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It is important to investigate how to achieve carbon unlocking in the transport sector, especially in transport infrastructure, in order to contribute to the achievement of carbon neutrality targets and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. This study aims to investigate the necessary and sufficient conditions to achieve carbon unlocking in transport infrastructure. To achieve this, a combination of partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and necessary condition analysis (NCA) methods have been used to examine whether there are unidentified necessity factors beyond the currently recognized ‘technology-in-institution’ (TIC) lock-in. This study also explores how the carbon unlocking of transport infrastructure can be achieved through the unlocking of relevant factors. The study includes 366 points from a subjective questionnaire from the government, transport infrastructure researchers, and relevant businesspeople. We found that, at the adequacy level, achieving institutional and technological unlocking is sufficient and economic factors have little impact on transport infrastructure (0.06), and that institutional and technical factors have a large impact on carbon unlocking (0.453, 0.280); however, from the necessary point of view, carbon unlocking at the economic level is necessary to achieve the goal of a medium to high level of carbon unlocking. To achieve carbon unlocking at this level (over 50%), a combination of technological, institutional, and economic factors is required. To achieve full carbon unlocking, the technology, system, and economy need to be at least 0.533, 0.791, and 0.63 unlocked. Therefore, we can conclude that by using the joint analysis of PLS-SEM and NCA, we have achieved an extension of the traditional TIC and identified sufficient and necessary conditions to achieve a medium to high degree of carbon unlocking.

The safety of petrol stations is critical because it stores flammable and explosive gasoline and diesel. Therefore, appropriate fire apparatuses should be deployed to petrol stations in case of a fire emergency. In this work, we proposed a regional evaluation model to predict the fire apparatus requirements of petrol stations based on travel times extracted from online maps. The travel time of the minimum fire apparatus requirements (1 water truck and 1 foam truck) are determined to be within 4 min. To validate the model, 37 fire stations and 458 petrol stations in Changsha, China were considered as case studies leading to 144 evaluation scenarios. The results showed the fire apparatus requirement scores of 144 scenarios were ranged from 47.69 to 56.69 (less than 60) out of 100, which were in bad levels. Furthermore, results from visualization showed that the worst part of scores were petrol stations in rural areas. Therefore, these petrol stations in rural areas should be equipped with more fire extinguishers and foam extinguishing systems.

Public health and effective risk response cannot be promoted without a coordinated emergency process during a natural disaster. One primary problem with the emergency relief chain is the homogeneous layout of rescue organizations and reserves. There is a need for government-enterprise coordination to enhance the systemic resilience and demand orientation. Therefore, a bi-level multi-phase emergency plan model involving procurement, prepositioning and allocation is proposed. The tradeoff of efficiency, economy and fairness is offered through the multi-objective cellular genetic algorithm (MOCGA). The flood emergency in Hunan Province, China is used as a case study. The impact of multi-objective and coordination mechanisms on the relief chain is discussed. The results show that there is a significant boundary condition for the coordinated location strategy of emergency facilities and that further government coordination over the transition phase can generate optimal relief benefits. Demand orientation is addressed by the proposed model and MOCGA, with the realization of the process coordination in multiple reserves, optimal layout, and transition allocation. The emergency relief chain based on government-enterprise coordination that adapts to the evolution of disasters can provide positive actions for integrated precaution and health security.

Frequent fires can affect ecosystems and public safety. The occurrence of fires has varied with hot and cold months in China. To analyze how temperature influences fire frequency, a fire dataset including 20,622 fires and a historical weather dataset for Changsha in China were gathered and processed. Through data mining, it was found that the mean daily fire frequency tended to be the lowest in the temperature range of (20 °C, 25 °C] and should be related to the low utilization rate of electricity. Through polynomial fitting, it was found that the prediction performance using the daily minimum temperature was generally better than that using the daily maximum temperature, and a quadruplicate polynomial model based on the mean daily minimum temperature of 3 days (the day and the prior 2 days) had the best performance. Then, a temperature-based fire frequency prediction model was established using quadruplicate polynomial regression. Moreover, the results are contrary to the content stipulated in China’s national standard of urban fire-danger weather ratings GB/T 20487-2006. The findings of this study can be applied as technical guidance for fire risk prediction and the revision of GB/T 20487-2006.

