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Colon cancer is emerging as one of the most common cancers worldwide, ranking in the top three in morbidity and mortality. Oral methotrexate (MTX) has been employed as a first‐line treatment for various cancers, such as colon, breast, and lung cancer. However, the complexity and particularity of the gastrointestinal microenvironment and the limitations of MTX itself, including severe adverse effects and instability, are the main obstacles to the safe delivery of MTX to colon tumor sites. Herein, an innovative oral administrated anticancer therapeutic MTX@Am7CD/SDS NPs equipped with both pH and temperature sensitivity, which could effectively prevent MTX@Am7CD/SDS NPs from being degraded in the acidic environment mimicking the stomach and small intestine, thus harboring the potential to accumulate at the site of colon lesions and further release intestinal drug under mild conditions. In cellular assays, compared with free MTX, MTX@Am7CD/SDS NPs showed a favorable tumor inhibition effect on three tumor cell lines, as well as excellent cell uptake and apoptosis‐inducing effect on SW480 cells. Therefore, this work provides a feasible solution for the safe use of MTX in the treatment of colon cancer and even other intestinal diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pH‐responsive nanoparticles are a promising drug‐carrier because they always showed sensitivity and specificity to the pH changes caused by the surrounding environment. Most of the therapeutic drugs are generally absorbed in the stomach and small intestine due to the pH‐responsive nanoparticles always release the cargos at acidic media, making them difficult to reach the lower part of the large intestine, as well as inhibiting the therapeutic effects. Herein, an alkaline media‐sensitive supramolecular nanoparticle, regarded as SACD/PEI NPs, is prepared. SACD/PEI NPs exhibit assemble/disassemble state by changing the pH, which is used to encapsulate the anti‐colon drug CSL. CSL@SACD/PEI NPs showed a high release rate of 86.1% for the encapsulated CSL at pH = 8.5 (mimic the colon micro‐environment), while keeping stable at pH = 1.2 (mimic the gastric acid micro‐environment). Meanwhile, CSL@SACD/PEI NPs exhibited low hemolysis, indicating they possess good biocompatibility. In cell experiments, CSL@SACD/PEI NPs had a similar inhibitory effect on colon tumor cell SW480 and showed low cytotoxicity to normal cells compared with free CSL. Furthermore, both free CSL and CSL@SACD/PEI NPs showed excellent apoptosis effects on tumor cell SMMC‐7721. We hope that CSL@SACD/PEI NPs could be the valuable base‐answered drug delivery candidate, and have potential application for colon tumor therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: An exploratory study was performed to determine the prevalence of the patatin-like phospholipase domain-containing protein 3 (PNPLA3) rs78409 [G] allele among the Hmong as a risk factor for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). NAFLD/nonalcoholic steatohepatitis is the world's most common chronic liver disease and is expected to replace viral hepatitis as the leading cause of cirrhosis and potential precursor to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Of all populations in California, the Hmong experience the highest risk of death from HCC and the highest prevalence of metabolic syndrome risk factors among Asians that predispose them to NAFLD. Here a genetic explanation was sought for the high rates of chronic liver disease among the Hmong. The literature pointed to the PNPLA3 rs738409 [G] allele as a potential genetic culprit.Methods: Cell-free DNA was isolated from 26 serum samples previously collected in community settings. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction-based single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping was performed with a validated TaqMan SNP genotyping assay, and results were analyzed with TaqMan Genotyper software.Results: The PNPLA3 rs738409 [C>G] variant occurred at a frequency of 0.46 (12 of 26; 95% confidence interval, 0.27-0.67). This carrier rate would rank the Hmong as the third highest population in the 1000 Genomes Project.Conclusions: Although this small sample size limits the generalizability, the high frequency rates of this allele along with the presence of metabolic syndrome risk factors warrant further studies into the etiology of NAFLD among the Hmong. Cancer 2018;124:1583-9. © 2018 American Cancer Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The incidence of liver cancer in Hmong Americans is 5 times higher than that of non-Hispanic whites, and there is a low hepatitis B screening rate (24%) among Hmong adults compared with other Asian American populations. The purpose of this study was to examine the Hmong's perceptions on social-cultural determinants, traditional health beliefs, and health care system barriers that influenced community-based