Intrauterine adhesion (IUA) is a serious complication caused by excessive fibrosis resulting from endometrial repair after trauma. The traditional Chinese medicine Tiaoshen Tongluo recipe (TTR) contains ingredients associated with the alleviation of fibrosis. The transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1)/Smad pathway is thought to mediate fibrosis in IUA. In this study, we evaluated the influence of TTR on endometrial fibrosis in a rat model of IUA and in TGF-β1-stimulated endometrial stromal cells (ESCs). TTR was found to alleviate the level of endometrial fibrosis in a rat model of IUA. A higher number of collagen fibers and greater damage were observed in the endometrial tissue of untreated rats compared to those treated with TTR. The expression of TGF-β1, Smad2, Smad3, and Smad4 was upregulated following IUA, whereas Smad7 expression was downregulated. TTR lowers the expression of TGF-β1, Smad2, Smad3, and Smad4 but increases the expression of Smad7 in vivo, indicating that TTR can modulate the expression of the TGF-β1/Smad pathway to mediate fibrosis. In ESCs, the phosphorylation of Smad2 and Smad3 and upregulation of Smad4 were induced by TGF-β1 whereas the expression of Smad7 was inhibited. Administration of TTR reduces the phosphorylation of Smad2 and Smad3, increases Smad4 expression induced by TGF-β1, and promotes the expression of Smad7. TTR modulates the TGF-β1/Smad pathway to alleviate the generation of fibrotic tissue in response to IUA.
The guaranteed-performance consensus problems for nonlinear singular multiagent systems with directed topologies in both leader-following case and leaderless case are investigated, where the directed interaction topologies contain a directed spanning tree. For situations with and without the leader, two different quadratic performance functions are proposed based on state errors. The state errors in the leader-following case are the state differences between the followers and the leader while in the leaderless case are the state differences between agents with adjacent numbers. First, by exploiting state transformation, the consensus problems are transformed into the stability problems of the corresponding error systems. Second, on the basis of singular systems theory, Laplacian matrix properties, and linear matrix inequality techniques, sufficient conditions for guaranteed-performance consensus are derived for both leaderfollowing and leaderless cases. Third, the explicit expressions of the guaranteed-performance cost are obtained. Finally, two numerical examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.
This paper is concerned with the problem of mode-dependent robust and non-fragile finite-time [Formula: see text] control for a class of nonlinear singular Markovian jump systems (NSMJSs) with parameter uncertainties and time-varying norm-bounded disturbance. Some sufficient conditions ensuring the singular stochastic [Formula: see text] finite-time boundedness (SS[Formula: see text]FTB) are developed for the given system by using the stochastic analysis and linear matrix inequality techniques. Then, a finite-time [Formula: see text] state feedback controller is designed, which can guarantee the [Formula: see text] finite-time boundedness of the closed-loop systems. Furthermore, a robust and non-fragile finite-time [Formula: see text] state feedback controller is also provided to ensure the [Formula: see text] finite-time boundedness of the closed-loop systems when the controller gain has an additive perturbation. Finally, two numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained results.
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