Urotensin II (UII) is implicated in immune inflammatory diseases through its specific high-affinity UT receptor (UTR). Enhanced expression of UII/UTR was recently demonstrated in the liver with acute liver failure (ALF). Here, we analysed the relationship between UII/UTR expression and ALF in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)/D-galactosamine (GalN)-challenged mice. Thereafter, we investigated the effects produced by the inhibition of UII/UTR system using urantide, a special antagonist of UTR, and the potential molecular mechanisms involved in ALF. Urantide was administered to mice treated with LPS/GalN. Expression of UII/UTR, releases of proinflammatory cytokines including tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β) and interferon-γ (IFN-γ), and activation of nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) signaling pathway were assessed in the lethal ALF with or without urantide pretreatment. We found that LPS/GalN-challenged mice showed high mortality and marked hepatic inflammatory infiltration and cell apoptosis as well as a significant increase of UII/UTR expression. Urantide pretreatment protected against the injury in liver following downregulation of UII/UTR expression. A close relationship between the acutely flamed hepatic injury and UII/UTR expression was observed. In addition, urantide prevented the increases of proinflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α, IL-1β and IFN-γ, and activation of NF-κB signaling pathway induced by LPS/GalN in mice. Thus, we conclude that UII/UTR system plays a role in LPS/GalN-induced ALF. Urantide has a protective effect on the acutely inflamed injury of liver in part through preventing releases of proinflammatory cytokines and activation of NF-κB pathway.

Chalcogenide glasses have the advantages of a wide transparency window (over 20 µm) and high optical nonlinearity (up to a thousand times greater than that of silica glasses), making them good candidates for mid-infrared supercontinuum generation. In this review, we describe both the history and recent developments in mid-infrared supercontinuum generation from chalcogenide fibers according to three kinds of fiber structures: step-index, microstructured and tapered fibers. We also review the coherence properties of mid-infrared supercontinuum generation and all-fiber supercontinuum sources based on chalcogenide fibers.

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Data security technology is of great significance for the effective use of high-resolution remote sensing (HRRS) images in GIS field. Integrity authentication technology is an important technology to ensure the security of HRRS images. Traditional authentication technologies perform binary level authentication of the data and cannot meet the authentication requirements for HRRS images, while perceptual hashing can achieve perceptual content-based authentication. Compared with traditional algorithms, the existing edge-feature-based perceptual hash algorithms have already achieved high tampering authentication accuracy for the authentication of HRRS images. However, because of the traditional feature extraction methods they adopt, they lack autonomous learning ability, and their robustness still exists and needs to be improved. In this paper, we propose an improved perceptual hash scheme based on deep learning (DL) for the authentication of HRRS images. The proposed method consists of a modified U-net model to extract robust feature and a principal component analysis (PCA)-based encoder to generate perceptual hash values for HRRS images. In the training stage, a training sample generation method combining artificial processing and Canny operator is proposed to generate robust edge features samples. Moreover, to improve the performance of the network, exponential linear unit (ELU) and batch normalization (BN) are applied to extract more robust and accurate edge feature. The experiments have shown that the proposed algorithm has almost 100% robustness to format conversion between TIFF and BMP, LSB watermark embedding and lossless compression. Compared with the existing algorithms, the robustness of the proposed algorithm to lossy compression has been improved, with an average increase of 10%. What is more, the algorithm has good sensitivity to detect local subtle tampering to meet the high-accuracy requirements of authentication for HRRS images.

To investigate the effect of acupuncture on women with premature ovarian failure (POF), prospective consecutive case series study was applied. 31 women with POF were included; all patients were treated with acupuncture once every other day, three times a week for three months. Acupoints, GV 20, GV 24, GB 13, CV 3, CV 4, BL 23, BL 32, ST 25, ST 28, ST 29, ST 36, SP 6, KI 3, and LR 3, were selected. Serums FSH, E2, and LH level, Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), and Kupperman score were measured at baseline and at the end of treatment; the menstrual cycle was recorded during one-month follow-up. Compared with baseline, patients' serums FSH and LH were decreased, E2 was increased, and SAS score and Kupperman score were decreased. Four patients resumed menstrual cycle after treatment and two resumed during follow-up. No serious adverse events were found in all patients. The results indicate that acupuncture may decrease serums FSH and LH level, raise serum E2 level, relieve anxiety, reduce mental stress, and improve the menopausal symptoms.

An optofluidic laser based on a hollow-core negative-curvature fiber (HC-NCF) is proposed and demonstrated. The submicron-thick circular capillary tubes embedded in the cladding of the HC-NCF act as antiresonant elements and are used as both a resonator and dye microfluidic channels. A stable optofluidic dye laser with a low threshold of 15.14 nJ/mm2 is achieved. The laser is compact and robust and exhibits directional output.

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Quantum chemical calculations have been per-formed for the complexes of formamidine (FA) and hypohalous acid (HOX, X = F, Cl, Br, I) to study their structures, properties, and competition of hydrogen bonds with halogen bonds. Two types of complexes are formed mainly through a hydrogen bond and a halogen bond, respectively, and the cyclic structure is more stable. For the F, Cl, and Br complexes, the hydrogen-bonded one is more stable than the halogen-bonded one, while the halogen-bonded structure is favorable for the I complexes. The associated H-O and X-O bonds are elongated and exhibit a red shift, whereas the distant ones are contracted and display a blue shift. The strength of hydrogen and halogen bonds is affected by F and Li substitutents and it was found that the latter tends to smooth differences in the strength of both types of interactions. The structures, properties, and interaction nature in these complexes have been understood with natural bond orbital (NBO) and atoms in molecules (AIM) theories.