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Thermoacoustic instability of n-decane at subcritical pressure in a small-scale channel is investigated from three aspects: the flow pattern, the fluctuations of temperature and pressure, and the dynamic model. The results show that the thermoacoustic instability is a type of dynamic instability and experiences three stages: that is, appearance, development, and disappearance. Oscillations happen for the pressure drop, fluid temperature, and wall temperature when thermoacoustic instability appears. The thermoacoustic instability is driven by a positive and a negative feedback. When the outlet oil temperature reaches saturation temperature, the positive feedback loop is on, and the thermoacoustic oscillation happens. After that, the flow pattern near the outlet recovers to annular flow and then transforms to a single-gas flow, which leads the thermoacoustic oscillation to happen again. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regorafenib has been demonstrated in our previous study to trigger apoptosis through suppression of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)/nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) activation in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) SK-Hep1 cells in vitro. However, the effect of regorafenib on NF-κB-modulated tumor progression in HCC in vivo is ambiguous. The aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of regorafenib on NF-κB-modulated tumor progression in HCC bearing mouse model. pGL4.50 luciferase reporter vector transfected SK-Hep1 (SK-Hep1/luc2) and Hep3B 2.1-7 tumor bearing mice were established and used for the present study. Mice were treated with vehicle or regorafenib (20 mg/kg/day by gavage) for 14 days. Effects of regorafenib on tumor growth and protein expression together with toxicity of regorafenib were evaluated with digital caliper and bioluminescence imaging (BLI), ex vivo Western blotting immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining, and measurement of body weight and pathological examination of liver tissue, respectively, in SK-Hep1/luc2 and Hep3B 2.1-7 tumor bearing mice. The results indicated regorafenib significantly reduced tumor growth and expression of phosphorylated ERK, NF-κB p65 (Ser536), phosphorylated AKT, and tumor progression-associated proteins. In addition, we found regorafenib induced both extrinsic and intrinsic apoptotic pathways. Body weight and liver morphology were not affected by regorafenib treatment. Our findings present themechanism of tumor progression inhibition by regorafenib is linked to suppression of ERK/NF-κB signaling in SK-Hep1/luc2 and Hep3B 2.1-7 tumor bearing mice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

N-Tosylhydrazones have had widespread application in organic synthesis for more than a half century. In most of cases, N-tosylhydrazones, as masked diazo compounds, have been generally used in a series of important carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bondforming reactions. This review provides an update on progress in diverse coupling reactions of N-tosylhydrazones since 2012. The examples selected are mainly categorized by metal-catalyzed and metal-free systems, wherein four main types of transformations including insertion, olefination, alkynylation, and cyclization are discussed for each system. 1 Introduction 2 Transition-Metal-Catalyzed Coupling Reactions 3 Metal-Free Coupling Reactions 4 Conclusion and Outlook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assembly of low molecular weight polymers into highly efficient and nontoxic nanostructures has broad applicability in gene delivery. In this study, we reported the assembly of coumarin-anchored low generation dendrimers in aqueous solution via hydrophobic interactions. The synthesized material showed significantly improved DNA binding and gene delivery, and minimal toxicity on the transfected cells. Moreover, the coumarin moieties in the assembled nanostructures endow the materials with light-responsive drug delivery behaviors. The coumarin substitutes in the assembled nanostructures were cross-linked with each other upon irradiation at 365 nm, and the cross-linked assemblies were degraded upon further irradiation at 254 nm. As a result, the drug-loaded nanoparticle showed a light-responsive drug release behavior and light-enhanced anticancer activity. The assembled nanoparticle also exhibited a complementary anticancer activity through the codelivery of 5-fluorouracil and a therapeutic gene encoding tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL). This study provided a facile strategy to develop light-responsive polymers for the codelivery of therapeutic genes and anticancer drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Severe atmospheric haze caused by industrial pollution has severely affected human health and led to the increasing incidence of cardiopulmonary diseases, including pneumonia. Conventional methods for diagnosis of pneumonia are complicated and tedious, and current clinical imaging techniques might cause organ injuries to some extent. Therefore, an accurate, fast, and intact imaging method must be developed to diagnose pneumonia in the early stages. In this study, we propose a new two-photon fluorescence probe, named as ASPC, for detection of the activity of the inflammatory biomarker LTA4H through specific recognition and cleavage of amides containing the unnatural amino acid L-AspBzl. The activity of LTA4H in the lung tissues of mice was rapidly and accurately monitored for the first time and could be an indicator for diagnosis of pneumonia. The severity of pneumonia in mice caused by haze particulate was determined through imaging the activity of LTA4H as biomarker and confirmed using a commercial ELISA kit of interleukin-1ß. This work provides a promising method for clinical detection of pneumonia and for screening specific depressors of LTA4H as potential drug candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A magnetic solid-phase extraction method for the preconcentration of three organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) from water samples has been proposed, based on magnetic phosphatidylcholine (MPC) as adsorbents. The extraction procedure was carried out in a single step by stirring the mixture of MPC and water samples. Subsequently, the MPC was collected by an external magnetic field without additional centrifugation or filtration. The analytes were desorbed fromthe MPC and finally analysed by gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The influence of various parameters on OCPs recoveries was studied. Results show that phosphatidylcholine amount and extraction time were critical in enhancing extraction performance, and the presence of humic acid was shown to significantly reduce the extraction efficiency. The limits of detection obtained were in the range of 0.1-0.15 ng L-1. Recoveries of spiked water samples ranged from 76.2% to 101.5% with relative standard deviations varying from 3.8% to 7.7%. The proposed method was employed for analysis of pentachlorobenzene, α-hexachlorocyclohexane and β-endosulfan in the surface water from two rivers in northeast China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Previous western studies have found Caucasians with skin cancer, either melanoma or nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC), have an elevated risk of second primary cancer. Our objective was to assess the risk of second primary cancer in Taiwanese with NMSC. Materials and Methods By using data from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database, we conducted a population-based cohort study to assess the risk of incident second primary cancer in Taiwanese affected by NMSC. Results We identified 505 subjects with NMSC and 2,020 matched controls. After adjustment for potential confounders including age, sex, urbanization, and Charlson Comorbidity Index, people who had NMSC had a 1.43-fold (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.05 to 1.96) risk for the development of second primary cancer as compared with control group. Men with NMSC had a 2.99-fold (95% CI, 1.00 to 9.10) risk for second primary cancer involving the lip, oral cavity, and pharynx and a 3.51-fold (95% CI, 1.21 to 10.17) risk for second primary cancer involving the genitourinary organs when compared to the control group. By contrast, women with NMSC did not have an increased risk of second primary cancer. Conclusion This study revealed Asians with NMSC have an increased risk of second primary cancer. Our findings can be a useful reference for health care for people diagnosed with NMSC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The amount of digital text available for analysis by consumer researchers has risen dramatically. Consumer discussions on the internet, product reviews, and digital archives of news articles and press releases are just a few