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Xin Zhou,1 Shou-Gen Cao,1 Xiao-Jie Tan,1 Xiao-Dong Liu,1 Ze-Qun Li,1 Ling-Xin Kong,2 Yu-Long Tian,1 Dan Liu,1 Shuai Shen,1 Yu-Qi Sun,1 Hai-Tao Jiang,1 Yan-Bing Zhou1 1Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Rehabilitation, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Yan-Bing ZhouDepartment of Gastrointestinal Surgery, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, No. 16 Jiangsu Road, Shinan District, Qingdao City, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86-13708971773Email zhouyanbing999@aliyun.comPurpose: Transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) is an innovative choice for postoperative pain management. However, the safety and effectiveness of this traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) therapy for patients who underwent gastrectomy is largely unknown. So, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of TEAS for patients who underwent gastrectomy.Patients and Methods: We recruited 96 patients with gastric cancer from May 2019 to November 2019; 82 patients were enrolled, and 81 patients completed. Patients were randomly assigned to TEAS group (TG) received TEAS on postoperative day (POD) 1– 3 or control group (CG) at a 1:1 ratio. The primary outcomes were pain score and consumption of analgesics. The secondary were the time of first postoperative flatus and defecation, frequency of postoperative nausea, vomiting, distention, diarrhea, comfort of semi-fluid diet, Clavien-Dindo grade (C-D grade) and length of postoperative day. We performed hematological analysis to explore the possible mechanisms.Results: Overall, 81 patients were enrolled included in the analysis. Compared with CG, pain scores in TG were lower on POD 1– 5 (average: 2.55± 0.21 vs 3.10± 0.42, P< 0.001), and the use rate of opioids was lower (43.9 vs 75.0, P=0.004); time of first postoperative flatus (55.63± 16.74 vs 72.60± 20.92, P< 0.001) and defecation (72.20± 16.24 vs 95.78± 17.75, P< 0.001) were shorter; the frequency of nausea were fewer (1.88± 1.09 vs 2.58± 0.77, P=0.029) and patients were more comfortable with semi-fluid diet (7.63± 0.63 vs 6.93± 0.69, P< 0.001); among the hematologic results, β-endorphin (β-End), interleukin-2 (IL-2), motilin (MTL) on POD 3, POD 5 were lower, 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) were higher. And no adverse event was reported.Conclusion: TEAS can relieve postoperative pain and promote the recovery of gastrointestinal function. Consequently, it can be an adjunctive therapy to enhance postoperative recovery for patients after gastrectomy.Keywords: stomach neoplasms, acupuncture therapy, enhanced recovery after surgery, pain management, gastrointestinal function

Research on short-term outcomes and oncology results after robotic gastrectomy (RG) is still limited, especially from a single surgical team. The purpose of this study was to compare the short-term and long-term outcomes of robotic and laparoscopic gastrectomy (LG). Between October 2014 and September 2019, 1686 consecutive patients who underwent MIS gastrectomy were enrolled. The patients were divided into RG and LG groups according to surgical type. Groups were matched at a 1:1 ratio using propensity scores based on the following variables: age, sex, ASA score, primary tumor location, histologic type, pathological stage, and neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The primary outcomes were 3-year overall survival (OS) and relapse-free survival (RFS). The secondary outcomes were postoperative short-term outcomes. Demographic and baseline characteristics were similar between the two groups after matching. Compared to the LG group, the RG group had a significantly higher retrieved lymph node (LN) number (32.15 vs 30.82, P = 0.040), more retrieved supra-pancreatic LNs (12.45 vs 11.61, P = 0.028), lower estimated blood loss (73.67 vs 98.08 ml, P

Background: Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha-induced protein 8-like 2 (TIPE2 or TNFAIP8L2) is a newly discovered negative immune regulator. Studies have shown that TIPE2 causes significant malignant biological effects and is differentially expressed in various malignant tumors. However, the expression and roles of TIPE2 in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) are largely unknown. Materials and Methods: The expression of TIPE2 in PDAC tissues was assessed by immunohistochemistry, qPCR and western blot analysis and related clinicopathological parameters including survival time were analyzed. After overexpression of TIPE2, cell proliferation and apoptosis analysis were conducted, and the associated underlying molecular mechanism was also explored. Results: In the present study, TIPE2 was upregulated in early PDAC tissues, and TIPE2 expression decreased as the tumor progressed (P

