Six new lathyrane diterpenoids (1–6) and 10 known analogues (7–16), were separated from the seeds of Euphorbia lathyris. The absolute configuration of 1 was determined by X-ray crystallography, and the C-2′ configuration of 5 was elucidated by comparing experimental and calculated ECD data. These compounds were studied for their inhibition against nitric oxide (NO) generation induced by lipopolysaccharide in RAW264.7 macrophage cells. Compounds 1–3, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, and 16 displayed inhibitory effects on NO production, with IC50 values of 2.6–26.0 μM. The new compound 1 (IC50 3.0 ± 1.1 μM), with no obvious cytotoxicity, was selected for further experiments. The production of cytokines such as IL-6 and IL-1β, as well as the protein expression of iNOS, NF-κB, and phosphorylated IκBα, was reduced by 1 dose-dependently. These results suggested that lathyrane diterpenoids may be used as potential anti-inflammatory agents and are worth being further researched.

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With increasingly fierce competition for jobs, the pressures on people have risen in recent years, leading to lifestyle and diet disorders that result in significantly higher risks of cardiovascular disease. Hypertension is one of the common chronic cardiovascular diseases; however, mainstream blood pressure measurement devices are relatively heavy. When multiple measurements are required, the user experience and the measurement results may be unsatisfactory. In this paper, we describe the design of a signal collection module that collects pulse waves and electrocardiograph (ECG) signals. The collected signals are input into a signal processing module to filter the noise and amplify the useful physiological signals. Then, we use a wavelet transform to eliminate baseline drift noise and detect the feature points of the pulse waves and ECG signals. We propose the concept of detecting the wave shape associated with an instance, an approach that minimizes the impact of atypical pulse waves on blood pressure measurements. Finally, we propose an improved method for measuring blood pressure based on pulse wave velocity that improves the accuracy of blood pressure measurements by 58%. Moreover, the results meet the american medical instrument promotion association standards, which demonstrate the feasibility of our measurement system.

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