potential sources for insights about consumer attitudes, interaction, and culture. Drawing from linguistic theory and methods, this article presents an overview of automated text analysis, providing integration of linguistic theory with constructs commonly used in consumer research, guidance for choosing amongst methods, and advice for resolving sampling and statistical issues unique to text analysis. We argue that although automated text analysis cannot be used to study all phenomena, it is a useful tool for examining patterns in text that neither researchers nor consumers can detect unaided. Text analysis can be used to examine psychological and sociological constructs in consumer-produced digital text by enabling discovery or by providing ecological validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precise and rapid air quality simulation and forecasting are limited by the computation performance of the air quality model, and the gas-phase chemistry module is the most time-consuming function in the air quality model. In this study, we designed a new framework for the widely used Carbon Bond Mechanism Z (CBM-Z) gas-phase chemical kinetics kernel to adapt the Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) technology in the next-generation processors for improving its calculation performance. The optimization implements the fine-grain level parallelization of CBM-Z by improving its vectorization ability. Through constructing loops and integrating the main branches, e.g. diverse chemistry sub-schemes, multiple spatial points in the model can be operated simultaneously on vector processing units (VPU). The Intel Xeon E5-2697 V4 CPU and Intel Xeon Phi 7250 Knight Landing (KNL) are used as the benchmark processors. The validation of the model outputs indicates that the relative errors are in an acceptable range (< 0.05%). The results show that the optimization resulted in a 4.24x speedup on a single CPU core and 17.33x speedup on a single KNL core. For the node, the speedup on the CPU can reach 113.42x using Message Passing Interface (MPI) and 118.13x using OpenMP, and the speedup on the KNL node can reach 170.31x using MPI and 179.95x using OpenMP. The speedup of the optimized CBM-Z is approximately 50 ~ 52% higher on a 1-socket KNL platform than on a 2-socket CPU platform. This work improves the performance of the CBM-Z chemical kinetics kernel as well as the calculation efficiency of the air quality model, which can directly improve the practical value of the air quality model in scientific simulation and routine forecasting. Furthermore, since this optimization seeks to improve the utilization of the VPU, the model is more suitable for the new generation processors adopting the more advanced SIMD technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION: To investigate the effects of pioglitazone (PIO) on insulin resistance and first phase insulin secretion among obese and lean Chinese people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). METHODS: Sixty-eight drug-naïve patients with T2DM were treated with PIO for 16 weeks. Before and after the treatment, insulin sensitivity was evaluated by the euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamp test. Plasma insulin levels at 0, 3, 5, 7, and 10 min during intravenous glucose tolerance test were determined to calculate the first phase insulin secretion and pancreatic β-cell function. Circulating adiponectin levels were quantified. RESULTS: In both the lean and the obese patients with T2DM, the reduction of HbA1c following the PIO treatment was more than 1% (P < 0.001) and glucose infusion rate, acute insulin response, glucose disposal index, and β-cell glucose sensitivity increased significantly (P < 0.001). A multiple linear regression analysis showed that the improvements of first phase insulin secretion and insulin sensitivity were independently associated with the changes of HbA1c, but the change of first phase insulin secretion exhibited a higher correlation coefficient (R2 = 0.20, P = 0.001) than the change of insulin sensitivity did (R2 = 0.07, P = 0.040). The PIO treatment led to a significant increase in adiponectin levels only in the obese group (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: A 16-week treatment of PIO significantly increased insulin sensitivity and β-cell function in the lean group as well as in the obese group among Chinese T2DM patients, demonstrating that both lean and obese diabetic adults would profit from PIO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites have superior properties of high modulus-to-weight ratio, high strength-to-weight ratio, good durability, high corrosion resistance, and low thermal expansion coefficient. These properties make them attractive in many different applications, such as aerospace, medical, transportation, and sporting goods. However, CFRP's properties of anisotropy, inhomogeneity, and abrasive properties of carbon fibers in CFRP composites generate many problems, including high cutting forces, high torque, delamination, high tool wear, decomposition of matrix material, etc., in traditional grinding processes. Surface grinding of CFRP composites using rotary ultrasonic machining (RUM) is used to decrease these problems. However, there is no investigation on effects of workpiece machining orientations in such a process. This investigation, for the first time, studies effects of workpiece machining orientations and machining variables (including tool rotation speed, feedrate, and ultrasonic power) on output variables (including both cutting force in feeding direction and cutting force in axial direction, torque, and surface roughness). The results show that lower cutting forces and torque are generated by using 90° workpiece machining orientation and lower surface roughness is produced by using 0° workpiece machining orientation. The results are discussed and analyzed, and they will fill in the research gaps in RUM surface grinding of CFRP composites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent advancement in climate sciences has discovered two different types of El Niño events, namely the eastern Pacific El Niño (EP-El Niño) and central Pacific El Niño (CP-El Niño). Identifying how watershed responses to different El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, including both El Niño and La Niña conditions, is critical in understanding how the oceanic teleconnections possibly affect local precipitation and streamflow. In this study, 70 watersheds with minimum human impact during the period 1950–2010 in the Southeastern United States (SEUS) were selected to examine whether streamflow exhibits different patterns in EP- and CP-El Niño conditions, and La Niña events. Similar analyses were applied to 187 precipitation stations in SEUS. Analyses reveal that for the peak season of both EP-El Niño and CP-El Niño years, December–January–February (DJF), seasonal average streamflow and precipitation is higher than long-term average. CP-El Niño, however, weakens the wetting effect brought by traditional EP-El Niño, leading to smaller percentage of increases in seasonal precipitation/streamflow for most stations in the SEUS. In the decaying season March–April–May (MAM) of ENSO signals, streamflow for both EP- and CP-El Niño is higher than its corresponding climatology. The increased amplitude is even greater in MAM compared to that of the DJF season. During La Niña events, reduced precipitation and streamflow are observed for large portion of stations in SEUS, especially for the DJF and MAM season. The use of ENSO in water resources management is often limited to boreal winter season for the SEUS, as its signal is well reflected in hydrological responses. This study finds that for the June–July–August (JJA) season followed by the decay of ENSO signals in MAM, there is striking difference in the magnitude of precipitation and streamflow for EP-El Niño and CP-El Niño events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently low-dimensional materials hold great potential in the field of photocatalysis, whereas the concomitantly promoted many-body effects have long been ignored. Such Coulomb interactionmediated effects would lead to some intriguing, nontrivial band structures, thus promising versatile photocatalytic performances and optimized strategies. Here, we demonstrate that ultrathin black phosphorus (BP) nanosheets exhibit an exotic, excitation-energydependent, optical switching effect in photocatalytic reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. It is, for the first time, observed that singlet oxygen (1O2) and hydroxyl radical (•OH) are the dominant ROS products under visible- and ultraviolet-light excitations, respectively. Such an effect can be understood as a result of subband structure, where energy-transfer and charge-transfer processes are feasible under excitations in the first and second subband systems, respectively. This work not only establishes an