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In order to improve the availability of waste rubber tires and bearing capacity of sand foundation, a new composite foundation transforms the tensile strength of a discarded rubber tire into a hoop-tightening force on granular sand soil, i.e. hoop capacity, is introduced and investigated. Considering the characteristics of the circular enclosed structure of the tire, the tensile strength of the tire strips was obtained by carrying out a tension test of tire strips, and the relationships between earth pressure, settlement and vertical load were discovered by the results of loading tests under the conditions of confined and unconfined. The distribution of circumferential stress at each position of the tire cross section was monitored to evaluate the contribution of each part of the tire to the integral hoop capacity. Based on the theory of annular elasticity, Airy stress-state function is introduced to determine the solutions of stress, strain and displacement in the sand and tire regions based on the stress boundary condition and displacement continuity condition. The results show that the theory prediction curve has a high precision approaching the measured data, which indicates the rationality of the proposed theoretical model in predicting the circumferential stress of this type of waste rubber tire composite foundations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carex shows strong vitality, adaptability, and performance with regard to soil consolidation and slope protection but is often disregarded as a weed. This study proposes to turn this so-called weed into treasure, using its characteristics to protect the slope. We studied the interaction between the carex roots and soil and compared it to other types of grass. To understand the interaction between the carex roots and soil, this study investigated the tensile properties of the carex root fibers. The effects of fiber content, humidity, distribution, and soil moisture content on the relationship between the shear strength and vertical pressure of the soil were analyzed using a direct shear test. Furthermore, the cohesion and internal friction angle were used to evaluate the shear strength of the root-fibered soil based on Mohr–Coulomb's law. The results showed that the smaller the diameter, the shorter the length, and the greater the quantity and the lower the humidity of the root fibers, the higher the tensile strength of root fibers. In addition, the soil strength could be improved by the joint action of the roots and the soil. With an increase in the root fiber content and humidity, the soil moisture content decreased, whereas the shear strength of the carex-root-fibered soil increased. Here, four kinds of root fiber distributions, namely, "glyph," "herringbone," "eccentric," and "vertical," were chosen to study the shear strength of the root-fibered soil. The results showed that "glyph" root fiber distribution had the highest shear strength, while the shear strength decreased for the others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Breast cancer is among the most frequently diagnosed cancer types and the leading cause of cancer-related death in women. The mortality rate of patients with breast cancer is currently increasing, perhaps due to a lack of early screening tools. In the present study, using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) breast cancer dataset (n=883), it was determined that methylation of the protocadherin β15 (PCDHB15) promoter was higher in breast cancer samples than that in normal tissues. A negative association between promoter methylation and expression of PCDHB15 was observed in the TCGA dataset and breast cancer cell lines. In TCGA cohort, lower PCDHB15 expression was associated with shorter relapse-free survival times. Treatment with the DNA methyltransferase inhibitor restored PCDHB15 expression in a breast cancer cell line; however, overexpression of PCDHB15 was shown to suppress colony formation. PCDHB15 methylation detected in circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) isolated from serum samples was higher in patients with breast cancer (40.8%) compared with that in patients with benign tumors (22.4%). PCDHB15 methylation was not correlated with any clinical parameters. Taken together, PCDHB15 is a potential tumor suppressor in cases of breast cancer, which can be epigenetically silenced via promoter methylation. PCDHB15 methylation using cfDNA is a novel minimally invasive epigenetic biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]