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With the trend shifting from fossil fuels to clean energy demand, studies on Fischer–Tropsch synthesis have broadened their directions for synthesizing value-added chemicals, including olefins and oxygenates, other than producing synthetic fuels.

The single-atomic-site doping of oxophilic-metal (Ru) species in FeCo-LDH leads to the active atom reconstruction at symmetry-breaking interfaces and then the excellent catalytic performance for OER/HER and overall water splitting at large current densities.

The degree of activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) is closely related to the level of autophagy in HSCs. We previously showed that interleukin-10 (IL-10) strongly inhibits HSC activation in rat fibrotic liver. However, little is known about the effect of IL-10 on HSC autophagy. For investigation of the effect of IL-10 on starvation-induced autophagy in immortal rat hepatic stellate cells (HSC-T6) and the molecular mechanism, HSC-T6 cells were incubated with serum-free DMEM for different periods and treated with IL-10 at different concentrations. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), analysis of autophagic flux and Western blotting (WB) assays were used to observe changes in autophagosome morphology and number and autophagy-related protein expression in HSC-T6 cells and to evaluate the regulatory effect of IL-10 on starvation-induced autophagy. Cryptotanshinone (CPT) and rapamycin (Rapa) were used to block activation of the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and mTOR signaling pathways, respectively. STAT3-mTOR-p70s6k signaling pathway proteins were analyzed by WB to assess the signaling pathway by which IL-10 regulates autophagy. WB showed an increased LC3II/I ratio, increased Beclin1 expression, and decreased p62 expression in HSC-T6 cells starved for 3 h ( p < 0.05). IL-10 inhibited the increases in the LC3II/I ratio and Beclin1 expression and upregulated p62 expression ( p < 0.05), and the optimal IL-10 concentration was 20 ng/mL. TEM and double-labeled immunofluorescence analysis showed that IL-10 inhibited autophagosome formation and autophagic flux, as indicated by the decreased numbers of double-membrane autophagosomes and yellow autophagic puncta. Further examination of signaling pathway molecules showed that phosphorylation of the mTOR, STAT3, and p70s6k proteins was significantly decreased during starvation-induced autophagy, but IL-10 could increase mTOR, STAT3, and p70s6k protein phosphorylation ( p < 0.05). Blocking either the mTOR or STAT3 pathway reversed the inhibitory effect of IL-10 on starvation-induced autophagy in HSC-T6 cells ( p < 0.05). IL-10 suppresses starvation-induced autophagosome formation through activation of the STAT3-mTOR-p70s6k axis in HSC-T6 cells.

Satellite component recognition has always been a hot topic in the field of orbital services. However, it is very challenging to segment the components such as satellite body, solar panel, and antenna in pixel-level accurately due to the poor illumination condition and the scarce image for spaceborne observation. Based on the Mask R-CNN, this paper proposes a lightweight instance segmentation model for satellite component segmentation and recognition. It improves residual module by using deep separable convolution, replacing nonlinear activation function with linear one after deep separable convolution and deleting the dimensionality reduction convolution layer in residual module. Also, the training datasets consist of the synthetic images generated by the 3D max software and the C-DCGAN based image generation method through several known satellite CAD models. The simulation experiments are carried out and the results show that the proposed method can effectively recognize the typical satellite components and achieve better performance than the compared model in aspects of accuracy, model parameters, and model size.

Autophagy is involved in the activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) and liver fibrosis. Previous studies have shown that interleukin 10 (IL-10) has a marked therapeutic effect against liver fibrosis. However, few studies have evaluated the effect of IL-10 on autophagy in HSCs and fibrotic livers. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of IL-10 on the autophagy of HSCs in vitro and in vivo and then to explore the underlying pathway. In vitro, The results revealed that IL-10 had inhibitory effects on hydrogen peroxide (H

(1)Background: This study aimed to describe the distribution characteristics and temporal trends of major Organic Solvent induced occupational diseases (OSODs) in Guangdong Province, China.(2) Methods: A total of 1320 OSODs cases diagnosed from 2006 to 2015 were involved in this study, including information of case distribution, working age, industrial type, economic type and enterprise scale. 7 major OSODs accounted for the majority cases (1290 cases, 98%), including benzolism, n-hexane poisoning, 1,2-dichloroethane poisoning, trichloromethane poisoning, dimethyl formamide poisoning, benzene-induced leukemia and trichloroethylene-induced medicamentosa-like dermatitis.(3) Results: The incidence of OSODs was relatively higher in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Guangzhou than other districts. Most cases were related to light industry and electronics for industry type and small and medium-sized and private enterprises for enterprise scales and ownership types. Notably, the case number of benzolism and benzene-induced leukemia presented an increasing trend with year. The onset age of benzolism exhibited an increasing trend with year. The working age of onset of 1,2-dichloroethane poisoning, trichloromethane poisoning and dimethyl formamide poisoning were shorter than others.(4) Conclusions: Since the control and prevention of 7 major OSODs has achieved remarkable results, more measurements are needed to control benzolism and benzene-induced leukemia cases in Guangdong Province.