A series of magnesium phosphate ester (MPEA) flame retardants were synthesized by the salification of cyclic phosphate ester (PEA) with different contents of magnesium hydroxide (MH). The obtained PEA and MPEAs were well characterized and then thoroughly mixed with amino resin to produce transparent intumescent fire-retardant coatings applied on wood substrates. The optical transparency, flame retardancy and smoke suppression properties of the coatings were intensively investigated. The results show that the fire-retardant coatings containing MPEAs can keep a high degree of transparency even at high MH contents, and the fire protection performance, flame retardancy and smoke suppression properties of the coatings are significantly improved with introduction of MH due to the formation of a more compact, continuous and intumescent char during combustion. When the mass ratio of PEA/MH is 95:5, the obtained MPEA3 flame retardant exhibits the best synergistic flame-retardant and smoke suppression effects in the coatings. Remarkably, the flame spread rating, total heat release and total smoke release for the coating containing MPEA3 are 34.4%, 29.0% and 55.0% lower, respectively, than those of the coating containing PEA. TG analysis shows that the introduction of MH improves the thermal stability and residual weight of the coatings, and the coating containing MPEA3 shows the maximum residual weight of 34.4% at 800 °C. Char residue analysis shows that the introduction of MH positively contributes to enhance the quality and quantity of intumescent char via the formation of more phosphorus-rich crosslinking structures and aromatic structures in the condensed phase, and an excessive content of MH diminishes this positive char-forming effect as well as the synergistic flame-retardant and smoke suppression effects in the coatings.

Background Pancreatic carcinoma (PC) is one of the most aggressive cancers affecting human health. It is essential to identify candidate biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of PC. The present study aimed to investigate the diagnosis and prognosis biomarkers of PC. Methods Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified from the mRNA expression profiles of GSE62452, GSE28735 and GSE16515. Functional analysis and the protein-protein interaction network analysis was performed to explore the biological function of the identified DEGs. Diagnosis markers for PC were identified using ROC curve analysis. Prognosis markers were identified via survival analysis of TCGA data. The protein expression pattern of the identified genes was verified in clinical tissue samples. A retrospective clinical study was performed to evaluate the correlation between the expression of candidate proteins and survival time of patients. Moreover, comprehensive analysis of the combination of multiple genes/proteins for the prognosis prediction of PC was performed using both TCGA data and clinical data. In vitro studies were undertaken to elaborate the potential roles of these biomarkers in clonability and invasion of PC cells. Findings In total, 389 DEGs were identified. These genes were mainly associated with pancreatic secretion, protein digestion and absorption, cytochrome P450 drug metabolism, and energy metabolism pathway. The top 10 genes were filtered out following Fisher's exact test. ROC curve analysis demonstrated that TMPRSS4, SERPINB5, SLC6A14, SCEL, and TNS4 could be used as biomarkers for the diagnosis of PC. Survival analysis of TCGA data and clinical data suggested that TMC7, TMPRSS4, SCEL, SLC2A1, CENPF, SERPINB5 and SLC6A14 can be potential biomarkers for the prognosis of PC. Comprehensive analysis show that a combination of identified genes/proteins can predict the prognosis of PC. Mechanistically, the identified genes attributes to clonability and invasiveness of PC cells. Interpretation We synthesized several sets of public data and preliminarily clarified pathways and functions of PC. Candidate molecular markers were identified for diagnosis and prognosis prediction of PC including a novel gene, TMC7. Moreover, we found that the combination of TMC7, TMPRSS4, SCEL, SLC2A1, CENPF, SERPINB5 and SLC6A14 can serve as a promising indicator of the prognosis of PC patients. The candidate proteins may attribute to clonability and invasiveness of PC cells. This research provides a novel insight into molecular mechanisms as well as diagnostic and prognostic markers of PC. Fund National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 81602646 & 81802339], Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province [No. 2016A030310254] and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [No. 2016M600648]., Highlights • We synthesized public data and clinical data and identified key differentially expressed genes in pancreatic carcinoma. • Candidate molecular markers were identified for diagnosis and prognosis prediction of pancreatic carcinoma. • The combination of the markers can serve as a promising prognostic indicator in patients with pancreatic carcinoma. • A novel gene, TMC7, that is overexpressed in pancreatic carcinoma was identified. The role of TMC7 was preliminary explored.

