) and 1,362 controls followed by a replication study in an additional 3,624 cases and 12,197 controls of Chinese Han ethnicity, as well as 1,806 cases and 3,256 controls from Germany. We identified previously undescribed susceptibility loci at 5q22.1 (TMEM232 and SLC25A46, rs7701890, P(combined) = 3.15 × 10(-9), odds ratio (OR) = 1.24) and 20q13.33 (TNFRSF6B and ZGPAT, rs6010620, P(combined) = 3.0 × 10(-8), OR = 1.17) and replicated another previously reported locus at 1q21.3 (FLG, rs3126085, P(combined) = 5.90 × 10(-12), OR = 0.82) in the Chinese sample. The 20q13.33 locus also showed evidence for association in the German sample (rs6010620, P = 2.87 × 10(-5), OR = 1.25). Our study identifies new genetic susceptibility factors and suggests previously unidentified biological pathways in atopic dermatitis.

To study the protective effect and possible mechanism of Porphyra yezoensis polysaccharide (PYP) in hepatotoxicity mice, acute liver injury was successfully induced by injecting 0.2% carbon tetrachloride (CCl(4)) intraperitoneally. Levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) in serum and liver homogenate, content of malondialdehyde (MDA), activities of total superoxide dismutase (T-SOD) in liver were measured by biochemical methods. Liver index was calculated and pathological changes of the liver tissue were observed microscopically. PYP was found to significantly decrease the activities of ALT and AST (P

In this study, we analyzed a water-soluble polysaccharide MP-I isolated from Mytilus coruscus. MP-I was obtained by hot-water extraction, anion-exchange and gel-permeation chromatography. Complete hydrolysis, periodate oxidation, methylation analysis, as well as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy were conducted to elucidate its structure. MP-I was subjected to investigate the protective effect on carbon tetrachloride (CCl(4)) induced liver damage in male Kunming mice. Based on the data obtained, MP-I was found to be an alpha-(1--4)-D-glucan, branched with a single alpha-D-glucose at the C-6 position every eight residue, on average, along the main chain. Based on the calibration with Dextran, the glucan had a molecular weight of about 1.35 x 10(6) Da. Pharmacological studies revealed that MP-I could decrease serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and hepatic malondialdehyde aldehydes (MDA) levels, increase the hepatic total superoxide dismutase (T-SOD) activity, and improve hepatic damage in the CCl(4) induced liver injury in mice in a dose-dependent manner. The results suggest that the possible mechanism is due to its antioxidant activity of MP-I.

This paper describes the development of a digital real-time speed control system based on a single-chip microcontroller, Intel 80C196KC. The speed measurement is achieved with accuracy and high resolution over the entire speed range. Calibration shows that ± 0·04% measurement accuracy is obtained based on a 360 pulses/rev shaft encoder. The developed system is characterized using both simulation and practical tests. The system performance has been assessed using both laboratory and industrial test rigs. Typical results are given and discussed in this paper.

Multipath routing in mobile ad hoc networks distributes traffic on multiple paths between source-destination pair. Both traffic assignment and packet scheduling affect the performance of multipath routing. After the traffic is optimally distributed, a proper packet scheduling can reduce the resequencing delay. In this paper, a packet scheduling framework is proposed to study the effect of scheduling strategy on the resequencing delay. Specifically, each path is modeled as a multiple-node M/M/1 tandem network, and the end-to-end path delay follows the normal distribution. Two scheduling schemes are studied, uniform round scheduling (URS) and non-uniform round scheduling (NURS). Analytical results show that the URS scheme outperforms the NURS one, and by increasing the round length, URS scheme can further reduce the resequencing delay in mobile ad hoc networks

This paper proposes a novel quality of service (QoS) guaranteed power-efficient management scheme for IEEE 802.15.3 HR-WPAN, coined Hierarchical MAC Scheduling Scheme (HMSS). The design objectives of HMSS are to guarantee the QoS of multimedia services and minimize the power consumption of energy-sensitive DEVs. By classifying traffics into layers with different priorities, HMSS schedules the traffic layer with high priority preferentially. The order of intra- layer traffics is scheduled to minimize the wakeup times. In addition, a sharing common DEV scheme (SCDS) is proposed to reduce the number of the patches caused by classifying traffics. Simulation results show that HMSS guarantees the QoS requirements of multimedia services in IEEE 802.15.3 HR- WPAN, while the Min-Degree Searching (MDS) Scheme proposed in IEEE 802.15.3 does not consider the QoS requirements at all.

To investigate the impact of donor and recipient's SNP of cytokine and cytokine receptor on early acute rejection after renal transplantation.(1) 129 cases of cadaveric renal allograft recipients were divided into two groups according to the presence or absence of acute graft rejection. The distribution of 21 single nucleotide polymorphisms in cytokines and cytokine receptors gene were compared between two groups as well as latent factors affecting the development of acute rejection. (2) Based on the result of HLA-DR matching between donor and recipient, the recipients with AR were stratified into two conditions, 0-1 locus mismatched (0-1MM) and completely mismatched (2MM). By aids of SPSS 11.5 software, association analysis was assessed using Kruskal Wallis test, 2 x 2 or 2 x n contingency table, the Chi-square test.(1) Of 129 recipients of renal transplantation, 39 developed acute graft rejection (30.2%). (2) Compared with recipients without acute rejection, the number of HLA-DR mismatching was significantly higher in rejection group. (3) In rejection group and non-rejection group, the gene polymorphism distribution was significantly different. (4) 0-1MM group and 2MM group were various in the gene polymorphism distribution.In the whole, the susceptibility of acute rejection after renal transplantation may be predicted by the donor and recipient's SNP of cytokine and cytokine receptor.