Calcium carbonate nanomaterials (nano-CaCO3) are widely used in both manufacturing and consumer products, but their potential health hazards remain unclear. The objective of this study was to survey workplace exposure levels and health effects of workers exposed to nano-CaCO3. Personal and area sampling, as well as real-time and dust monitoring, were performed to characterize mass exposure, particle size distribution, and particle number exposure. A total of 56 workers (28 exposed workers and 28 unexposed controls) were studied in a cross-sectional study. They completed physical examinations, spirometry, and digital radiography. The results showed that the gravimetric nano-CaCO3 concentration was 5.264 ± 6.987 mg/m3 (0.037–22.192 mg/m3) at the workplace, and 3.577 ± 2.065 mg/m3 (2.042–8.161 mg/m3) in the breathing zone of the exposed workers. The particle number concentrations ranged from 8193 to 39 621 particles/cm3 with a size range of 30–150 nm. The process of packing had the highest gravimetric and particle number concentrations. The particle number concentration positively correlated with gravimetric concentrations of nano-CaCO3. The levels of hemoglobin, creatine phosphokinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) in the nano-CaCO3 exposure group increased significantly, but the white blood cell count (WBC), Complement 3 (C3), total protein (TP), uric acid, and creatinine (CREA) all decreased significantly. The prevalence rate of pulmonary hypofunction was significantly higher (p = 0.037), and the levels of vital capacity (VC), forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), FEV1/FVC, peak expiratory flow and forced expiratory flow 25% (FEF 25%), FEF 25–75% were negatively correlated with gravimetric concentrations of nano-CaCO3 (p 3 exposure level was associated with pulmonary hypofunction (p = 0.005). Meanwhile, a dose-effect relationship was found between the accumulated gravimetric concentrations of nano-CaCO3 and the prevalence rate of pulmonary hypofunction (p = 0.048). In conclusion, long-term and high-level nano-CaCO3 exposure can induce pulmonary hypofunction in workers. Thus, lung function examination is suggested for occupational populations with nano-CaCO3 exposure. Furthermore, future health protection efforts should focus on senior workers with accumulation effects of nano-CaCO3 exposure.

Device to Device (D2D) based mobile social networking in proximity (MSNP) has witnessed great development on smartphones. Message forwarding/data routing in MSNP relies on the movement of individuals and their encounter opportunities to relay data to the destination, so-called store-carry-forward (SCF) mode. Due to lacking continuous network connectivity and must handle dynamic topology, message forwarding mechanism in MSNP is challenging. In recent years, exploiting MSNP users' social behaviours to forward message, have drawn tremendous interests. In this paper, we provide the taxonomy of social behaviour-based forwarding strategies, comprehensively summarize and compare various schemes, including location-based and encounter-based (further divided into social property based and community-based) strategies. Location-based strategies forward data to the individuals geographically closer to the destination, while encounter-based strategies forward data to the users more socially active through considering human interactions. Then, we present open issues in MSNP forwarding strategies and their potential solutions. The goal of this work is to provide deep understanding on SCF based message forwarding in MSNP which properly incorporate the individual's social characteristics, and bring new visions to MSNP research and applications.

With the rapid development of urban modern logistics, traffic capacity of freight transport network cannot satisfy the requirement of cargo distribution and delivery. Therefore, it is very urgent to enlarge and optimize the freight transport network. In this thesis, based on the analysis of proposed transport network, the state of the increasing flow, and transport time, transport cost, road congestion and the cost of unit capacity, an optimization model is built to enlarge the capacity of the freight transport network, and then an algorithm is devised to solve it. Eventually, an example is used to verify the validity of the model and the algorithm. This thesis is likely to offer a theoretical method for making decision, optimizing and designing freight transport network.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), caused by a novel coronavirus, emerged in early 2003 as a major international health crisis. We report on serum cytokine levels, viral load and clinical parameters over the course of the disease in a cohort of nine adult SARS patients treated with steroids and interferon alfacon-1 at North York General Hospital in Toronto, Ontario. Considerable variation among SARS patients with respect to circulating viral load and patterns of SARS-CoV-evoked cytokine responses was recorded. No single cytokine profile was observed in all patients, yet serum concentrations of interferon (IFN)-γ, interleukin (IL)-10, CXCL10, CCL5 and CXCL8 were found to be elevated above normal levels during the course of the disease in all patients. Expression levels for IL-10, IFN-γ and CXCL10 consistently peaked within 4 days of peak viral load. IL-12p70, IL-4 and tumour necrosis factor-α concentrations were consistently highest within 5 days of peak viral load. These results suggest that elevated levels of inflammatory cytokines are sensitive correlates of disease severity, including lung abnormalities and viral load in serum, and may provide a tool for monitoring disease progression in affected individuals.

