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An efficient iron-catalyzed C–O bond functionalization of butyrolactam derivatives with various N-/C-nucleophiles to enable the synthesis of pharmaceutically important butyrolactam derivatives has been developed here. The versatility of the present methodology is demonstrated for direct amination and carbonation by using a variety of sulfonamides, amines, amides, indoles, and 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds under mild conditions. The reaction also showed a wide substrate scope and synthetic simplicity. Additionally, only alcohol was produced as the by-product in all cases.

Breast cancer is one of the malignant tumors with the highest morbidity and mortality rate. Numerous efficient anti-breast cancer drugs are being derived from the development of natural products. Voacamine (VOA), a bisindole alkaloid isolated from Voacanga africana Stapf, possesses various pharmacological and biological activities.In this study, we investigated the efficacy of VOA against breast cancer cells and elucidated the underlying mechanisms in vitro and in vivo.Human breast cancer cell line MCF-7 and mouse breast cancer cell line 4T1 were used to study the underlying anti-cancer mechanisms of VOA. The proliferation was detected by MTT, colony formation, cell proliferation and wound-healing migration assays. Flow cytometry was utilized to determine the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) cell-cycle, apoptosis and mitochondrial membrane potential. The target proteins were analyzed by Western blot. Molecular docking was performed and scored by AutoDock. Subcutaneous cancer models in mice were established to evaluate the anticancer effects in vivo.Our results demonstrated that VOA selectively suppressed breast cancer MCF-7 and 4T1 cells proliferation with ICThese findings revealed the novel properties of VOA in promoting apoptosis of breast cancer cells by activating mitochondrial-associated apoptosis signaling pathway and inhibiting PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway and significantly decreasing tumor size without detecting appreciable toxicity. In summary, the present results demonstrated VOA could be an encouraging drug candidate to cure breast cancer, exhibiting an effective method to exploit unique drugs from natural components.

Digenetic trematodes of the genus Clinostomum are widely distributed in many species of freshwater fish and are known to cause the zoonotic disease Halzoun. Humans may become accidental hosts if they ingest raw freshwater fish containing metacercaria of Clinostomum complanatum, which causes pharyngitis or laryngitis. The yellow grub parasitizing cultivated ayu (Plecoglossus altivelis) and loach (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus) was one of the most serious problems in fish farms from 1977 to 1979 in Taiwan. The present study revealed, for the first time, frequent occurrence of C. complanatum metacercaria in various fish species in a natural environment, the Dahan River, in Taiwan. We examined 1503 fish specimens belonging to four families and 162 snails representing six species. C. complanatum metacercaria was mainly from the fish family Cyprinidae, and only cercaria from the snail Radix swinhoei was recovered. The prevalence and mean intensity of metacercaria were 9.8% and 9.35 parasites/infected fish, respectively. The prevalence of cercaria was low, 0.62%, in snails. Acrossocheilus paradoxus, Zacco barbata, Zacco pachycephalus, Zacco platypus, Onychostoma barbatula, and Hemibarbus labeo are new host records. Metacercariae were primarily found in the operculum, mandible, muscle, and oral cavity of fish. Morphological description and molecular analysis with 18S rDNA sequencing allowed for rapidly identifying C. complanatum. Encysted and excysted metacercariae cultivated at 22 °C in physiological saline died within 60 h. The mean intensity of infection increased with an increasing length of Z. pachycephalus. We found no association between monthly parasite prevalence and mean intensity at each sampling location. No C. complanatum metacercaria survived after 8 h of salting. The Dahan River has suitable conditions and hosts (snails, fish, and fish-eating birds) for maintaining the life cycle of C. complanatum.

In the present study, five new

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between intestinal bifidobacteria and allergic diseases in infants by comparing the composition of intestinal bifidobacteria between healthy infants and infants with allergic diseases. METHODS: A total of 48 infants were enrolled, and fecal samples were collected on days 0, 2, 7, and 15 and at months 1, 6, and 12 after birth. Among these infants, 22 who experienced allergic diseases before the age of 1 year were enrolled as allergic group and 26 healthy infants were enrolled as healthy group. Quantitative real-time PCR was used for the qualitative and quantitative analyses of Bifidobacterium and 8 species of bifidobacteria in fecal samples. RESULTS: There was a difference in the composition of intestinal bifidobacteria between the two groups within 1 month after birth:the healthy group showed a reduction in bifidobacteria on day 2, while this feature was not observed in the allergic group. Compared with the healthy group, the allergic group had a significantly lower detection count of Bifidobacterium at month 1 (P < 0.05) and a significantly lower detection rate of B.breve on day 15 (P < 0.05), with delayed colonization of B.infantis. CONCLUSIONS: Intestinal bifidobacteria and their composition within 1 month after birth may be associated with the development of allergic diseases, and this period of time may be a critical period for the prevention and treatment of allergic diseases in infants.