hepatitis B screening interventions.Methods: A qualitative method was used, integrating a collective case study research design. In-depth interviews were used to collect data from 20 Hmong adults from the greater Sacramento area. A pattern matching analytic technique was used to analyze the data. The main core elements of Culture Care Theory were used to capture the key themes presented by the participants.Results: Protecting a family's reputation; fear of doctors, medical procedures, and test results; lack of trust in medical doctors and medical care services; and using Hmong herbal medicines and practicing spiritual healing were identified as social-cultural and traditional health belief barriers to obtaining HBV screening. Health care costs, perceived discrimination, lack of transportation, linguistic discordance, and poor quality of care were identified as barriers to accessing high-quality health care services and obtaining hepatitis B screening.Conclusion: Providers, health policy makers, researchers, and community-based organizations will need to work together to develop intervention strategies to address the social-cultural factors, traditional health beliefs, and health care challenges that influence obtaining hepatitis B screening in the Hmong community. Cancer 2018;124:1576-82. © 2018 American Cancer Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper suggests that virtual cloud desktop be built by adopting virtualized technology with the distributing server as the the processing center and the thin client as the terminal, which can solve the problems of great cost, high energy consumption and complicated management by using independent PC in computer laboratories. Hence an optimized scheme is proposed for the more applicable virtual cloud desktop in computer laboratory construction resulting from the research of virtual cloud desktop systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reduced graphene oxide/Ni(OH) composite with excellent supercapacitive performance was synthesized by a facile hydrothermal route without organic solvents or templates used. XRD and SEM results reveal that the nickel hydroxide, which crystallizes into hexagonal β-Ni(OH) nanoflakes with a diameter less than 200 nm and a thickness of about 10 nm, is well combined with the reduced graphene oxide sheets. Electrochemical performance of the synthesized composite as an electrode material was investigated by cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and galvanostatic charge/discharge measurements. Its specific capacitance is determined to be 1672 F/g at a scan rate of 2 mV/s, and 696 F/g at a high scan rate of 50 mV/s. After 2000 cycles at a current density of 10 A/g, the composite exhibits a specific capacitance of 969 F/g, retaining about 86% of its initial capacitance. The composite delivers a high energy density of 83.6 W·h/kg at a power density of 1.0 kW/kg. The excellent supercapacitive performance along with the easy synthesis method allows the synthesized composite to be promising for supercapacitor applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study explored the barriers and facilitators of cancer screening among women of Hmong origin. Using a community-based participatory research approach, we conducted focus groups (n=44) with Hmong women who represented four distinct demographic groups among the Hmong community. The participants described sociocultural barriers to screening, which included a lack of accurate knowledge about the causes of cervical cancer, language barriers, stigma, fear, lack of time, and embarrassment. Structural barriers included attitudes and practices of health care providers, lack of insurance, and negative perceptions of services at clinics for the uninsured. Health care providers may require additional training and increased time per visit to provide culturally sensitive care for refugee groups such as the Hmong. Health-related social marketing efforts aimed at improving health literacy may also help to reduce health inequities related to cancer screening among the Hmong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wellposedness problem for an anisotropic incompressible viscous fluid in ℝ, rotating around a vector B( t, x):= ( b( t, x), b( t, x), b( t, x)), is studied. The global wellposedness in the homogeneous case ( B = e) with sufficiently fast rotation in the space B is proved. In the inhomogeneous case ( B = B( t, x)), the global existence and uniqueness of the solution in B are obtained, provided that the initial data are sufficient small compared to the horizontal viscosity. Furthermore, we obtain uniform local existence and uniqueness of the solution in the same function space. We also obtain propagation of the regularity in B under the additional assumption that B depends only on one horizontal space variable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mesoporous Mn-Ni oxides with the chemical compositions of