A thin-film transistor (TFT) integrated gate driver is proposed for compact in-cell touch display, where one capacitor is reused for both turning on low-level maintaining transistors via voltage coupling and maintaining the re-start charge during the touch sensing period. The gate terminal of buffer transistor is thus free of electrical stress during touch sensing period, and can be re-charged for the subsequent re-start period, leading to minimal variations in the transient response. With the capacitor reusing scheme and a capacitor stacking structure, the area of the single stage gate driver is decreased to $645\,\,\mu \text{m}\,\,\times 210\,\,\mu \text{m}$ . The fabricated a-Si TFT gate driver with 8 cascaded stages shows that the rising and falling time variations among re-start and normal gate driver stages are less than $1~\mu \text{s}$ . Versatile touch sensing modes and bidirectional scanning functions are verified.

In this paper, we investigate the task scheduling in resource-limited mobile edge computing (MEC) network, where multiple base stations (BSs), each equipped with a MEC server, assist multiple latency-sensitive user equipments (UEs) in computing. We aim to jointly minimize the system energy consumption and maximize the number of offloaded tasks by optimizing the task scheduling between UEs and BSs. A multiple-objective and mix-integer problem is formulated, which is difficult to solve. To tackle the problem, we combine the ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm with load balancing, and propose an efficient algorithm. The simulation demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Grain formation is fundamental for crop yield but is vulnerable to abiotic and biotic stresses. Rice grain production is threatened by the false smut fungus Ustilaginoidea virens, which specifically infects rice floral organs, disrupting fertilization and seed formation. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms of the U. virens-rice interaction and the genetic basis of floral resistance. Here, we report that U. virens secretes a cytoplasmic effector, UvCBP1, to facilitate infection of rice flowers. Mechanistically, UvCBP1 interacts with the rice scaffold protein OsRACK1A and competes its interaction with the reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase OsRBOHB, leading to inhibition of reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Although the analysis of natural variation revealed no OsRACK1A variants that could avoid being targeted by UvCBP1, expression levels of OsRACK1A are correlated with field resistance against U. virens in rice germplasm. Overproduction of OsRACK1A restores the OsRACK1A-OsRBOHB association and promotes OsRBOHB phosphorylation to enhance ROS production, conferring rice floral resistance to U. virens without yield penalty. Taken together, our findings reveal a new pathogenic mechanism mediated by an essential effector from a flower-specific pathogen and provide a valuable genetic resource for balancing disease resistance and crop yield.

Objective Glioma is a devastating disease lacking effective treatment. Tumor electric field therapy is emerging as a novel non‐invasive therapy. The current study evaluates the efficacy and safety of a self‐designed tumor electric field therapy system (TEFTS ASCLU‐300) in a rat orthotopic transplantation model of glioma. Methods A model of intracranial orthotopic transplantation was established in rats using glioma C6 cells. For electric field therapy, glioma‐bearing rats were exposed to alternating electric fields generated by a self‐developed TEFTS starting on either 1st (Group 2) or 3rd (Group 3) day after transplantation, while other conditions were maintained the same as non‐treated rats (Group 1). Glioma size, body weight, and overall survival (OS) were compared between groups. Immunohistochemical staining was applied to access tumor cell death and microvessel density within the tumor. In addition, the systemic effects of TEFTS on blood cells, vital organs, and hepatorenal functions were evaluated. Results TEFTS treatment significantly elongated the OS of tumor‐bearing rats compared with non‐treated rats (non‐treated vs treated: 24.77 ± 7.08 days vs 40.31 ± 19.11 days, P = .0031). Continuous TEFTS treatment starting on 1st or 3rd day significantly reduced glioma size at 2 and 3 weeks after tumor cell inoculation (Week 2: Group 1:289.95 ± 101.69 mm3; Group 2:70.45 ± 17.79 mm3; Group 3:73.88 ± 33.21 mm3, P .05). No remarkable differences were observed in hepatorenal function, blood cell counts, or other vital organs between non‐treated and treated groups. Conclusion The TEFTS developed by our research team was proved to be effective and safe to inhibit tumor growth and improve general outcomes in a rat model of brain glioma., The self‐designed TEFTS was proved to be effective and safe to inhibit tumor growth and improve general outcomes of Glioma.The instrument with random sequential electric field direction and adjustable intensity and frequency can apply electric field to the rapidly proliferating tumor cells from all directions in order to achieve the best curative effects.