in-depth understanding on the influence of many-body effects on photocatalysis but also paves the way for optimizing catalytic performances via controllable photoexcitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Ash deposition always brings boilers some trouble due to fouling or slagging. In this paper, a completely controlled system was developed to study the growth of ash deposit. A novel sampling probe was designed to online measure the heat flux through ash deposit. Additionally, the thickness of ash deposit can be obtained by an online figure collecting system. The results of this research showed that as the thickness of ash deposit increased, the heat flux decreased. It was also found that at the initial stage of ash deposition when the thickness of ash deposit is approximately 1 mm, the heat flux through ash deposit had a sharp reduction. An effective method was attempted to situ measure the effective thermal conductivity of the ash deposit in the simulated combustion flue gas. It was found that temperature of the ash deposit layer had no obvious effect on its value. It was concluded that the structure of ash deposit had no obvious change in a short deposition time of 30 min with varied surface temperatures of the probe head between 400 °C and 600 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corn deep processing industry is an important follow-up industry for corn production and processing. Shandong has numerous largescale corn processing enterprises and is one of the fast-growing regions in China for deep processing of corn. The status of production and processing of corn in the major corn-producing areas of Shandong Province such as Dezhou, Liaocheng and Tai'an was investigated on the spot. It was found that the development of the corn industry in Shandong also has many problems, such as the mismatch between corn demand and production areas, the excessively small planting area of special corn and the poor communication between technology and demand, resulting in barriers in technology and raw materials in the production and processing links of corn and making it difficult to form a complete industrial chain system. According to the actual investigation, a highly efficient agricultural industry safety review mechanism was established based on the sound judgement of industrial safety to ensure the safety of the company's development, and at the same time, the interpretation and promotion of the strategy of going abroad was strengthened, so as to provide a full range of information services for corn processing enterprises and help to further develop and optimize the corn industry in Shandong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A passively Q-switched 2.05-μmTm:Y2O3 ceramic laser, employing Ho:LuAG ceramic as a saturable absorber, was demonstrated for the first time. Under the absorbed pump power of 20.5 W, a maximum output power of 497 mW was obtained. Pulses with a minimum pulse width of 642 ns under the repetition rate of 33 kHz were achieved. Our works validate that Ho-doped materials have good potential for passive Q-switching of Tm-doped lasers at 2-μm wavelength region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Readily available phenol-derived biaryls reacted with allenes under palladium catalysis to provide a variety of highly valuable spiro[cyclohexane-1,1′-indene]-2,5-dien-4-ones. This new catalytic process, involving a key step of regioselective allylative dearomatization of phenol, proceeded efficiently through a [3 + 2] spiroannulation pathway by overcoming undesired β-hydride elimination. Preliminary asymmetric studies showed that high enantioselectivity could be realized by using a commercially available PHOX ligand. Moreover, the potential application of this method was exemplified by several further transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flavor microencapsulation has been widely used in foods, medicines, cosmetics, and other fields. The use of amylose-based complexes is receiving increasing attention because they are biodegradable, non-toxic, and biocompatible, and these complexes provide a new way to develop and impart flavors. In this study, with the aim of investigating the properties of amylose--flavor complexes, linear aliphatic alcohols (C6-C9) and the aromatic alcohol naphthol were used to prepare inclusion complexes by the sealed heating method in yields ranging from 45 to 50%. In addition, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) were utilized to investigate the structural characteristics of these inclusion complexes, and it was found that the amylose-nheptanol inclusion complex was most stable. Furthermore, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy revealed that V-type crystals existed in the amylose--flavor complexes. Moreover, TGA showed that all amylose--flavor inclusion complexes have excellent thermal stability. The encapsulation efficiency of the complexes increased with decreasing chain length, but the encapsulation efficiency of the complexes with the aromatic alcohol naphthol was lower than that of the complexes with some linear alcohols. This indicated that the stereoscopic confirmation of a-naphthol may influence the complexes being formed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transmembrane protein 88 (TMEM88), a newly discovered protein localized on the cell membrane. Recent studies showed that TMEM88 was involved in the regulation of several types of cancer. TMEM88 was expressed at significantly higher levels in breast cancer (BC) cell line than in normal breast cell line with co-localized with Dishevelled (DVL) in the cytoplasm of BC cell line. TMEM88 silencing in the ovarian cancer cell line CP70 resulted in significant upregulation of Wnt downstream genes (c-Myc, cyclin-D1) and other Wnt target genes including JUN, PTIX2, CTNNB1 (β-catenin), further supporting that TMEM88 inhibits canonical Wnt signaling pathway. Wnt signaling pathway has been known to play important roles in many diseases, especially in cancer. For instance, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has become one of the most common tumors harboring mutations in the Wnt signaling pathway. As the inhibitor of Wnt signaling, TMEM88 has been considered to act as an oncogene or a tumor suppressor. Up-regulated TMEM88 or gene therapy approaches could be an effective therapeutic approach against tumor as TMEM88 inhibits Wnt signaling through direct interaction with DVL. Here, we review the current knowledge on the functional role and potential clinical application of TMEM88 in the control of various cancers. Highlights Wnt signaling displays an important role in several pathogenesis of cancer. Wnt signaling pathway is activated during cancer development. TMEM88 has an impact on cancer by inhibiting canonical Wnt signaling. We discuss the importance and new applications of TMEM88 in cancer therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study stochastic bifurcation for a system under multiplicative stable Lévy noise (an important class of non-Gaussian noise), by examining the qualitative changes of equilibrium states with its most probable phase portraits. We have found some peculiar bifurcation phenomena in contrast to the deterministic counterpart: (i)When the non-Gaussianity parameter in Lévy noise varies, there is either one, two or no backward pitchfork type bifurcations; (ii) When a parameter in the vector field varies, there are two or three forward pitchfork bifurcations; (iii) The non- Gaussian Lévy noise clearly leads to fundamentally more complex bifurcation scenarios, since in the special case of Gaussian noise, there is only one pitchfork bifurcation which is reminiscent of the deterministic situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gene transfer agents (GTAs) are phage-like particles which contain a fragment of genomic DNA of the bacterial or archaeal producer and deliver this to a recipient cell. GTA gene clusters are present in the genomes of almost all marine Rhodobacteraceae (Roseobacters) and might be important contributors to horizontal gene transfer in the world's oceans. For all organisms studied so far, no obvious evidence of sequence specificity or other nonrandom process responsible for packaging genomic DNA into GTAs has been found. Here, we show that knock-out of an autoinducer synthase gene of Dinoroseobacter shibae resulted in overproduction and release of functional GTA particles (DsGTA). Next-generation sequencing of the 4.2-kb DNA fragments isolated from DsGTAs revealed that packaging was not random. DNA from low-GC conjugative plasmids but not from high-GC chromids was excluded from packaging. Seven chromosomal regions were strongly overrepresented in DNA isolated from DsGTA. These packaging peaks lacked identifiable conserved sequence motifs that might represent recognition sites for the GTA terminase complex. Low-GC regions of the chromosome, including the origin and terminus of