The Lower Paleozoic shale in south China has a very high maturity and experienced strong tectonic deformation. This character is quite different from the North America shale and has inhibited the shale gas evaluation and exploration in this area. The present paper reports a comprehensive investigation of maturity, reservoir properties, fluid pressure, gas content, preservation conditions, and other relevant aspects of the Lower Paleozoic shale from the Sichuan Basin and its surrounding areas. It is found that within the main maturity range (2.5 % 3.5 %) is considered a high risk for shale gas exploration. Taking the southern area of the Sichuan Basin and the southeastern area of Chongqing as examples of uplifted/folded and faulted/folded areas, respectively, geological models of shale gas content and loss were proposed. For the uplifted/folded area with a simple tectonic deformation, the shale system (with a depth > 2000 m) has largely retained overpressure during uplifting without a great loss of gas, and an industrial shale gas potential is generally possible. However, for the faulted/folded area with a strong tectonic deformation, the sealing condition of the shale system was usually destroyed to a certain degree with a great loss of free gas, which decreased the pressure coefficient and resulted in a low production capacity. It is predicted that the deeply buried shale (>3000 m) has a greater gas potential and will become the focus for further exploration and development in most of the south China region (outside the Sichuan Basin).

Modern high-performance fighter design should meet the requirements of both flying qualities and flight agility. In this paper, the influence of flying qualities design parameters on flight agility was analyzed and the match laws of Level 1 flying qualities and satisfied flight agility was summarized. The longitudinal match law indicates that Control Anticipation Parameter(CAP) is the main effect factor of initial pitch acceleration and Equivalent Frequency(ωsp) and Damping Ratio(ξsp) affect the stability of the aircraft after loading. With the descending of Control Anticipation Parameter(CAP), the range formed by ωsp and ξsp shrinks and finally comes to a point.

A bifunctional squaramide-catalyzed reaction of azlactones with o-quinone methides in situ generated from 2-(1-tosylalkyl)-phenols has been successfully developed under basic conditions, providing an efficient and mild access to chiral dihydrocoumarins bearing adjacent tertiary and quaternary stereogenic centers in high yields with excellent diastereo- and enantioselectivities.

In this paper, the average intensity and the effect of focus on it for disyllabic words in Chinese is analyzed. It is found that, the average intensity of rhyme in the first syllable is comparatively great, while for the onset, due to intervocalic voicing, that in the second syllable is great. Focus has great effect on intensity. Analysis shows that, compared to the onset and the first syllable, the effect on the rhyme and on the second syllable is great.

In this paper, the average intensity and the effect of focus on it for disyllabic words in Chinese is analyzed. It is found that, under focused condition, the average intensity of rhyme in the first syllable is comparatively great, while for the onset, due to intervocalic voicing, that in the second syllable is great. Focus has great effect on intensity. Under focused condition, the overall intensity will increase. The results from this study will be applicable in speech engineering.

Haploids are individuals with gametophytic chromosome numbers. Homozygous doubled haploids can be quickly gained by genome doubling. Haploids and doubled haploids play an important role on crop breeding, mutant screening, gene functional analysis, cytological studies, construction of genetic population and so on, and have been a research hotspot of plants in recent years. In this review, we summarize the production means, identification, the genetic mechanism and the applications of haploids and doubled haploids. We hope to provide a reference for study and application of haploids and doubled haploids.

In this paper, a coupled nonlinear diffusion partial differential equations (PDE) method for Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Sonar(InSAS) interferogram filtering was introduced. Many previous PDE methods in this area usually use Gauss pre-filtering. The choice of variance in Gauss function plays a very important role in the quality of the image obtained. Manually choice of the variance can hardly reach the self-adaptation aim. Using nonlinear diffusion equation to instead Gauss pre-filtering can overcome the disadvantage mentioned above. Numerical experiment results indicate that this coupled PDE method is able to effectively reduce the noise and preserve edge information. And it is important for InSAS real time processing.

The basic situation of the coal industry production in Shanxi province was studied in this paper, and the transportation of coal in Shanxi province which was divided into the highway freight and the railway freight was studied. Then, the analysis method of synthetic degree of grey incidence was improved by the three-point estimate method in the program evaluation and review technique method in order to analyze the coordination of coal production and coal transportation more precise. The result showed that the length of railways and the length of highways are the key factors to promote the coal industry production in Shanxi province. And the mean of the improved synthetic degree of grey incidence of the railway transportation of coal and coal industry production in Shanxi province is larger than that of the highway transportation. More attention should be paid to the construction of the railways in order to promote the coal industry production in Shanxi province. Keywords-coal industry production; coal transportation; coordination; synthetic degree of grey incidence; three-point estimate method

The atmospheric turbulence severely limits the angular resolution of ground based telescopes. When using Adaptive Optics (AO) compensation, the wavefront sensor data permit the estimation of the residual PSF. Yet, this estimation is imperfect, and a deconvolution is required for reaching the diffraction limit. A joint deconvolution method based on power spectra density (PSD) for AO image is presented. It deduces from a Bayesian framework in the context of imaging through turbulence with adaptive optics. This method uses a noise model that accounts for photonic and detector noises. It incorporates a positivity constraint and some a priori knowledge of the object (an estimate of its local mean and a model for its power spectral density). Finally, it reckons with an imperfect knowledge of the point spread function (PSF) by estimating the PSF jointly with the object under soft constraints rather than blindly. These constraints are designed to embody our knowledge of the PSF. Deconvolution results are presented for both simulated and experimental data.

A case of Peritoneal mesothelioma (PM) in the Third Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Medical University was collected and analyzed on the basis of diagnosis, physical examination and treatment. Misdiagnosis of PM is very common since it is a rare disease. So this paper aims to enhance the doctors’ awareness of peritoneal mesothelioma during clinical practice.