Rate-dependent hysteresis nonlinearity in piezoelectric actuators severely limits micro- and nanoscale system performance. It is necessary to establish a dynamic model to describe the full behavior of rate-dependent hysteresis. In this article, the Elman neural network–based hysteresis model is developed for piezoelectric actuators. An improved dynamic hysteretic operator is proposed to transform the multi-valued mapping of hysteresis into one-to-one mapping on a newly constructed expanded input space. Then, Elman neural network incorporated with the improved dynamic hysteretic operator is utilized to approximate the behavior of rate-dependent hysteresis. The combination of Elman neural network and the improved dynamic hysteretic operator can dually embody the dynamic property and is capable of fully extracting the characteristics of rate-dependent hysteresis. The experimental results are presented to illustrate the potential of the proposed modeling technique.

Most previous risk-prediction models for gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) were based on Western populations. In the current study, we collected data from 23 hospitals in Shandong Province, China, and used the data to examine prognostic factors in Chinese patients and establish a new recurrence-free survival (RFS) prediction model. Records were analyzed for 5285 GIST patients. Independent prognostic factors were identified using Cox models. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to compare a novel RFS prediction model with current risk-prediction models. Overall, 4216 patients met the inclusion criteria and 3363 completed follow-up. One-, 3-, and 5-year RFS was 94.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 93.8–95.4), 85.9% (95% CI 84.7–87.1), and 78.8% (95% CI 77.0–80.6), respectively. Sex, tumor location, size, mitotic count, and rupture were independent prognostic factors. A new prognostic index (PI) was developed: PI = 0.000 (if female) + 0.270 (if male) + 0.000 (if gastric GIST) + 0.350 (if non-gastric GIST) + 0.000 (if no tumor rupture) + 1.259 (if tumor rupture) + 0.000 (tumor mitotic count 10 per 50 HPFs) + 0.096 × tumor size (cm). Model-predicted 1-, 3-, and 5-year RFS was S(12, X) = 0.9926exp(PI), S(36, X) = 0.9739exp(PI) and S(60, X) = 0.9471exp(PI), respectively. Sex, tumor location, size, mitotic count, and rupture were independently prognostic for GIST recurrence. Our RFS prediction model is effective for Chinese GIST patients.

Objective: Nectin and nectin-like molecules (Necls) are molecules that are involved in cell–cell adhesion and other vital cellular processes. This study aimed to determine the expression and prognostic value of nectin and Necls in low grade glioma (LGG).Materials and Methods: Differentially expressed nectin and Necls in LGG samples and the relationship of nectin family and Necls expression with prognosis, clinicopathological parameters, and survival were explored using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), the Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA), and Repository of Molecular Brain Neoplasia Data (REMBRANDT) databases. Univariate and multivariate Cox analysis models were performed to construct the prognosis-related gene signature. Kaplan-Meier curves and time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and multivariate Cox regression analysis, were utilized to evaluate the prognostic capacity of the four-gene signature. Gene ontology (GO)enrichment analysis and Gene Set Enrichment Analyses (GSEA) were performed to further understand the underlying molecular mechanisms. The Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) was used to explore the relationship between the four-gene signature and tumor immune infiltration.Results: Several nectin and Necls were differentially expressed in LGG. Kaplan–Meier survival analyses and Univariate Cox regression showed patients with high expression of NECTIN2 and PVR and low expression of CADM2 and NECTIN1 had worse prognosis among TCGA, CGGA, and REMBRANDT database. Then, a novel four-gene signature was built for LGG prognosis prediction. ROC curves, KM survival analyses, and multivariate COX regression indicated the new signature was an independent prognostic indicator for overall survival. Finally, GSEA and GO enrichment analyses revealed that immune-related pathways participate in the molecular mechanisms. The risk score had a strong negative correlation with tumor purity and data of TIMER showed different immune cell proportions (macrophage and myeloid dendritic cell) between high- and low-risk groups. Additionally, signature scores were positively related to multiple immune-related biomarkers (IL 2, IL8 and IFNγ).Conclusion: Our results offer an extensive analysis of nectin and Necls levels and a four-gene model for prognostic prediction in LGG, providing insights for further investigation of CADM2, NECTIN1/2, and PVR as potential clinical and immune targets in LGG.