replication, were underrepresented in DNA isolated from DsGTAs. DNA methylation reduced packaging frequency while the level of gene expression had no influence. Chromosomal regions found to be over- and underrepresented in DsGTA-DNA were regularly spaced. We propose that a "headful" type of packaging is initiated at the sites of coverage peaks and, after linearization of the chromosomal DNA, proceeds in both directions from the initiation site. GC-content, DNA-modifications, and chromatin structure might influence at which sides GTA packaging can be initiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wine has become a commodity of significant commercial value, and the demand for high quality wine by consumers has been increasing. Suitable analytical techniques are needed for its quality control. Ultraviolet, Visible, Near-infrared and infrared spectroscopy is by far one of the most important techniques for determining the wine quality, including its components and characterization. This review will overview the available most recent applications of spectroscopic techniques in the past decade for wine quality prediction and discrimination both quantitatively and qualitatively. The fundamental principles of these techniques will be introduced briefly, and some innovative setups/instrumentations will also be illustrated. At last the limitations and prospects of spectroscopic techniques for wine industry will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electrosorption capacity of an electrode strongly depends on the surface properties of the electrode material, such as the surface area, pore microstructure, and pore size distribution. Carbon-based electrode materials for capacitive deionization (CDI) or electrosorption processes suffer from problems with high manufacturing costs, poor electrical conductivity, and poor wettability. The thin-film coating of SiO2 on porous biomass carbon may provide an alternative electrode material for doublelayer applications. In this paper, the activated porous biomass carbon (AWSC) was first obtained through a simple potassium hydroxide (KOH) activation of wheat straw carbon (WSC) as the precursor, and then thinfilm SiO2 coated AWSC (SiO2@AWSC) was prepared by a sol-gel coating process. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging of SiO2@AWSC demonstrated that a SiO2 thin-film was deposited on the surface of AWSC without changing the opening structure. Compared to WSC, the Brunauer- Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of SiO2@AWSC was greatly increased, and presented obvious micropore and mesopore distributions. Further electrochemical analyses were performed via cyclic voltammetry, galvanostatic charge/discharge, and electrochemical impedance. The electrochemical results showed that SiO2@AWSC electrodes showed increased electrosorption capacitance, which were attributed to a large specific surface area, a porous structure, and enhanced wettability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: The increasing prevalence of malnutrition in old people is related to the risk of illness and death. A number of screening tools to detect malnutrition have been used in the elderly to assess nutritional status and predict prognosis. The aim of the present study was to investigate the ability of the Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index (GNRI) to assess nutritional status and predict mortality in very old home-care people by using a cross-sectional study of Chinese older people aged 90-105 years.Methods and Study Design: The present study was based on a 4-year follow-up of mortality data from a previous cross-sectional study. The study was conducted with a very elderly population with a mean age of 93.5±3.2 years (n=716; 230 men and 486 women). In 2005, trained researchers performed face-to-face interviews and physical and geriatric assessments to obtain information on sociodemographic factors, self-reported medical diseases, geriatric-specific conditions, anthropometric factors, biochemical data, and the GNRI score. In 2009, vital status were requested from the local government.Results: After 4 years of follow-up, 371 participants died (125 men and 246 women, 51.8%). The median follow-up time was significantly worse in the nutritional risk group (GNRI <=98) (30.26±15.80 vs 42.27±11.82 months, p<0.001). Activities of daily living (ADL) impairment (hazard ratio [HR]=1.414, 95% CI=1.121-1.783), and GNRI score (HR=0.92, 95% CI=0.908-0.932) were associated with all-cause mortality according to a Cox regression analysis.Conclusions: The GNRI, a nutrition-related risk index, can predict mortality in very old Chinese home-care people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In high-power laser system, the surface wavefront of large optics has a close link with its structure design and mounting method. The back-support transport mirror design is presently being investigated as a means in China's high-power laser system to hold the optical component firmly while minimizing the distortion of its reflecting surface. We have proposed a comprehensive analytical framework integrated numerical modeling and precise metrology for the mirror's mounting performance evaluation while treating the surface distortion as a key decision variable. The combination of numerical simulation and field tests demonstrates that the comprehensive analytical framework provides a detailed and accurate approach to evaluate the performance of the transport mirror. It is also verified that the back-support transport mirror is effectively compatible with state-of-theart optical quality specifications. This study will pave the way for future research to solidify the design of backsupport large laser optics in China's next generation inertial confinement fusion facility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Transcriptome and proteome analyses on fruit pulp from the blood orange 'Zaohong' and the navel orange 'twenty-first century' were performed to study Citrus sinensis quality-related molecular changes during consecutive developmental periods, including young fruit, fruit-coloring onset and fruit delayed-harvest for two months, during which fruit remained on the trees. Results: The time-course analysis for the fruit developmental periods indicated a complex, dynamic gene expression pattern, with the numbers of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between the two cultivars being 119, 426 and 904 at the three continuous stages tested during fruit development and ripening. The continuous increase in total soluble solids over the course of fruit development was correlated with up-regulated sucrose phosphate synthase (SPS) transcription levels in both cultivars. Eleven differentially expressed genes between the two cultivars involved in the flavonoid pathway were significantly enriched at the onset of the fruit-coloring stage when anthocyanins were detected in blood orange alone. Among 5185 proteins, 65 up-regulated and 29 down-regulated proteins were co-expressed with their cognate mRNAs with significant transcription and protein expression levels when the fruits from the two cultivars were compared at the fruit delayed-harvest stage. Additionally, important genes participating in the γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) shunt were activated in blood orange at two significant expression levels in the fruit delayed-harvest stage. Thus, organic acids in fruit continuously decreased during this stage. Conclusions: This research was the first to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the differentially expressed genes involved in anthocyanin, sucrose and citrate metabolism at the transcriptome and proteome levels in C. sinensis, especially during the fruit delayed-harvest stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The elongation of free-standing one-dimensional (1D) functional nanostructures into lengths above the millimeter range has brought new practical applications as they combine the remarkable properties of nanostructured materials with macroscopic lengths. However, it remains a big challenge to prepare 1D silicon nanostructures, one of the most important 1D nanostructures, with lengths above the millimeter range. Here we report the unprecedented preparation of ultralong single-crystalline Si nanowires with length up to 2 cm, which can function as the smallest active material to facilitate the miniaturization of macroscopic devices. These ultralong Si nanowires with augmented flexibility are of emerging interest for flexible electronics. We also demonstrate the first single-nanowire-based wearable joint motion sensor with superior performance to reported systems, which just represents one example of novel devices that can be built from these nanowires. The preparation of ultralong Si nanowires will stimulate the fabrication and miniaturization of electric, optical, medical, and mechanical devices to impact the semiconductor