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Owing to its high efficiency and environmental compatibility, electroreduction holds great promise for the detoxification of aqueous Cr(VI). However, the typical electroreduction system often shows poor mass transfer, which results in slow reduction kinetics and hence higher energy consumption. Here, we demonstrate a flow-through electrode of polyaniline supported on lamellar-structured graphene (LGS-PANI) for electrocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI). The reaction kinetics of the LGS-PANI flow-through electrodes are 6.4 times (at acidic condition) and 17.3 times (at neutral condition) faster than traditional immersed parallel-plate electrodes. Computational fluid dynamics simulation suggests that the flow-through mode greatly enhances the mass transfer and that the nanoscale convection induced by the PANI nanodots increases the nanoscale mass transport in the interfacial region of the electrode/solution. In situ Raman spectroscopy shows that the PANI-Cr(VI) redox reactions are dominated by the leucoemeraldine/emeraldine transition at 1.5 V cell voltage, which also remarkably contributes to the fast reaction kinetics. Using single-pass flow-through mode, the LGS-PANI electrode reaches an average reduction efficiency of 99.8% with residual Cr(VI) concentration of 22.3 ppb (initial [Cr(VI)] = 10 ppm, flux = 20 L h-1 m-2). A long-term stability test shows that the LGS-PANI maintains stable performance over 40 days of operation and achieves >98% reduction efficiency, with average current efficiency of as high as 99.1% (initial [Cr(VI)] = 10 ppm, flux = 50 L h-1 m-2). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a penalized likelihood method to simultaneous select covariate, and mixing component and obtain parameter estimation in the localized mixture of experts models. We develop an expectation maximization algorithm to solve the proposed penalized likelihood procedure, and introduce a data-driven procedure to select the tuning parameters. Extensive numerical studies are carried out to compare the finite sample performances of our proposed method and other existing methods. Finally, we apply the proposed methodology to analyze the Boston housing price data set and the baseball salaries data set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a new class of RNA molecules whose function is largely unknown. There is a growing evidence that circRNAs play an important regulatory role in the progression of a variety of human cancers. However, the exact roles and the mechanisms of circRNAs in gastric cancer are not clear. In this study, we aimed to elucidate the mechanism of hsa_circ_0005556. Materials and Methods: Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction was used to detect the expression of hsa_circ_0005556, miR-4270, and matrix metalloproteinase-19 (MMP19) in gastric cancer tissues and cell lines. The expression of hsa_circ_0005556 in gastric cancer cells was silenced by lentivirus, and cell proliferation, invasion, migration, and tumorigenesis in nude mice were assessed to evaluate the function of hsa_circ_0005556 in gastric cancer. Results: The expression of hsa_circ_0005556 in gastric cancer tissues and gastric cancer cell lines was higher compared to normal controls. In vitro, the downregulation of hsa_circ_0005556 significantly inhibited proliferation, migration, and invasion of gastric cancer cells. In vivo, the downregulation of hsa_circ_0005556 suppressed tumor growth in nude mice. Conclusions: Our study shows that the hsa_circ_0005556/miR-4270/MMP19 axis is involved in proliferation, migration, and invasion of gastric cancer cells through the competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B lymphocytes use B cell receptors (BCRs) to sense the chemical and physical features of antigens. The activation of isotypeswitched IgG-BCR by mechanical force exhibits a distinct sensitivity and threshold in comparison with IgM-BCR. However, molecular mechanisms governing these differences remain to be identified. In this study, we report that the low threshold of IgG-BCR activation by mechanical force is highly dependent on tethering of the cytoplasmic tail of the IgG-BCR heavy chain (IgG-tail) to the plasma membrane. Mechanistically, we show that the positively charged residues in the IgG-tail play a crucial role by highly enriching phosphatidylinositol (4,5)-biphosphate (PI(4,5)P2) into the membrane microdomains of IgG-BCRs. Indeed, manipulating the amounts of PI(4,5)P2 within IgG-BCR membrane microdomains significantly altered the threshold and sensitivity of IgG-BCR activation. Our results reveal a lipid-dependent mechanism for determining the threshold of IgG-BCR activation by mechanical force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study which reveals the role of mechanical force sensitivity and threshold in the activation of different isotyped B cell receptors (BCRs) including immunoglobulin M-BCR (IgM-BCR), immunoglobulin G-BCR (IgG-BCR), and immunoglobulin E-BCR (IgE-BCR).