As the strata sedimentary process proceeds, considerable amounts of nitrogen (N) is buried in sediments, which controls the sources and fate of N in the "groundwater-sediment" system. However, there is little concern regarding N burial characteristics in continuous sediment profiles from surface layer to deep aquifer thus far. In this study, lithology, grain size, geochronology, exchangeable N contents and geochemical proxies of sediments were analyzed to reveal the controlling mechanisms of N burial characteristics in Quaternary sediments and to interpret the enrichment of N in groundwater of central Yangtze River Basin. The results demonstrated a similar distribution trend for buried N in two sedimentary cores, which were high in the surface layer and decreased to stable in the deep aquifer. Excessive exchangeable N (EX-N) contents in sediments were mainly attributed to geologic origin. The N burial characteristics were controlled by the evolution of depositional environment: sedimentary facies determined the concentrations of total organic nitrogen (TON), further affecting the mineralization capacity of sediments; while paleoclimate regulated the intensity of the N transformation processes, ultimately influencing the actual concentrations of EX-N in sediments. In addition, due to the fast accumulation of alluvial deposits after Last Glacial Maximum and rapid development of Jianghan Lake Groups during Holocene, abundant organic matter (with high TON contents) was buried in sediments, which were still able to produce more ammonium or nitrate, and further posing continuous threats to groundwater quality. This study provided a new interpretation for the formation of high-ammonium aquifer in terms of depositional evolution.

Ustilaginoidea virens is a biotrophic fungal pathogen specifically colonizing rice floral organ and causes false smut disease of rice. This disease has emerged as a serious problem that hinders the application of high-yield rice cultivars, by reducing grain yield and quality as well as introducing mycotoxins. However, the pathogenic mechanisms of U. virens are still enigmatic. Here we demonstrate that U. virens employs a secreted protein UvCBP1 to manipulate plant immunity. In planta expression of UvCBP1 led to compromised chitin-induced defense responses in Arabidopsis and rice, including burst of reactive oxygen species (ROS), callose deposition, and expression of defense-related genes. In vitro-purified UvCBP1 protein competes with rice chitin receptor OsCEBiP to bind to free chitin, thus impairing chitin-triggered rice immunity. Moreover, UvCBP1 could significantly promote infection of U. virens in rice flowers. Our results uncover a mechanism of a floral fungus suppressing plant immunity and pinpoint a universal role of chitin-battlefield during plant–fungi interactions.

Face clustering is a promising method for annotating un-labeled face images. Recent supervised approaches have boosted the face clustering accuracy greatly, however their performance is still far from satisfactory. These methods can be roughly divided into global-based and local-based ones. Global-based methods suffer from the limitation of training data scale, while local-based ones are difficult to grasp the whole graph structure information and usually take a long time for inference. Previous approaches fail to tackle these two challenges simultaneously. To address the dilemma of large-scale training and efficient inference, we propose the STructure-AwaRe Face Clustering (STAR-FC) method. Specifically, we design a structure-preserved subgraph sampling strategy to explore the power of large-scale training data, which can increase the training data scale from 105 to 107. During inference, the STAR-FC performs efficient full-graph clustering with two steps: graph parsing and graph refinement. And the concept of node intimacy is introduced in the second step to mine the local structural information. The STAR-FC gets 91.97 pairwise F-score on partial MS1M within 310s which surpasses the state-of-the-arts. Furthermore, we are the first to train on very large-scale graph with 20M nodes, and achieve superior inference results on 12M testing data. Overall, as a simple and effective method, the proposed STAR-FC provides a strong baseline for large-scale face clustering. Code is available at https://sstzal.github.io/STAR-FC/.

Octan-2-one is a promising extraction solvent with low solubility in water. The experimental solubility behavior of benzene-1,2-diol, benzene-1,3-diol, or benzene-1,4-diol in mixtures of octan-2-on...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the long-term effects of acid rain simulation (ARS) on soil respiration (Rs) components and enzymatic activities. An 8-year field ARS experiment was conducted in a subtropical forest. A trenching method was used to partition Rs into heterotrophic respiration (Rh) and autotrophic respiration (Ra). Soil urease, invertase, and catalase activities were measured after long-term ARS application. The repeated-measures ANOVA indicated that there was no significant (P > 0.05) difference in annual mean Rs (or Rh) between SAR plots from March 2016 to February 2018. Rs was significantly (P 0.05) differences in Q10 of Rs (or Rh) between ARS treatments, indicating that the ARS effect on Q10 was not significant. ARS induced a decline in soil urease activity in both untrenched and trenched plots on most measurement dates. The soil invertase and catalase activities were significantly (P

Methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) had been successfully employed to extract phenols from coal gasification wastewater since 2009, and it has been proved to be an excellent extraction solvent. In this w...