industry and our daily life in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As a major lignocellulosic biomass, which represented more than half of the world's agricultural phytomass, crop residues have been considered as feedstock for biofuel production. However, large-scale application of this conventional biofuel process has been facing obstacles from cost efficiency, pretreatment procedure, and secondary pollution. To meet the growing demands for food, feed, and energy as the global population continues to grow, certain kinds of insects, many of which are voracious feeders of organic wastes that may help address environmental, economic, and health issues, have been highlighted as a source of protein and fat. Results: The biorefinery studied includes initial corn stover degradation by yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor L.), followed by a second stage that employs black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens L.), to utilize the residues produced during the first stage. These two insect-based biorefinery yielded 8.50 g of insect biomass with a waste dry mass reduction rate of 51.32%, which resulted in 1.95 g crude grease from larval biomass that produced 1.76 g biodiesel, 6.55 g protein, and 111.59 g biofertilizer. The conversion rate of free fatty acids of crude grease into biodiesel reached 90%. The components of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin contained in corn stover hydrolyzed harmoniously, resulting in declines of 45.69, 51.85, and 58.35%, respectively. Moreover, fluctuations in lipid, protein, and reducing sugar were also analyzed. Conclusion: The investigation findings demonstrated that successive co-conversion of corn stover by insects possessing different feeding habits could be an attractive option for efficient utilization of lignocellulosic resources, and represents a potentially valuable solution to crop residues management, rise of global liquid energy, and animal feed demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three-dimensional nitrogen-doped carbon (3D-NCN) has been synthesized via the ionothermal carbonization method using waste soybean dregs (SD) as the precursor. N2 adsorption/ desorption isotherms show that the as-prepared 3D-NCN formed a hierarchically porous structure with a specific BET surface area of 1093.4 m2 g-1 and a total pore volume of 1.77 cm3 g-1. The TEM images clearly show that graphene-like carbon sheets were formed on the edge of the networks. The characterization of the samples collected at different temperature indicated that salt melt plays the key role in the formation of the network structure and rich pores. When 3D-NCN is as electrocatalyst for ORR, it shows an onset potential of 0.945 V with a more positive half-wave potential (0.846 V), which is comparable to that of commercial Pt/C. In addition, the long-term cycle results show that the onset potential and half-wave potential only negatively shifted by 6 mV and 8 mV after 10,000 cycles respectively, which are smaller than those values of commercial Pt/C. Due to its high ORR activity, durability, and low-cost, producing 3D-NCN from SD in molten salt medium provides a promising approach to replace the Pt-based catalysts for use in fuel cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2‑[(2E)‑3,7‑dimethyl‑2,6‑octadienyl]‑6‑methy l‑2,5‑cyclohexadiene‑1,4‑dione (DMD) is a compound isolated from Atractylodes macrocephala; however, its antitumor activity has not yet been investigated. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the antitumor activity of DMD in the H22 mouse hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell line in vitro and in vivo. In the present study, the antiproliferative effects of DMD against H22 cells were evaluated using the MTT assay in vitro. Furthermore, xenograft nude mice were established to evaluate the antitumor effects of DMD on H22 cells in vivo. In addition, apoptosis of H22 cells was determined by flow cytometry with Annexin V‑fluorescein isothiocyanate/propidium iodide staining, and western blotting was subsequently performed to examine the expression levels of proteins associated with apoptosis, and c‑Jun N‑terminal kinase (JNK), p38 and extracellular signal‑regulated kinase (ERK)1/2 mitogen‑activated protein kinases (MAPKs). The results demonstrated that DMD exerts an antitumor effect against H22 cells in vitro and in vivo, and the underlying mechanism may be associated with mitochondria‑mediated apoptosis through upregulation of cytochrome c, cleaved (c)‑caspase‑3, c‑caspase‑9, c‑caspase‑7 and B‑cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl‑2)‑associated X protein, and downregulation of Bcl‑2. In addition, the antitumor effects of DMD against H22 cells may be also associated with the MAPK signaling pathway via increased p‑JNK and reduced p‑ERK1/2 expression. In conclusion, the present study demonstrated the DMD exerts antitumor effects against HCC in mice and provides a scientific basis for the clinical use of DMD for the treatment of HCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dairy manure containing partially digested plant cells is an inexpensive bioenergy feedstock. The carbohydrates and lignin that remain after digestion are typically processed in an anaerobic digester to produce biomethane, but due to the remaining material's recalcitrance, the process has a low conversion efficiency. To improve the conversion of this lignocellulosic material, chemical, thermal, or biological pretreatments can be considered. This study compared several chemical pretreatments including dilute acid, sulfite, and alkali pretreatments for dairy manure as a bioenergy feedstock and analyzed their impact on biomethane production. The comparative study showed that a hot alkali pretreatment (180 °C, 30 min) can improve the methane production of dairy manure by 50%, which is more effective than dilute acid (6.8%), sulfite (26.3%), and cold or ambient alkali (19.8 to 32.8%) pretreatments. However, the ambient alkali pretreatment (23 °C, 12 h) was calculated to be more economically feasible because of the net energy production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urea-formaldehyde (UF) resins based on different formaldehyde/urea (F/U) mole ratio were synthesized with oxidized cassava starch added at the final stage of the resin synthesis process. The basic characteristics of resins including solid content, viscosity, and curing time were studied, and the dry and wet bond strengths were evaluated by producing a three layer plywood. Additionally, the curing characteristics of different resins were investigated via differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Structural distributions between UF and oxidized cassava starch were examined via FT-IR and 13C NMR analysis. The results indicated that the addition of oxidized starch not only improved resin bond strength but also notably reduced the curing start temperature of modified resins. Furthermore, a negative relationship between F/U mole ratio and the extent of reduction was identified. The structural distribution of UF resins changed dramatically because of oxidation cassava starch addition, but the changes varied due to different F/U mole ratios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cancer stem cells are enriched in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) tumor tissues, which present strong capacities of proliferation and tumorigenicity. The present study detected the distribution of cancer stem cell markers cluster of differentiation (CD)44/CD24 and analyzed the clinical outcomes of different CD44/CD24 phenotypes in patients with TNBC. Multivariate Cox regression analyses were performed with regard to the prognostic value of cancer stem cell markers CD44/CD24, aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 and other baseline clinical characteristics, including tumor size, lymph node involved, adjuvant chemotherapy, Ki-67, breast cancer susceptibility gene 1, cellular tumor antigen p53, vimentin and basal-like status. The multivariate analyses showed that three of these factors, CD44/CD24 phenotype, basal-like status and number of lymph nodes involved, had an impact on overall survival. Furthermore, patients with CD44+/CD24- phenotype, basal-like tumors and ≥4 lymph nodes involved had a signifi- cantly worse prognosis. The expression of CD44 and CD24 was detected by double-staining immunohistochemistry, which can locate cancer stem cells individually. Overall, the present results indicated that CD44/CD24 status evaluated by double-staining immunohistochemistry constitutes an independent prognostic factor for TNBC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interleukin‑33 (IL‑33) promotes migration of cancer cells through downregulating the expression of E‑cadherin. Previous studies have demonstrated that IL‑33 stimulates the proliferation of trophoblasts. However, the effect of IL‑33 on the adhesion and