MnNiO ( x = 0, 0.2, and 0.4) were prepared by a solid-state reaction route, using manganese sulfate, nickel chloride, and potassium hydroxide as starting materials. The obtained Mn-Ni oxides, mainly consisting of the phases of α- and γ-MnO, presented irregular mesoporous agglomerates built from ultra-fine particles. Specific surface area of MnNiO was 42.8, 59.6, and 84.5 m g for x = 0, 0.2, and 0.4, respectively. Electrochemical properties were investigated by cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge/discharge in 6 mol L KOH electrolyte. Specific capacitances of MnNiO were 343, 528, and 411 F g at a scan rate of 2 mV s for x = 0, 0.2, and 0.4, respectively, and decreased to 157, 183, and 130 F g with increasing scan rate to 100 mV s, respectively. After 500 cycles at a current density of 1.24 A g, the symmetrical MnNiO capacitors delivered specific capacitances of 160, 250, and 132 F g for x = 0, 0.2, and 0.4, respectively, retaining about 82%, 89%, and 75% of their respective initial capacitances. The MnNiO material showed better supercapacitive performance, which was promising for supercapacitor applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of the random perturbations on the fourth-order nonlinear Schrödinger equations, , is investigated in this paper. The local well-posedness in the energy space H(ℝ) are proved for $p > \tfrac{{n + 4}} {{n + 2}} $ , and p ≤ 2 − 1 if n ≥ 5. Global existence is also derived for either defocusing or focusing L-subcritical nonlinearities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aggregation of fuzzy opinions is an important component of group decision analysis with fuzzy information. This paper proposes two new approaches for the assessment of the weights to be associated with fuzzy opinions. These approaches involve, respectively, the minimization of the sum of squared differences between the individual weighted fuzzy opinion and the weighted mean value of all fuzzy opinions, which is called the weighted minimum variance method (WMVM), and the minimax difference of any two adjacent individual weighted fuzzy opinions, which is called the mean value minimax differences method (MVMDM). The two approaches are developed and numerical examples are presented to illustrate their simplicity and effectiveness in aggregating fuzzy-opinions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of a solution to the parabolic system with the fractional Laplacian (−Δ) α/2, α > 0 is proven, this solution decays at different rates along different time sequences going to infinity. As an application, the existence of a solution to the generalized Navier-Stokes equations is proven, which decays at different rates along different time sequences going to infinity. The generalized Navier-Stokes equations are the equations resulting from replacing −Δ in the Navier-Stokes equations by (−Δ) m , m > 0. At last, a similar result for 3-D incompressible anisotropic Navier-Stokes system is obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the asymptotic stability of smooth solutions to the multidimensional nonisentropic hydrodynamic model for semiconductors is established, under the assumption that the initial data are a small perturbation of the stationary solutions for the thermal equilibrium state, whose proofs mainly depend on the basic energy methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the Cauchy problem, free boundary problem and piston problem for one-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes equations with density-dependent viscosity. Using the reduction to absurdity method, we prove that the weak solutions to these systems do not exhibit vacuum states, provided that no vacuum states are present initially. The essential requirements on the solutions are that the mass and energy of the fluid are locally integrable at each time, and the L loc 1-norm of the velocity gradient is locally integrable in time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe several stationary conditions on weak solutions to the inhomogeneous Landau-Lifshitz equation, which ensure the partial regularity. For certain class of proper stationary weak solutions, a compactness result of the solutions, a finite Hausdorff measure result of the t-slice energy concentration sets and an asymptotic limit result of the Radon measures are proved. We also present a subtle rectifiability result for the energy concentration set of certain sequence of strong stationary weak solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method for the rapid synthesis of psoralen and 4-methylpsoralen has been developed. The key intermediates, coumarinyloxyaldehydes, were obtained in only two steps from the easily available starting materials, 7-hydroxycoumarin derivatives, by an oxidative procedure. By using Swern oxidation, psoralen and 4-methylpsoralen were finally produced in the overall yields of 71% and 67%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]