It becomes increasingly important and challenging for nitrogen pollution prevention to identify key controls for spatial variability of nitrogen in groundwater that could be affected by multiple factors, including anthropogenic input, groundwater flow, and local geochemistry. This study characterized spatial variability of both nitrate and ammonium in the Pleistocene aquifer of central Yangtze River Basin and assessed the effect of various factors in controlling nitrate and ammonium levels based on multiple statistical approaches (correlation, geostatistics, multiple liner regression). The results indicate that nitrate is mostly influenced by Cl- that represents anthropogenic input, while Eh representing local redox state is a secondary variable influencing nitrate concentrations. The groundwater with elevated nitrate concentrations are estimated to occur mainly in areas with higher-permeability near-surface sediments which can facilitate more anthropogenic nitrate transport and less nitrate removal owing to more oxidized state. Ammonium is mostly correlated to Eh, followed by dissolved organic carbon (DOC), but only DOC improves significantly the accuracy of co-kriging prediction model. The groundwater with elevated ammonium concentrations are estimated to occur mainly in areas with more organic-rich sediments within or around the aquifer which can facilitate more ammonium release owing to natural organic matter consumption accompanying strong reducing conditions. The regional groundwater flow is not a factor significantly controlling nitrate or ammonium levels owing to flat topography and sluggish lateral flow.

Aspirin eugenol ester (AEE) was a promising drug candidate for treating inflammation, pain and fever and preventing cardiovascular diseases with fewer side effects than its precursors. Previous researches indicated that AEE could markedly inhibit agonist-induced platelet aggregation in vitro and ex vivo, however, the anti-platelet aggregation mechanisms of AEE remain to be defined. Here, AEE in vitro effects on agonist-induced granule-secretion, intercellular Ca2+ mobilization and thromboxane A2 (TXA2) generation were examined. Vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (VASP), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), Akt, Sirt 1 and CD40L expressions were also studied. In agonist-activated platelets in vitro, AEE markedly attenuated granule secretion markers (P-selectin expression and ATP release), intercellular Ca2+ mobilization and thromboxane B2 (TXB2) formation. AEE also attenuated CD40L activation, suppressed extracellular-signal-regulated protein kinase 2 (ERK2), c-Jun N-terminal kinase 1 (JNK1) and Akt phosphorylation, and recovered Sirt1 expression, but the activation of p38, VASPSer157 and VASPSer239, and the levels of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) and cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) were not affected by AEE. Overall, this study demonstrates that AEE inhibits agonist-induced platelet aggregation in vitro by regulating PI3K/Akt, MAPK and Sirt 1/CD40L pathways.

1-Dodecanol has good extraction efficiency of cresols from aqueous solution. The liquid-liquid equilibrium (LLE) data of ternary system 1-dodecanol-(o-/m-/p-)-cresol-water were determined at 298.15 K, 313.15 K, 323.15 K, 333.15 K and 343.15 K under atmospheric pressure. The Hand and Othmer-Tobias equations were used to test the reliability of the experimental tie-line results. The results show that the measurement data has high consistency. The LLE data were correlated by non-random two-liquid (NRTL) and universal chemical activity coefficient (UNIQUAC) models. The experimental results show that the correlation coefficients of both models exceed 0.995. All root mean square deviations (RMSDs) between the calculated values from the single temperature NRTL model, the UNIQUAC model and the multiple temperatures NRTL model and the experimental data are

1-Dodecanol with low solubility in water is a potential solvent to extract phenol from wastewater. The liquid–liquid equilibrium data of the ternary system (1-dodecanol–phenol–water) were measured at 298.15, 313.15, 323.15, 333.15, and 343.15 K under atmospheric pressure. The experimental data were correlated by the nonrandom two liquids (NRTL) and universal quasi-chemical (UNIQUAC) models, and the corresponding binary parameters were obtained. The results show that the two models agree well with experimental values. Comparison of the average values of the root mean squared deviation (RMSD) from both models reveals that the NRTL model is more accurate than the UNIQUAC model. The effect of temperature on the extraction process is discussed, and temperature has little effect on extraction efficiency. The van’t Hoff equation is used to correlate the relationship of distribution coefficient to temperature. The enthalpy change of the extraction process was calculated, and the result shows that extraction of ph...