Public safety and health cannot be secured without the comprehensive recognition of characteristics and reliable emergency response schemes under the disaster chain. Distinct from emergency resource allocation that focuses primarily on a single disaster, dynamic response, periodic supply, and assisted decision-making are necessary. Therefore, we propose a multiobjective emergency resource allocation model considering uncertainty under the natural disaster chain. Resource allocation was creatively combined with path planning through the proposed multiobjective cellular genetic algorithm (MOCGA) and the improved A* algorithm with avoidance of unexpected road elements. Furthermore, timeliness, efficiency, and fairness in actual rescue were optimized by MOCGA. The visualization of emergency trips and intelligent avoidance of risk areas were achieved by the improved A* algorithm. The effects of logistics performance, coupling of disaster factors, and government regulation on emergency resource allocation were discussed based on different disaster chain scenarios. The results show that disruption in infrastructure support, cascading effect of disasters, and time urgency are additional environmental challenges. The proposed model and algorithm work in obtaining the optimal solution for potential regional coordination and resilient supply, with a 22.2% increase in the total supply rate. Cooperative allocation complemented by political regulation can be a positive action for successfully responding to disaster chains.

Previous studies mainly focused on the influences of climate change on wildfires. However, other types of fires are also weather-related (especially temperature-related). The present study is aimed to analyze the influences of climate warming on fire risk. By data joining and processing, a dataset was born which includes 20,622 fire incidents and the related weather data from 2011 to 2017 in Changsha, China. Predictive models of fire frequency were established based on different regression methods of machine learning (random forest, support vector machine and polynomial). Among them, random forest regression models had the best fitting performance, and were selected to predict the fire frequency under climate warming scenarios. Under the current warming rate in Changsha, the annual fire frequency in 2067 (50 years after 2017) will increase by 0.69% to 0.89%. By rebuilding predictive models for other cities based on the proposed methods in this study, the influences of climate warming on their fire frequencies can also be analyzed.

Frequent high-rise building fires have posed serious threats to urban public safety. In this study, real-time travel times extracted from online maps were applied to estimate fire service coverage rates for high-rise buildings. Firstly, the minimum fire apparatus requirement for high-rise building &ldquo, at least 1 water fire truck and 1 aerial fire truck should arrive at the fire scene of high-rise building within 240 s&rdquo, was proposed. Then, a dynamic estimation model of fire service coverage rate for high-rise buildings was established. To validate the model, 5146 high-rise buildings, 61 water fire trucks, and 56 aerial fire trucks in Changsha were selected as case studies. The results show that the total effective coverage rate and total average travel time in Changsha are 20.43% and 421.95 s, respectively. There are 10,840 water fire trucks and 6192 aerial fire trucks in China. Based on the average number of water fire trucks and aerial fire trucks per high-rise building, it can be estimated that the total effective coverage rate in China may not exceed 60.00%. Due to limited fire resources and frequent traffic congestion, only partial high-rise buildings can be effectively covered by fire services, whether in Changsha or China.

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were introduced into the structure of phosphate ester (PEA) to prepare a series of novel flame retardants named PEA-functionalized CNTs (CPEAs). The chemical structures of CPEAs were carefully characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectroscopy. Then, the obtained PEA and CPEAs were mixed with amino resin to produce five kinds of fire-retardant coatings applied on plywood boards. The optical transparency, fire protection performance, and thermal behavior of the transparent coatings were investigated by various analytical methods. The optical transparency analysis shows that the transparency value of coatings gradually decreases with increasing CNTs contents, and a small amount of CNTs imparts a high degree of transparency to the resulting coatings. The results from the flammability tests indicate that the CPEAs impart lower weight loss, char index, flame spread rating, heat release rate, and total heat release to the resulting coatings than those of PEA. The thermo-gravimetric analysis reveals that the CPEAs possess higher thermal stability and residual weight to the resulting coatings compared to PEA. Char residue analysis indicates that the introduction of CNTs is beneficial to generate more P–N–C and P–O–C cross-linked structures in the condensed phase that form a high-quality intumescent char against heat and mass transfer, thus effectively improving the flame retardancy and thermal stability of the transparent coatings.

At present, relatively few tools are able to visualize regional fire risks both dynamically and efficiently. As a general method of density clustering and visualization, heat maps can be used to analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of fire risks. In this study, based on combining a transformed sigmoid function with a heat map method, a transformed sigmoid risk model (TSRM) was proposed. A numerical mapping method between fire risk values and colors was established based on an RGB color model. By using HTML 5 and JavaScript, a fire risk visualization tool (FRVT) was developed based on the TSRM. Baidu Map was used as the geographic information system engine for the FRVT by calling its JavaScript application program interface. To validate the TSRM and FRVT with case studies, 16,448 historical fires from 2013 to 2017 in Changsha, China, were gathered and visualized. The visualization results indicated that the high-risk areas were mainly distributed in urban areas, and that the medium-risk and low-risk areas were primarily distributed in rural areas. The FRVT can also be applied to visualize and analyze process-related fire risks from a regional perspective. In further research, it will be important to update the FRVT, e.g., to visualize the fire risks posed by the transportation of hazardous materials.