invasion of trophoblasts has not been investigated in detail. In the present study, the expression of IL‑33 and its receptor, IL‑1 receptor‑like 1 (ST2), was examined in villi from women during early pregnancy using immunohistochemistry. ST2 expression on human trophoblast and choriocarcinoma cell lines JAR, BeWo, JEG3 and HTR8 was confirmed by flow cytometry (FCM) assay. The effect of recombinant human IL‑33 (rhIL‑33) on adhesion, invasion and associated molecules was analyzed by cell adhesion, Matrigel invasion and FCM assays. The current study identified that human trophoblasts expressed IL‑33 and ST2. RhIL‑33 inhibited trophoblast invasion and adhesion, and decreased adhesion and invasion‑associated molecules such as integrin α4β1 and CD62L. Therefore, these results suggest that IL‑33 may serve an important role in limiting invasion and implantation of trophoblasts by adhesion and invasion‑associated molecules, contributing to the formation of the placenta and maintenance of normal pregnancy during early pregnancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The observed convective adjustment time (CAT) associated with Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) precipitation is found to vary significantly in space. Here, we investigate the effect of different spatial distributions of CAT on MJO precipitation based on the frictional coupled dynamics moisture (FCDM) model. The results show that a large value of CAT tends to decrease the frequency and growth rate of eastward-propagating MJO-like mode in the FCDM model, delaying the occurrence of MJO deep convection and slowing down its eastward propagation. A large phase lag between circulation and convection decreases convective available potential energy (CAPE). In the observations, a small background vertical moisture gradient (BVMG) tends to increase the frequency associated with cold sea surface temperature (SST), while a large value of CAT tends to decrease the frequency. Due to their competing effect, the simulated frequency and phase speed remain the same when the convection moves from a warm to a cold SST region. The convection is heavily suppressed over the cold SST region due to the decreasing growth rate of unstable wavenumber-one mode with smaller BVMG and longer CAT. This theoretical finding should improve our understanding of MJO dynamics and simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving relatively high-accuracy short-term wind speed forecasting estimates is a precondition for the construction and grid-connected operation of wind power forecasting systems for wind farms. Currently, most research is focused on the structure of forecasting models and does not consider the selection of input variables, which can have significant impacts on forecasting performance. This paper presents an input variable selection method for wind speed forecasting models. The candidate input variables for various leading periods are selected and random forests (RF) is employed to evaluate the importance of all variable as features. The feature subset with the best evaluation performance is selected as the optimal feature set. Then, kernel-based extreme learning machine is constructed to evaluate the performance of input variables selection based on RF. The results of the case study show that by removing the uncorrelated and redundant features, RF effectively extracts the most strongly correlated set of features from the candidate input variables. By finding the optimal feature combination to represent the original information, RF simplifies the structure of the wind speed forecasting model, shortens the training time required, and substantially improves the model's accuracy and generalization ability, demonstrating that the input variables selected by RF are effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TiO 2 rutile/anatase heterostructure thin films with varying rutile thickness have been in-situ synthesized via DC magnetron sputtering with Ar gas at room temperature. The crystal texture, surface morphology, energy gap and optical properties of the films have been investigated by X-ray diffraction meter, grazing incidence X-ray diffraction meter, Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and UV–visible spectrophotometer, which indicates that the rutile/anatase heterostructure films are successfully fabricated. The further degradation experiments display that the photocatalytic activity can be dramatically affected by the thickness of the outmost rutile layer and the 100 nm thickness exhibits the best performance in all of the TiO 2 thin films. With the increase of the outmost rutile layer, the optical band gap of TiO 2 film displays a systematic decrease slightly. However, the change in photocatalytic activity does not coincide with that in the band gap. The photoresponse and electrochemical properties of the thin films have been characterized to understand the mechanism of the varied photocatalytic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Dexmedetomidine is a highly selective adrenergic receptor agonist, which has a dose-dependent sedative hypnotic effect. Furthermore, it also has pharmacological properties, and the ability to inhibit sympathetic activity and improve cardiovascular stability during an operation. However, its protective effect on patients with severe craniocerebral injury in the perioperative period remains unclear. Method: Eighty adult male SD rats were used and divided into two groups (n = 40, each group): dexmedetomidine injury group (experimental group), and sodium chloride injury group (control group). Models of severe craniocerebral injury were established in these two groups using the modified Feeney's free-fall method. As soon as the establishment of models was succeed, rat in the experimental group received 1 µg of dexmedetomidine (0.1 ml), while each rat in the control group was given 0.1 ml of 0.9% sodium chloride. Blood was sampled from an incision at the femoral vein to detect TNF-α and IL-2 levels at 1,12, 24,36,48 and 72 h after establishing the model in the two groups. Results: After severe craniocerebral injury, TNF-α levels of rats were lower in every stage and at different degrees in the experimental group than in the control group (P < 0.05), while IL-2 levels were lower in the experimental group to different extents (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Dexmedetomidine protects the brain of rats with severe craniocerebral injury by reducing the release of inflammatory mediators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TMEM16A (known as anoctamin 1) Ca2+-activated chloride channel is overexpressed in many tumors. TMEM16A overexpression can be caused by gene amplification in many tumors harboring 11q13 amplification. TMEM16A expression is also controlled in many cancer cells via transcriptional regulation, epigenetic regulation and microRNAs. In addition, TMEM16A activates different signaling pathways in different cancers, e.g. the EGFR and CAMKII signaling in breast cancer, the p38 and ERK1/2 signaling in hepatoma, the Ras-Raf-MEK-ERK1/2 signaling in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and bladder cancer, and the NFκB signaling in glioma. Furthermore, TMEM16A overexpression has been reported to promote, inhibit, or produce no effects on cell proliferation and migration in different cancer cells. Since TMEM16A exerts different roles in different cancer cells via activation of distinct signaling pathways, we try to develop the idea that TMEM16A regulates cancer cell proliferation and migration in a cell-dependent mechanism. The cell-specific role of TMEM16A may depend on the cellular environment that is predetermined by TMEM16A overexpression mechanisms specific for a particular cancer type. TMEM16A may exert its cell-specific role via its associated protein networks, phosphorylation by different kinases, and involvement of different signaling pathways. In addition, we discuss the role of TMEM16A channel activity in cancer, and its clinical use as a prognostic and predictive marker in different cancers. This review highlights the cell-type specific mechanisms of TMEM16A in cancer, and envisions the promising use of TMEM16A inhibitors as a potential treatment for TMEM16A-overexpressing cancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationships between species richness and driving factors might vary with taxa and spatial scale. For this study we used plant species data of eight groups from nature reserves in China, namely pteridophytes, gymnosperms, angiosperms, vascular plants, Chinese endemic species, rare and endangered plants, woody plants, and herbaceous plants, and eight putative environmental predictors to explore the relationships between plant species richness and environmental factors at two spatial scales (temperate region and national scale). Our data suggested that area, mean annual temperature, and mean annual precipitation were the determinants of variation