Purpose: Glioma is a refractory disease associated with immune cell infiltration, and the effectiveness of checkpoint blockade remains suboptimal. As an adhesion and costimulatory molecule, CD48 plays a significant role in immunomodulation. As such, studying CD48 may provide additional understanding of the immune and inflammation response of glioma. Methods: Using R language and GraphPad Prism 7, RNA sequencing data of 946 patients from Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas and The Cancer Genome Atlas cohorts were analyzed. Results: CD48 was highly expressed in the malignant progression of glioma. As an independent risk factor, high-CD48 patients were associated with poor prognosis. CD48 influenced glioma purity and the local immune cell subpopulation. CD48 was closely related to immune function in glioma. Patients with an enhanced immune phenotype, high CD48, were associated with immune suppressive molecules and checkpoints. In addition, CD48 correlated with the immune and inflammatory response. A checkpoint risk score including CD48, SLAMF8 and PD-L1 was used to assess the role of checkpoints. Risk score was particularly high in a malignant subtype of glioma and was an independent predictive indicator of unfavorable outcome. Additionally, age, IDH subtype and MGMT promoter status influenced the predictive significance of checkpoint risk score. Conclusion: CD48 exhibits a crucial role in reduced survival and immunomodulation in glioma. In addition, we found that checkpoints play a greater role in patients older than 40 years old with IDH wild-type and MGMT methylated status. These findings suggest that combining CD48 blockade with PD-L1 may be a promising approach to glioma immunotherapy for specific subpopulations of patients.

In this work, liquid–liquid equilibria (LLE) data for the ternary system methyl tert-butyl ketone (MTBK) + o, m, p-benzenediol + water were investigated at 333.2 K, 343.2 K and 353.2 K under 101.3 kPa. The performance of MTBK to extract o, m, p-benzenediol from wastewaters was estimated by partition coefficients and separation factors. The Hand and Bachman equations were both applied to check the reliability of the experimental LLE data. Furthermore, the Non-Random Two-Liquid (NRTL) and Universal Quasi Chemical (UNIQUAC) models were applied to correlate the measured LLE data. The results showed a good agreement with the determined ternary LLE data with the root-mean-square error (RMSE) values below 0.71%. MTBK was proved to be a promising extracting agent in extracting benzenediols from effluents.

Nitrogen (N) pollution in shallow groundwater within the Jianghan Plain—a depositional basin along the Yangtze River in China—is a serious issue affecting the local water supply. There is little concern regarding temporal variation patterns of groundwater N in regions with intensive groundwater/surface-water interactions thus far. In this study, a 2-year field monitoring program and a set of incubation experiments were jointly applied to characterize the seasonal variation mechanisms of groundwater N. Groundwater monitoring suggested that temporal N variations in monitoring wells of 25 and 10-m depth were correlated with fluctuations in water levels, with lower NH4-N and higher NO3−-N concentrations corresponding to groundwater discharge during the dry season, and with higher NH4-N and lower NO3−-N concentrations corresponding to groundwater recharge during the wet season. Batch sediment incubation experiments showed that buried organic carbon in sediments from the field site could not promote NH4-N release, but exogenous organic carbon and oxidant input could catalyze organic N mineralization, resulting in NH4-N release. Nevertheless, NO3−-N release was limited in all incubations. Thus, the temporal variation patterns could be divided into (1) groundwater N in type-1 wells (25 and 10 m), controlled by the annual reversal of groundwater flow gradient, which determined whether there was input of exogenous organic carbon or oxidants, ultimately affecting organic N mineralization, denitrification and other transformation processes, and (2) groundwater N in type-2 wells (

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are essential for monitoring physiological signals of the human body, but the lifetime of WBANs is limited by battery longevity and it is not convenient or feasible for replacing the batteries of the sensors. The newly emerged energy-harvesting technology provides the potential to break the battery limitation of WBANs. However, the radio resource of a WBAN should be carefully scheduled for the wireless power transfer links and wireless information transmission links; otherwise, severely unfair resource allocation could be incurred due to the difference of channel qualities of the sensors. In this paper, we propose a marginal utility theoretic method to allocate the radio resource to the on-/in-body sensors in a fair and efficient manner. Especially, we consider that the sensors are wireless powered by multiple pre-installed radio-frequency energy sources. First, the utility function for a sensor node is proposed, which can map the achievable throughput to a satisfaction level of network QoS. Then, the fairness resource allocation among the sensor nodes is modeled as a sum-utility maximization problem. By using the dual decomposition method, the optimal solution to the proposed problem can finally be solved in the closed form. In comparison with the sum-throughput maximization and common-throughput maximization methods, the simulation results show that the proposed sum-utility maximization method can bring a fair throughput allocation for the sensors with different channel conditions, and the performance loss to the sum-throughput maximization method is small, while the sum-throughput maximization method is extremely unfair.