Fire stations play a key role in controlling typical thermal runaway phenomena (fires). Based on real-time traffic, we develop a data crawling and processing algorithm for travel times, and propose an evaluation model for the spatial configuration of fire stations. In the model, the fire service levels are divided into four levels based on the total fire service score (TFSS). The present work gathered 16,448 fire incidents in Changsha, China from 2013 to 2017 as fire service demand points, and the minimum travel times for each fire incident point in the four evaluation scenarios with different real-time traffics were extracted from online maps. The results show that the TFSSs of Changsha varied from 67.92 to 74.05 due to the insufficient firefighting resources and the dynamic traffic conditions, and the fire service level of Changsha can be defined as fair. By employing spatial visualization, we observed that the fire service demand points with moderate and poor fire service levels were mainly located in rural areas, and those with good and fair fire service levels were located in urban areas.

Dysregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) is actively involved in the pathogenesis and tumorigenicity of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). miR-489 was found to play either oncogenic or tumor suppressive roles in human cancers. Recent study reported that the levels of miR-489 in late recurrent HCC patients were evidently higher than that in early recurrent cases, suggesting that miR-489 may function as a tumor suppressive miRNA in HCC. Yet, the clinical value and biological function of miR-489 remain rarely known in HCC. Here, we presented that miR-489 level in HCC tissues was notably reduced compared to matched non-cancerous specimens. Its decreased level was evidently correlated with adverse clinical parameters and poor prognosis of HCC patients. Accordingly, the levels of miR-489 were obviously down-regulated in HCC cells. Ectopic expression of miR-489 in HCCLM3 and MHCC97H cells prominently inhibits the migration and invasion of tumor cells and reduced lung metastases in vivo, while miR-489 knockdown increased these behaviors of HepG2 and MHCC97L cells. Mechanically, miR-489 negatively regulated matrix metalloproteinase-7 (MMP7) abundance in HCC cells. Herein, MMP7 was found to be a downstream molecule of miR-489 in HCC. An inversely correlation between miR-489 and MMP7 was confirmed in HCC specimens. MMP7 knockdown prohibited cell migration and invasion while MMP7 overexpression showed opposite effects on HCC cells. Furthermore, restoration of MMP7 expression could abrogate the anti-metastatic effects of miR-489 on HCCLM3 cells with enhanced cell migration and invasion. Altogether, miR-489 potentially acts as a prognostic predictor and a drug-target for HCC patients.

Frequent fires cause losses of human lives and properties. These losses can be reduced by the effective coverage of fire station services. Therefore, a model to estimate the effective coverage rate (ECR) of fire station services is required. In this study, the objective of ECR was proposed to be not less than 90% in at least 90% of the time. Based on this objective and real-time travel times calculated from online maps, a model to estimate the ECR of fire station services was developed. To validate the estimation model, 2002 fire incidents and six fire stations in Loudi were selected as case studies. 168 estimation scenarios in seven consecutive days were set and 336,336 valid samples were obtained. The total effective coverage rate (TECR) of fire station services in Loudi was 36.04% and its service level was low. Results from visualizations showed that many uncovered points were concentrated in urban areas. Considering the economic constraints, four fire stations were recommended to be built in these areas. This proposed method is applicable to estimate TECRs of other cities.

Fire stations play an important role in improving firefighting capabilities, and their service areas should be determined based on the travel times from each fire station to the surrounding fire risk points. Based on real-time travel time data extracted from online maps, we developed a dynamic estimation system for fire station service areas called FSSA v1.0 and integrated it with the boundary search algorithm for fire service areas. To validate the developed method, 39,616 fire risk points (points of interest (POIs)) around an urban fire station in Changsha city (CS-FS) were selected as the sample dataset. The service areas of the CS-FS during different time periods (00:00–01:00, 07:40–08:40, 12:00–13:00, and 17:40–18:40) were estimated by calculating and visualizing the travel times from the CS-FS to the POIs. The results indicate that the actual service areas in all scenarios are much smaller than the area of 7 km2 specified in China's GB 51080-2015 standard. Additionally, the service area of the CS-FS under traffic congestion is significantly smaller than that under normal road traffic conditions. Therefore, fire engines should be temporarily deployed before traffic congestion occurs to reduce travel times. The service areas of other fire stations can also be estimated using FSSA v1.0.

