Serum TNF-alpha concentration and colonic TNF-alpha mRNA expression level are increased significantly in UC rats in correlation with the severity of disease. It indicates that TNF-alpha is closely involved in the immune abnormalities and inflammatory responses in UC. EA at ST36 has therapeutic effect on UC by downregulating serum TNF-alpha and colonic TNF-alpha mRNA expression. High levels of TNF-alpha and its corresponding mRNA expression seem to be implicated in the pathogenesis of UC.

Available online xxxx Keywords:Time-fractional fourth-order reaction-diffusion problem Finite element method Finite difference scheme Caputo-fractional derivative Unconditional stability Optimal a priori error analysis a b s t r a c tIn this article, a finite difference/finite element algorithm, which is based on a finite difference approximation in time direction and finite element method in spatial direction, is presented and discussed to cast about for the numerical solutions of a time-fractional fourth-order reaction-diffusion problem with a nonlinear reaction term. To avoid the use of higher-order elements, the original problem with spatial fourth-order derivative need to be changed into a second-order coupled system by introducing an intermediate variable σ = ∆u. Then the fully discrete finite element scheme is formulated by using a finite difference approximation for time fractional and integer derivatives and finite element method in spatial direction. The unconditionally stable result in the norm, which just depends on initial value and source item, is derived. Some a priori estimates of L 2 -norm with optimal order of convergence O(∆ 2−α t +h m+1 ), where ∆ t and h are time step length and space mesh parameter, respectively, are obtained. To confirm the theoretical analysis, some numerical results are provided by our method.

No abstract

A new positive definite expanded mixed finite element method is proposed for parabolic partial integrodifferential equations. Compared to expanded mixed scheme, the new expanded mixed element system is symmetric positive definite and both the gradient equation and the flux equation are separated from its scalar unknown equation. The existence and uniqueness for semidiscrete scheme are proved and error estimates are derived for both semidiscrete and fully discrete schemes. Finally, some numerical results are provided to confirm our theoretical analysis.

With rigorous hydration, the CIN incidence was very low in patients with moderate renal dysfunction who underwent coronary angiography or PCI. No difference in nephrotoxicity was found between iopromide and iodixanol.