Delineation of safe aquifers becomes highly imperative and challenging to ensure sustainable drinking water supply in rural areas of multi-level aquifer systems with complex water circulation under the impact of both geogenic and anthropogenic contamination. This work characterized hydrogeological and hydrogeochemical features of a multi-level Quaternary aquifer system of the central Yangtze River Basin to search for evidences of locating aquifers least contaminated. The results indicate modern hydrologic cycling is active in shallow phreatic aquifer (SPA) and in upper part of middle confined aquifer (MCA-1). The lower part of middle confined aquifer (MCA-2) and deep confined aquifer (DCA) have ages ranging from 200 to 2000 years and 4000 to >20,000 years, respectively. Vertical variations of hydrochemical compositions and Cl/Br ratios suggest the gradually decreasing and increasing contribution with depth from anthropogenic activities and natural water-mineral interactions, respectively. The SPA is characterized by high levels of anthropogenic components (Cl−, SO42−, NO3−, organic pesticides and antibiotics). The MCA-1 is the main aquifer where most private tube wells were installed, typically contains geogenic As, Fe, Mn and NH4+ at concentration levels several hundred times higher than the national drinking water standard values. Organic-abundant geochemical and stagnant hydrogeological conditions favor their enrichment. Both MCA-2 and DCA are slightly influenced by geogenic contamination and groundwater pumping from public wells screened in MCA-2 does not or slightly perturbs the groundwater flow condition in MCA-2 and DCA. The cost-effective water supply strategy is either to maintain safe yield of groundwater from public wells screened in MCA-2, or to use the groundwater after simple filtration and aeration treatment in case that groundwater pumping in MCA-2 were over a “safe yield” or induced leakage of groundwater containing As, Fe, Mn and NH4+ from the overlying MCA-1. And DCA could serve as a source for water supply under emergency circumstances.

Inflammasome signaling is a reaction cascade that influences immune response and cell death. Although the inflammasomes participate in tumorigenesis, their role as an oncogenic booster or a tumor suppresser is still controversial. Therefore, it is important to comprehensively investigate the inflammasome signaling status across various cancers to clarify its clinical and therapeutic significance. Methods: A total of 9881 patients across 33 tumor types from The Cancer Genome Atlas database were included in this study. Five gene sets were identified to step-wisely profile inflammasome signaling. Unsupervised clustering was used for sample classification based on gene set enrichment. Machine learning and in vitro and in vivo experiments were used to confirm the implications of inflammasome classification. Results: A hundred and forty-one inflammasome-signaling-related genes were identified to construct five gene sets representing the sensing, activation, and termination steps of the inflammasome signaling. Six inflammasome clusters were robustly established with distinct molecular, biological, clinical, and therapeutic features. Importantly, clusters with inflammasome signaling activation were found to be immunosuppressive and resistant to ICB treatment. Inflammasome inhibition reverted the therapeutic failure of ICB in inflammasome-activated tumors. Moreover, based on the proposed classification and therapeutic implications, an open website was established to provide tumor patients with comprehensive information on inflammasome signaling. Conclusions: Our study conducted a systematical investigation on inflammasome signaling in various tumor types. These findings highlight the importance of inflammasome evaluation in tumor classification and provide a foundation for improving relevant therapeutic regimens.