// Heping Kan 1 , Yuqi Huang 1 , Xianghong Li 1 , Dingli Liu 2 , Jianjia Chen 1 , Miaojiang Shu 1 1 Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China 2 Department of Infectious Disease, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China Correspondence to: Yuqi Huang, e-mail: huang_yuqi2014@163.com Keywords: ZBTB20, FoxO1, hepatocellular carcinoma, proliferation, cell cycle Received: September 27, 2015 Accepted: January 29, 2016 Published: February 16, 2016 ABSTRACT Zinc finger and BTB domain-containing 20 (ZBTB20) is a new BTB/POZ-domain gene and a member of the POK family of transcriptional repressors. Notably, the role of ZBTB20 and its underlying mechanisms involved in hepatocarcinogenesis are poorly investigated. In this study, the expression of ZBTB20 was significantly overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues. The positive expression of ZBTB20 was associated with large tumor size, high Edmondson-Steiner grading and advanced tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) tumor stage. Additionally, HCC patients with positive expression of ZBTB20 had a poorer 5-year survival. Multivariate analyses revealed that ZBTB20 overexpression was an independent prognostic factor for HCC. Gain- and loss-of-function experiments demonstrated that ZBTB20 promoted HCC cell viability, proliferation, tumorigenicity, and cell cycle progression. Mechanistically, Cyclin D1 and Cyclin E were increased, while p21 and p27 were decreased by ZBTB20 in HCC cells. FoxO1 was inversely correlated with ZBTB20 protein expression in the same cohort of HCC specimens. We further revealed that FoxO1 was transcriptionally repressed by ZBTB20 in HCC. Moreover, restoration of FoxO1 expression partially abrogated ZBTB20-induced HCC cell proliferation and growth entry in vitro and in vivo . Collectively, these results indicate that ZBTB20 may serve as a prognostic marker and promotes tumor growth of HCC via transcriptionally repressing FoxO1.

The effect of alkyd varnish on thermal stability and static smoke properties of decorative wood were analysed by using thermo-gravimetric (TG) analyzer, differential scanning calorimeter and plastic smoke density tester. The TG results show that maximum mass loss of the wood and alkyd varnish occurs in the range of 200-500°C. At the pyrolysis stage, the alkyd varnish exhibits an obvious endothermic process, while the wood exhibits an obvious endothermic process and then an exothermic one. The infrared analysis and smoke density test show that the olefin structure and benzene ring structure of alkyd varnish increase both the special optical density and mass optical density of the decorative wood consisted alkyd varnish. Meanwhile, the higher external heat flux and application of an ignition source decrease the special optical density and mass optical density of the decorative materials.

A series of polyphosphate ester (PPB)-modified sepiolite (SEP) flame retardants (SPPBs) were synthesized by grafting PPB on the surface of SEP and characterized successfully by FTIR and 1H NMR analyses. Then, the obtained SPPBs were mixed with melamine formaldehyde resin to produce amino transparent fire-retardant coatings applied on wood substrates. Optical transparency and morphology analyses demonstrate that the complete exfoliation and uniform dispersion of SEP sheets in amino matrix retain a high level of transparency in the coatings. Besides, the presence of SEP exhibits excellent synergistic effect on enhancing the thermal stability, fire protection and smoke suppression properties of the coatings, and an excessive content of SEP will diminish this synergistic effect. When the mass ratio of PPB and SEP is 95:5, the resulting MSPPB3 coating possesses the best synergistic effect and the highest residual weight of 32.8 % at 800 °C, which exhibits 65.8 % reduction in flame spread rating and 59.2 % reduction in smoke density rating compared to those of the MSPPB0 coating containing PPB. Char residue analysis reveals that the introduction of SEP promotes to form more cross-linking and aromatic structures in the condensed phase that produce a more compact and intumescent char against fire.