in species richness within these eight groups in the temperate nature reserves of Shandong Province in China. The relationships between plant species richness and environmental factors were consistent in different groups. However, the relationships between species richness and mean annual temperature varied with spatial scale. In the temperate region, species richness was negatively correlated with mean annual temperature and positively correlated with mean annual precipitation, whereas on a national scale species richness was positively correlated with both mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation. Our study confirmed that the relationships between plant species richness and environmental factors in nature reserves were consistent in the studied groups and varied with spatial scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its importance in regulating emotion and mental wellbeing, the complex structure and function of the serotonergic system present formidable challenges toward understanding its mechanisms. In this paper, we review studies investigating the interactions between serotonergic and related brain systems and their behavior at multiple scales, with a focus on biologically-based computational modeling. We first discuss serotonergic intracellular signaling and neuronal excitability, followed by neuronal circuit and systems levels. At each level of organization, we will discuss the experimental work accompanied by related computational modeling work. We then suggest that a multiscale modeling approach that integrates the various levels of neurobiological organization could potentially transform the way we understand the complex functions associated with serotonin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have shown that compounds in the form of precipitate (CFP) from Huang-Lian-Jie-Du-Tang (HLJDT) were stable, and the CFP content reached 2.63% of the whole decoction and had good neuroprotective effects. However, there has been no research on their specific source. In this study, it was found that HLJDT CFP mainly came from the reaction of Scutellaria baicalensis and Coptis chinensis by studying the separated prescription components (accounting for 81.33% of HLJDT CFP). Unlike previous studies on HLJDT CFP, in this research the chemical composition of Scutellaria baicalensis-Coptis chinensis (SB-CC) CFP was identified by high performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (HPLC-MSn), which further proved that the main source of HLJDT CFP was Scutellaria baicalensis-Coptis chinensis CFP compared with previous HLJDT CFP studies. To explain the reaction mechanism between the decoctions of Scutellaria baicalensis and Coptis chinensis, isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) was used to analyze their binding heat and the thermodynamic parameters (ΔH, ΔS, ΔG, n, Ka) of the reaction between baicalin and berberine, which are the main components of Scutellaria baicalensis and Coptis chinensis, respectively. The results showed that the reaction between decoctions of Scutellaria baicalensis and Coptis chinensis was exothermic and the reaction between baicalin and berberine was a spontaneous and enthalpy-driven chemical reaction, the binding ratio being 1:1. In addition, HLJDT CFP (EC50 = 14.71 ± 0.91 µg/mL) and SB-CC CFP (EC50 = 6.11 ± 0.12 µg/mL) showed similar protective activities on PC12 cells injured by cobalt chloride (CoCl2). This study provided a new angle to research on the main chemical components and therapeutic values of CFP in Traditional Chinese Medicine compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Speckle-type POZ protein (SPOP) is an E3 ubiquitin ligase adaptor protein that functions as a potential tumor suppressor, and SPOP mutations have been identified in ~10% of human prostate cancers. However, it remains unclear if mutant SPOP proteins can be utilized as biomarkers for early detection, diagnosis, prognosis or targeted therapy of prostate cancer. Moreover, the SPOP mutation sites are distributed in a relatively short region with multiple lysine residues, posing significant challenges for bottom-up proteomics analysis of the SPOP mutations.Methods: To address this issue, PRISM (high-pressure, high-resolution separations coupled with intelligent selection and multiplexing)-SRM (selected reaction monitoring) mass spectrometry assays have been developed for quantifying wild-type SPOP protein and 11 prostate cancer-derived SPOP mutations.Results: Despite inherent limitations due to amino acid sequence constraints, all the PRISM-SRM assays developed using Arg-C digestion showed a linear dynamic range of at least two orders of magnitude, with limits of quantification ranged from 0.1 to 1 fmol/μg of total protein in the cell lysate. Applying these SRM assays to analyze HEK293T cells with and without expression of the three most frequent SPOP mutations in prostate cancer (Y87N, F102C or F133V) led to confident detection of all three SPOP mutations in corresponding positive cell lines but not in the negative cell lines. Expression of the F133V mutation and wild-type SPOP was at much lower levels compared to that of F102C and Y87N mutations; however, at present, it is unknown if this also affects the biological activity of the SPOP protein.Conclusions: In summary, PRISM-SRM enables multiplexed, isoform-specific detection of mutant SPOP proteins in cell lysates, providing significant potential in biomarker development for prostate cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Several of the thousands of human long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been functionally characterized, yet their potential involvement in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains poorly understood. Methods: LncRNA-HOXD-AS1 was identified by microarray and validated by real-time PCR. The clinicopathological significance of HOXD-AS1 was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier method. Chromatin immunoprecipitation was conducted to examine the mechanism of HOXD-AS1 upregulation. The role of HOXD-AS1 in HCC cells was assessed both in vitro and in vivo. ceRNA function of HOXD-AS1 was evaluated by RNA immunoprecipitation and biotin-coupled miRNA pull down assays. Results: In this study, we found that HOXD-AS1 was significantly upregulated in HCC tissues. Clinical investigation demonstrated high expression level of HOXD-AS1 was associated with poor prognosis and high tumor node metastasis stage of HCC patients, and was an independent risk factor for survival. Moreover, our results revealed that STAT3 could specifically interact with the promoter of HOXD-AS1 and activate HOXD-AS1 transcription. Knockdown of HOXD-AS1 significantly inhibited migration and invasion of HCC cells in vitro and distant lung metastasis in vivo. Additionally, HOXD-AS1 was enriched in the cytoplasm, and shared miRNA response elements with SOX4. Overexpression of HOXD-AS1 competitively bound to miR-130a-3p that prevented SOX4 from miRNA-mediated degradation, thus activated the expression of EZH2 and MMP2 and facilitated HCC metastasis. Conclusions: In summary, HOXD-AS1 is a prognostic marker for HCC patients and it may play a pro-metastatic role in hepatocarcinogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Global Nested Air Quality Prediction Modeling System (GNAQPMS) is the global version of the Nested Air Quality Prediction Modeling System (NAQPMS), which is a multi-scale chemical transport model used for air quality forecast and atmospheric environmental research. In this study, we present the porting and optimisation of GNAQPMS on a second-generation Intel Xeon Phi processor, codenamed "Knights Landing" (KNL). Compared with the firstgeneration Xeon Phi coprocessor (codenamed Knights Corner, KNC), KNL has many new hardware features such as a bootable processor, high-performance in-package memory and ISA compatibility with Intel Xeon processors. In particular, we describe the five optimisations we applied to the key modules of GNAQPMS, including the CBM-Z gas-phase chemistry, advection, convection and wet deposition modules. These optimisations work well on both the KNL 7250 processor and the Intel Xeon E5-2697 V4 processor. They include (1) updating the pure Message Passing Interface (MPI) parallel mode to the hybrid parallel mode with MPI and OpenMP in the emission, advection, convection and gas-phase chemistry modules; (2) fully employing the 512 bit wide vector processing units (VPUs) on the KNL platform; (3) reducing unnecessary memory access to improve cache efficiency; (4) reducing the thread local storage (TLS) in the CBM-Z gas-phase chemistry module to improve its OpenMP performance; and (5) changing the global communication from writing/reading interface files to MPI functions to improve the performance and the parallel scalability. These optimisations greatly improved the GNAQPMS performance. The same optimisations also work well for the Intel Xeon