This study compared remote sensing based method and ecological process model (Biome-BGC) to characterize Fujian forest ecosystems in terms of net primary productivity (NPP). The results of Biome-BGC model showed that the annual mean NPP of Fujian's forest ecosystem was 759.63 g C m−2 a−1 from 1991 to 2005, the average total NPP for the same period was 2.04×108 g C a−1. Driven by MODIS data in 2005 and corresponding spatial weather data yield by spatial interpolation, this study estimated NPP of Fujian's forest ecosystems in 2005 was 818.585 g C m−2 a−1, total NPP was 2.19×108 g C a−1, and there were two significant peaks of NPP during the year. The estimations of the two models agreed on the NPP of Fujian' forest ecosystem in 2005 both spatially and quantitatively, and their estimates of NPP agreed quite well with those reported by previous investigators which was summarized from direct field measurements in subtropical forest ecosystems. There were obvious regional variations in the distribution of NPP, with higher NPP in the two mountains areas of Fujian province where elevation is relative high and little influence by anthropogenic activities.

The Fab fragment of monoclonal antibody B4G7 against human epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor was conjugated with cationic poly-L-lysine and the resulting conjugate was further complexed with reporter genes or therapeutic genes. This Fab/DNA complex was designated as "Fab immunogene." The Fab immunogene transfer in vitro was mediated through the EGF receptors in two melanoma cell lines. The frequency of cells expressing beta-galactosidase (beta-Gal) reporter gene was approximately 1%. The induction of suicide effects after Fab immunogene transfer of herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (TK) or Escherichia coli cytosine deaminase (CD) gene was quite remarkable, and the growth of melanoma cells was inhibited for over 7 days in the presence of ganciclovir (GCV) or 5-fluorocytosine (5-FC). Similarly, when melanoma cells treated in vitro with the Fab immunogene carrying TK or CD were transplanted into the back of nude mouse, subsequent systemic administration of GCV or 5-FC effectively suppressed the growth of tumors, indicating the occurrence of in vivo suicide effects.

The "Fab immunogene" is a novel gene transfer vehicle in which the Fab fragment of anti-human epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor antibody B4G7 is conjugated with poly-L-lysine to form an affinity complex with DNA. It was developed to target delivery of therapeutic genes into EGF receptor-hyperproducing tumor cells. Various characteristic features of the immunogene have been documented (Chen et al., 1998). Here we add further evidence to prove that in vitro transfer of beta-galactosidase/Fab immunogene is exclusively to EGF receptor-positive cells and that the herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (TK)/Fab immunogene induces substantial suicide effects on A431 tumor cells when treated together with ganciclovir. The in vivo specificity of the immunogene transfer was examined using A431 tumor-bearing nude mice. When these nude mice were injected intraperitoneally with the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT)/Fab immunogene, CAT DNA was detected in the tumors as well as in liver and kidney but not brain, whereas CAT mRNA and enzyme activity were detected only in the tumors. Local and intraperitoneal injection of the TK/Fab immunogene and subsequent administration of ganciclovir effectively suppressed the growth of A431 tumors transplanted on the backs of nude mice. These observations suggest a possible application of the Fab immunogene system in cancer gene therapy.

By collecting and analyzing the data from the 71 meteorological observation stations in Fujian Province, the mean annual air temperatures during 1961–1990 were put into order and built into an air temperature database. Based on Digital Line Graphic (in the manner of contour and by the scale of 1:100,000) and supported by ArcGIS, the 100m ∗ 100m Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of Fujian Province was created, further to that, a macroscopic geographical factor database was set up including the information of longitude, latitude and elevation. The main result of the paper is that a mixed interpolation model with the integration of the Trend Surface Analysis and Universal Kriging Spatial Interpolation Method was applied, offering a useful approach to effectively imitate the natural spatial distribution of the mean annual air temperature in the study area. The approach would be of important significance to the formation and application of Fujian air temperature resource thematic map and to offer a new thought and methodology for similar research home and abroad.

Type I interferons (IFNs) include the IFN-alpha family of subtypes, IFN-beta, IFN-omega, IFN-tau, IFN-kappa, IFN-lambda, and IFN-zeta. IFN genes lack introns and encode secretory signal peptide sequences that are proteolytically cleaved prior to secretion from the cell. In contrast to the approximately 50% amino acid sequence identity among the human IFN-alpha subtypes, human IFN-alphas share approximately 22% identity with human IFN-beta and 37% identity with human IFN-omega. Many of the conserved residues among the type I IFNs are implicated in receptor recognition and structural integrity. This report provides an update on the gene annotations for the mouse and human IFN gene clusters on chromosome 4 and 9, respectively, with accompanying amino acid sequence alignments. Based on sequence identities, a phylogenic tree analysis for the different mammalian Type I IFNs is also presented, showing the high degree of relatedness among these IFNs. Notably, sequence alignment of the different human and mouse IFN promoter regions reveals different signature patterns for transcription factor binding sites, implying different inducers might differentially activate the transcription of the different IFNs.

A monoclonal antibody to the human epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor was conjugated with polylysine and the resulting conjugate was affinity-linked with DNA (gene). This novel gene delivery system utilizes receptor-mediated endocytosis and would be especially suitable for gene therapy for EGF receptor-overproducing squamous cell carcinomas.