Acute lung injury (ALI) afflicts approximately 200,000 patients annually and has a 40% mortality rate. The COVID-19 pandemic has massively increased the rate of ALI incidence. The pathogenesis of ALI involves tissue damage from invading microbes and, in severe cases, the overexpression of inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-1β (IL-1β). This study aimed to develop a therapy to normalize the excess production of inflammatory cytokines and promote tissue repair in the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced ALI. Based on our previous studies, we tested the insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) and BTP-2 therapies. IGF-I was selected, because we and others have shown that elevated inflammatory cytokines suppress the expression of growth hormone receptors in the liver, leading to a decrease in the circulating IGF-I. IGF-I is a growth factor that increases vascular protection, enhances tissue repair, and decreases pro-inflammatory cytokines. It is also required to produce anti-inflammatory 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D. BTP-2, an inhibitor of cytosolic calcium, was used to suppress the LPS-induced increase in cytosolic calcium, which otherwise leads to an increase in proinflammatory cytokines. We showed that LPS increased the expression of the primary inflammatory mediators such as toll like receptor-4 (TLR-4), IL-1β, interleukin-17 (IL-17), TNF-α, and interferon-γ (IFN-γ), which were normalized by the IGF-I + BTP-2 dual therapy in the lungs, along with improved vascular gene expression markers. The histologic lung injury score was markedly elevated by LPS and reduced to normal by the combination therapy. In conclusion, the LPS-induced increases in inflammatory cytokines, vascular injuries, and lung injuries were all improved by IGF-I + BTP-2 combination therapy. 相似文献
The interrelation between crosslinking and morphology is investigated for an immiscible blend of polylactic acid (PLA) and acrylic rubber (ACM). The blends are prepared by solution mixing and static crosslinking is used to avoid the simultaneous effect of the flow field that occurs in dynamic vulcanization. It is carried out at different temperatures, times, and curing agent contents. Scanning force microscopy (SFM) and polarized optical microscopy are used to determine the morphology of the blends. The chemical interactions and viscoelastic properties of the blends after crosslinking are also studied using infrared spectroscopy and rheological tests, respectively. Before crosslinking, SFM shows matrix‐droplet morphology for the samples that it is retained after that for the blend with 30 wt% ACM; however, it is changed to cocontinuous one in the blend with 50 wt% ACM. Partially, grafting of PLA on the crosslinked ACM is confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The rheological results show that the incorporation of ACM to the PLA slows down the chain relaxation and vulcanization intensifies this effect. A model is proposed to explain the morphology evolution during static crosslinking of an immiscible blend. 相似文献
In this study, the AdaBoost, MultiBoost and RealAdaBoost methods were combined with the Quadratic Discriminant Analysis method to develop three new GIS-based Machine Learning ensemble models, i.e., ABQDA, MBQDA, and RABQDA for groundwater potential mapping in the Dak Nong Province, Vietnam. In total, 227 groundwater wells and 12 conditioning factors (infiltration, rainfall, river density, topographic wetness index, sediment transport index, stream power index, elevation, aspect, curvature, slope, soil, and land use) were used for this study. Performance of the models was evaluated using the Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristics Curve AUC (AUC) and several other performance metrics. The results showed that the ABQDA model that achieved AUC?=?0.741 was superior to the other models in producing an accurate map of groundwater potential for the Dak Nong Province. The models and potential maps produced here can help policymakers and water resources managers to preserve an optimal exploit from these vital resources.
The present work aims to enhance thermal stability and flame retardancy of the epoxy/glass composites containing carbon nanotubes (CNTs). To achieve this purpose ammonium polyphosphate (APP) as a micro filler and montmorillonite (MMT) as nanofiller have been used. Since good dispersion is necessary to achieve thermal and flame resistivity in nanocomposites, it was found that combination of ultrasonication and high shear flow can result in a good dispersion of nanoparticles in polymer matrix. Thus, all samples were prepared according to this method. In order to study thermal resistance and flame retardancy of the samples, thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) and limiting oxygen index (LOI) have been employed, respectively. TGA results showed that combination of 0.5 wt% CNTs with either 5 wt% MMT or 15 wt% APP can increase the initial thermal decomposition temperature up to 62 °C for the former polymer composite and 47 °C for the latter one. Overall stabilization effect (OSE) and integral procedure decomposition temperature (IPDT) parameters have also been calculated from TGA data. These results showed that the sample containing a combination of APP and CNT has the highest value of OSE. Moreover, IPDT of this sample has increased about 9 % compared with the neat epoxy. LOI of the samples showed that the addition of MMT and CNTs together could increase LOI about 8 % and introduction of APP to these samples increased LOI about 10 %, as well. 相似文献