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Nigella sativa (N. sativa) seed has been an important nutritional flavoring agent and natural remedy for many ailments for centuries in ancient systems of medicine, e.g. Unani, Ayurveda, Chinese and Arabic Medicines. Many active components have been isolated from N. sativa, including thymoquinone, thymohydroquinone, dithymoquinone, thymol, carvacrol, nigellimine-N-oxide, nigellicine, nigellidine and alpha-hederin. In addition, quite a few pharmacological effects of N. sativa seed, its oil, various extracts and active components have been identified to include immune stimulation, anti-inflammation, hypoglycemic, antihypertensive, antiasthmatic, antimicrobial, antiparasitic, antioxidant and anticancer effects. Only a few authors have reviewed the medicinal properties of N. sativa and given some description of the anticancer effects. A literature search has revealed that a lot more studies have been recently carried out related to the anticancer activities of N. sativa and some of its active compounds, such as thymoquinone and alpha-hederin. Acute and chronic toxicity studies have recently confirmed the safety of N. sativa oil and its most abundant active component, thymoquinone, particularly when given orally. The present work is aimed at summarizing the extremely valuable work done by various investigators on the effects of N. sativa seed, its extracts and active principles against cancer. Those related to the underlying mechanism of action, derivatives of thymoquinone, nano thymoquinone and combinations of thymoquinone with the currently used cytotoxic drugs are of particular interest. We hope this review will encourage interested researchers to conduct further preclinical and clinical studies to evaluate the anticancer activities of N. sativa, its active constituents and their derivatives.

We study probability intervals as an interesting tool to represent uncertain information. A number of basic operations necessary to develop a calculus with probability intervals, such as combination, marginalization, conditioning and integration are studied in detail. Moreover, probability intervals are compared with other uncertainty theories, such as lower and upper probabilities, Choquet capacities of order two and belief and plausibility functions. The advantages of probability intervals with respect to these formalisms in computational efficiency are also highlighted.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) plays a systemic role in disease treatment, targeting multiple etiological factors simultaneously. Based on clinical experience, rhubarb and Salvia miltiorrhiza are commonly prescribed together for the treatment of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and have been proven to be very effective. However, the rationale of the combination remains unclear. The major active ingredients of these two herbs are rhein (RH) and danshensu (DSS), respectively. The aim of this paper is to investigate the renoprotective effects of RH and DSS in vitro and in vivo, and the underlying mechanism. A total of 5/6 nephrectomy rats and HK-2 cells were subjected to chronic renal injury. The combination of RH and DSS conferred a protective effect, as shown by a significant improvement in the renal function, blood supply, and fibrotic degree. Proinflammatory cytokines and adhesion molecules were suppressed by RH and DSS through NK-$\kappa$B signaling. The combination also inhibited apoptosis by up-regulating Bcl-2 and down-regulating Bax. Inhibiting the TGF-$\beta$/Smad3 pathway was at least in part involved in the antifibrotic mechanism of the combination treatment of RH and DSS. This study demonstrates for the first time the renoprotective effect and the mechanism of RH and DSS combination on chronic renal injury. It could provide experimental evidence to support the rationality of the combinatorial use of TCM in clinical practices.

Camera can sensor the environment on the lane by extracting the lane lines, but such detection is limited to a short distance with effect of illumination and other factors; radar can detect objects a long distance away but cannot detect the lane conditions. This paper combined machine vision with millimeter-wave radar and extracted the nearby distinct lane line through images; at the same time, the radar obtained the motion trajectory information of distant vehicles, then the least-square method was used to make curve fitting on those motion trajectory information in order to reconstruct the lane line information. Finally, in the stage of fusing two segments of lane lines, the goodness of fit was applied to complete the matching of corresponding lane lines. While, for areas between two segments of lane lines that neither camera or radar can detect, we established a lane model, utilized probabilistic neural network to select the corresponding lane model for matching, and then used approximate mathematics expression according to the selected lane model, thus obtaining the final front road information of current vehicle.

When several classifiers are brought to contribute to the same task of recognition, various strategies of decisions, implying these classifiers in different ways, are possible. A first strategy consists in deciding using different opinions: it corresponds to the combination of classifiers. A second strategy consists in using one or more opinions for better guiding other classifiers in their training stages, and/or to improve the decision-making of other classifiers in the classification stage: it corresponds to the cooperation of classifiers. The third and last strategy consists in giving more importance to one or more classifiers according to various criteria or situations: it corresponds to the selection of classifiers. The temporal aspect of Pattern Recognition (PR), i.e. the possible evolution of the classes to be recognized, can be treated by the strategy of selection.