Freshwater lakes experience drastic water level fluctuations because of climate change and human activities. However, the influence of such fluctuations on phosphorus cycling in sediments has rarely been investigated. We conducted a geochemical investigation on the phosphorus cycle in a shallow freshwater lake, Dongting Lake; under the influence of human activities and climate change, its water regime undergoes drastic changes. Irrespective of the permanent inundation zone (PIZ) or seasonal inundation zone (SIZ), the phosphorus cycle in sediments was found to be dominated by the reductive dissolution of iron (Fe) (oxyhydr)oxides, degradation of organic matters, and conversion between authigenic phosphorus (Ca-P) and detrital phosphorus in individual seasons. From winter to summer, with increasing water level, the content of Fe-bound phosphorus and organic phosphorus increase due to the deposition of suspended matter, thus increasing total phosphorus in PIZ. Moreover, the rising water level also reduces the dissolved oxygen content and promotes the reductive dissolution of Fe (oxyhydr)oxides. The mineralization of increased organic matter can release CO2 and reduce pH in the vicinity, which can further result in the acidic dissolution of detrital apatite. In turn, most of the released phosphorus can be adsorbed or co-precipitated with calcium minerals, resulting in the significant increase of Ca-P. The mechanisms of phosphorus transformation in SIZ are similar to those in PIZ, but most of the increased organic matter and total P in a core from SIZ are attributable to the decomposition of plant matter. Therefore, the water level rise not only changes the conservative speciation of phosphorus in sediments to active speciation, but also triggers the release of phosphorus adsorbed to oxides and further increases the risk of phosphorus release from sediments to overlying water. Thus, our findings have major implications for freshwater shallow lakes and their P-driven productivity.

Mismatch repair (MMR) plays an important role in the occurrence and development of tumors. At present, it is widely believed that MMR is a protective mechanism of tumors that plays a critical role in the progresses of cancer. In this study, 34 genes related to MMR selected from Gene Ontology (GO) database were scored by single sample Gene sets enrichment analysis (ssGSEA), and eight cancers were screened from 23 TCGA solid cancers to investigate the clinical significance of MMR score. MMR had different effects on the prognosis of the eight tumors, with a protective effect in three cancers and functioning as a risk factor in the remaining five cancers. We used unsupervised clustering to divide the patients into four clusters. We found that the immune and metabolic status of the four clusters were extremely different, among which cluster1 had the lowest tumor purity and the most complex microenvironment; this may explain its poor prognosis and immunotherapy effect. In summary, MMR scores can improve the predictive ability and provide effective guidance for immunotherapy in individual type of tumors.

To study the effects of the three deformation instability modes of gas drainage borehole on gas drainage, the deformation instability mechanism of soft coal seams is analyzed, three deformation instability modes are proposed for soft coal seams, namely, complete holes, collapse holes, and plug holes, and a solid-fluid coupling model incorporating dynamic change of borehole suction pressure is established. The results of the study show the following. (1) When there is no borehole deformation (i.e., complete borehole), the suction pressure loss of drainage system in the borehole is very small, whose effect on gas drainage can be neglected. (2) In case of borehole collapse, the suction pressure loss is big at the collapse segment, and the total suction pressure loss of the drainage system in the borehole is bigger than that in the complete hole. However, it is smaller than the suction pressure of the drainage system and exerts limited effect on gas drainage. As the borehole collapse deteriorates, the effective drainage section of the borehole becomes smaller, while the suction pressure loss in the borehole increases continuously; thus, the gas drainage effect continuously worsens. (3) In case of plug hole, a continuous medium forms between the plug segment coal body and the surrounding coal seam, the plug segment drainage pressure turns into coal-bed gas pressure, and effective drainage length of the borehole shortens, seriously affecting the gas drainage effect. The study carries important theoretical guiding significance for improving gas drainage effect and effectively preventing gas disasters.

Background: Glioma is the most prevalent and malignant primary central nervous system tumor in adults. As a member of the integrin alpha chain family of proteins, integrin subunit alpha 3 (ITGA3) has been found to play a critical role in the occurrence and progression of several cancers, including lung, ovarian, and pancreatic cancers. However, the role of ITGA3 in glioma remains unclear.Methods: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA), REMBRANDT, GSE16011, GSE59612, and GSE4290 datasets were used to analyze relevant characteristics of ITGA3 in glioma. R language and GraphPad Prism 7.00 were employed as major tools for statistical analysis and graph manipulation.Results: We identified that ITGA3 expression was upregulated in glioma and related to unfavorable outcomes of glioma patients. Expression of ITGA3 also tended to be enriched in aggressive subtypes of glioma. We demonstrated that expression of ITGA3 was negatively correlated with glioma purity. In gliomas with high ITGA3 expression, the anti-glioma immune response was inhibited. ITGA3 also regulated angiogenesis within the glioma microenvironment and promoted the epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) and autophagy of glioma cells. GSEA analysis revealed that ITGA3 could activate ERK1/2 and PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathways.Conclusion: Our data suggested that ITGA3 promoted the malignant progression of glioma by regulating the immunity of glioma as well as the EMT and autophagy of glioma cells, which could act as a therapeutic target for glioma.