Broadwell processor, specifically E5-2697 v4. Compared with the baseline version of GNAQPMS, the optimised version was 3.51 × faster on KNL and 2.77 × faster on the CPU. Moreover, the optimised version ran at 26% lower average power on KNL than on the CPU. With the combined performance and energy improvement, the KNL platform was 37.5% more efficient on power consumption compared with the CPU platform. The optimisations also enabled much further parallel scalability on both the CPU cluster and the KNL cluster scaled to 40 CPU nodes and 30 KNL nodes, with a parallel efficiency of 70.4 and 42.2 %, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoter hypermethylation of tumor suppressor genes has been confirmed to serve a pivotal role in tumorigenesis. Protocadherin 8 (PCDH8), a novel tumor suppressor gene, has been reported to be inactivated by promoter hypermethylation a number of cancer types, including bladder cancer and renal cell carcinoma. The aim of the present study was to investigate the occurrence of PCDH8 hypermethylation in prostate cancer and its potential as a novel biomarker of prostate cancer. The transcriptional levels of PCDH8 were examined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in 82 prostate cancer tissues as well as 30 prostate hyperplasia tissues, and verified the protein level by western blot analysis of representative samples. PCDH8 expression levels were found to be reduced to 0.30±0.10 in 70.7% (58/82) of prostate cancer tissues. To identify the possible reason for mRNA downregulation, the methylation status of the PCDH8 promoter was assessed in prostate cancer tissues and prostate hyperplasia tissues by methylation-specific PCR (MSP). A total of 47 prostate cancer patients who exhibited reduced PCDH8 expression (57.3%; 47/82) also showed promoter hypermethylation (47/58). None of the samples (0/30) in the benign prostate hyperplasia group were positive on MSP. Furthermore, the associations between the methylation status of the PCDH8 promoter and various clinicopathological features of prostate cancer were analyzed, revealing that the methylation status of PCDH8 was closely associated with tumor size, tumor shape (papillary/non-papillary), tumor stage and tumor grade (all P<0.05), while there were no correlations with the age of the patients or the number of tumors (P>0.05). Additionally, patients with hypermethylation of the PCDH8 gene promoter had a relapse rate of 36.17% and a mortality rate of 29.79%, which were significantly higher than the hypermethylation-negative patients (P<0.05), indicating a poorer prognosis. Therefore, the methylation status of the PCDH8 gene in prostate cancer may be an important marker for use in the early diagnosis and prediction of prognosis in prostate cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to analyze and identify the characteristics of radiation sources and estimate the threat level by means of detecting, intercepting and locating has been the central issue of electronic support in the electronic warfare, and communication signal recognition is one of the key points to solve this issue. Aiming at accurately extracting the individual characteristics of the radiation source for the increasingly complex communication electromagnetic environment, a novel feature extraction algorithm for individual characteristics of the communication radiation source based on the fractal complexity of the signal is proposed. According to the complexity of the received signal and the situation of environmental noise, use the fractal dimension characteristics of different complexity to depict the subtle characteristics of the signal to establish the characteristic database, and then identify different broadcasting station by gray relation theory system. The simulation results demonstrate that the algorithm can achieve recognition rate of 94% even in the environment with SNR of -10dB, and this provides an important theoretical basis for the accurate identification of the subtle features of the signal at low SNR in the field of information confrontation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To evaluate the clinical effect of the minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion combined with posterolateral fusion and unilateral fixation using a tubular retractor in the management of degenerative lumbar disease. Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted to analyze the clinical outcome of 58 degenerative lumbar disease patients who were treated with minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion combined with posterolateral fusion and unilateral fixation during December 2012 to January 2015. The spine was unilaterally approached through a 3.0-cm skin incision centered on the disc space, located 2.5 cm lateral to the midline, and the multifidus muscles and longissimus dorsi were stripped off. After transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion and posterolateral fusion the unilateral pedicle screw fixation was performed. The visual analogue scale ( VAS) for back and leg pain, the Oswestry disability index ( ODI), and the MacNab score were applied to evaluate clinical effects. The operation time, peri-operative bleeding, postoperative time in bed, hospitalization costs, and the change in the intervertebral height were analyzed. Radiological fusion based on the Bridwell grading system was also assessed at the last follow-up. The quality of life of the patients before and after the operation was assessed using the short form-36 scale ( SF-36). Results Fifty-eight operations were successfully performed, and no nerve root injury or dural tear occurred. The average operation time was 138 ± 33 min, intraoperative blood loss was 126 ± 50 mL, the duration from surgery to getting out of bed was 46 ± 8 h, and hospitalization cost was 1.6 ± 0.2 ten thousand yuan. All of the 58 patients were followed up for 7-31 months, with an average of 14.6 months. The postoperative VAS scores and ODI score were significantly improved compared with preoperative data ( P < 0.05). The evaluation of the MacNab score was excellent in 41 patients, good in 15, and fair in 2, suggesting an effective rate of 96.6%. The intervertebral height had reduced 0.2 ± 1.2 mm by the last follow-up, and there were 55 Grade I and II cases based on the Bridwell evaluation criterion. The fusion rate was 94.8%, and no screw breakage and loosening occurred. The scores of physical pain, general health, social, and emotional functioning were significantly increased at the last follow-up. Conclusion Minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion combined with posterolateral fusion and unilateral fixation provide a new choice for degenerative lumbar disease, and the short-term clinical outcome is satisfactory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The making of Msalais, a traditional wine fermented in the A′wati production region in Southern Xinjiang (China), currently undergoes a shift from traditional craft workshop (TCW) fermentation to modern plant (MP) production. Major differences in the practices, technology, and microbes used in TCWs and MPs caused the quality of MP wines somewhat deviates from high quality of TCWs wine. Exploring the sensory and chemical differences between TCW wines and MP wines will facilitate a successful shift of Msalais-making from TCWs to MPs. Here, the sensory and chemical characters of 25 TCW and MP Msalais wines were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. Laboratory-scale Msalais-making experiments were performed to compare the effect of winemaking conditions on the sensory characters of wine. MP wines had a stronger caramel odor, but a relatively weaker floral and fruity odors than TCW wines, while TCW wines had a significantly stronger fruity odor but a weaker caramel odor than MP wines(p < 0.05). These differences could be ascribed to the higher content of higher alcohols, furans, and methionol in MP wines, and a higher concentration of esters, fatty acids, volatile phenols, terpenes, lactones, and norisoprenoids in TCW wines. Differences in grape residue treatment, grape juice concentration, native microbial community, dissolved oxygen levels, and fermentation temperature resulted in the sensory differences between Msalais wines. These findings will help to improve the quality of MP Msalais to retain the typical sensory features of traditional TCWs wines, and allowing an objective control of the TCW and MP technologies. • Msalais wine is spontaneously fermented from concentration of local grape juice. • TCW wines showed higher fruity odor; MP wines showed higher caramel odor. • TCW wines contained more esters, fatty acids, and lactones; MP wines contained more furans. • The caramel odor was associated with furans, and the fruity note was associated with esters. • The technology and microbes affected the sensory-chemical characteristics of Msalais wines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]