Fire is one of the most frequent disasters that threaten public safety and ecological balance. Heat maps have been used as a common visualisation method in many scientific fields but rarely in fire risk analysis. By using the transformed sigmoid function to optimise linear gradation, a new heat map method was proposed based on the classical heat map method; this was referred to as the transformed sigmoid heat map method. Combining the classical heat map method with fire risk theory, a linear risk model (LRM) was proposed. Similarly, a transformed sigmoid risk model (TSRM) was created using the transformed sigmoid heat map method. A dataset of 2002 fire incidents in Loudi City (located in South China) from 2014 to 2016 was used as the case study. The heat map visualisation of fire incidents showed that, compared to the TSRM, the LRM led to the overgeneralisation of results more easily. High- and medium-risks were mainly distributed in densely populated areas. In addition, human activity had a significant influence on the fire risk distribution in different time ranges. As a result of human activity, the number of fires during 00:00–06:00 were 57.30% of that during 12:00–18:00. These visual analysis results are useful for deploying firefighters and rescue forces depending on the fire risk in different areas and at different times. In conclusion, an online and interactive fire-risk-analysing software based on TSRM should be developed that can be applied to fire risk analysis in other regions.

The flammability of halogen-containing and halogen-free flame-retarded high-density polyethylene (HDPE) composites was characterized by UL94, limiting oxygen index (LOI), and cone calorimeter tests. Correlations among the data obtained from UL94, LOI, and cone calorimeter tests were analyzed, while the influences of flame-retardant mechanism and burning condition on the correlations were also discussed. Analysis of UL94 rating shows that there is modest correlation between UL94 rating and LOI value in that it is able to differentiate between UL94 HB and V-2/V-0 rating, and no correlations for UL94 rating and cone calorimeter measurements are found due to the differences in flame-retardant mechanisms and burning conditions. The precise correlations are found between LOI value and some cone calorimeter measurements (peak heat release rate and mean heat release rate at 300 s). However, there are weak correlations between LOI value and some measurements (time to ignition, total heat release, mean heat release rate at 180 s, and fire growth rate index) and no correlations for other measurements (mean heat release rate at 60 s and mean heat release rate at 120 s) in cone calorimeter. Meanwhile, there are significantly different fitted equations and coefficients between LOI value and cone parameters for halogen-containing and halogen-free formulations due to the obvious differentiation in flame-retardant mechanisms. The comprehensive discussion of burning conditions could further explain why the correlations among the data obtained from the three fire tests have significant discrepancies and also help to understand why different flame-retardant effectiveness appears in the three fire tests. © Springer 2015. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Asia-Oceania Association for Fire Science and Technology.

To discuss the diagnostic value of ultrasonic examination in patients with early liver cirrhosis and the relation with different stages of liver fibrosis.In the series, 263 patients with chronic hepatitis B were under taken liver biopsy and ultrasonic examination of type B for determination of liver cirrhosis images, width of the main portal vein and the splenic vein, tumefaction of the spleen. Data were analysed statistically.Sixties of 263 patients were diagnosed as early liver cirrhosis. The diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, misdiagnostic rate, missed diagnostic rate, and Jonden's index of ultrasonic examination for early liver cirrhosis were 52.5%, 88.3%, 11.7%, 47.5%, and 0.508, respectively. The width of the main portal vein with liver fibrosis of S1, S2, S3, and S4 were 10.93 mm +/- 1.25 mm, 11.35 mm +/- 1.06 mm,11.29 mm +/- 1.52 mm, and 11.4 8mm +/- 1.25 mm, respectively with statistic difference between S4 and S1 (P=0.03). The width of the spleen vein of S1, S2, S3, and S4 were 6.518 mm +/- 2.033 mm, 7.190 mm +/- 1.569 mm, 7.444 mm +/- 1.805 mm and 8.406 mm +/- 2.227 mm, respectively with statistic difference between S4 and S2 (P=0.035). The incidence of tumefaction of the spleen was increased with the degree of liver fibrosis.The diagnostic sensitivity of ultrasonic examination for early liver cirrhosis is low. The width of the main portal vein, the spleen vein and the incidence of tumefaction of the spleen are related with the degree of liver fibrosis. The regeneration node of liver cirrhosis may contribute to the development of portal hypertension.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Aberrant expression of miRNAs contributes to HCC development. Here, we observed elevated miR-520g expression in tumor samples from HCC patients with relapse and metastasis, and this high miR-520g expression was correlated with poor survival. Through gain- and loss-of-function studies, miR-520g was demonstrated to facilitate HCC cell migration, invasion and epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT). SMAD7 was identified as a direct target of miR-520g. Accordingly, we conclude that high miR-520g expression promotes HCC cell mobility and EMT by targeting SMAD7, and this is correlated with reduced survival in HCC patients.