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Background: Oxidative stress has been shown to play a critical role in the pathogenesis of hypertension. Paeonol, a major phenolic component extracted from Moutan Cortex, exerts a beneficial effect in preventing cardiovascular disease via reducing oxidative stress. The present study investigated the protective mechanism of paeonol against high blood pressure in spontaneous hypertension rats (SHRs). Methods: Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats and SHRs received vehicle or peaonol in the drinking water for 5 weeks. Blood pressure was measured by tail-cuff plethysmography and oxidative stress in kidney and vascular tissue was examined by enzyme-linked immunosorbed assay. The functions of angiotensin II type 1 receptors (AT1R) in the kidney and mesenteric artery were measured by natriuresis and vasoconstrictor response, respectively. Results: Compared with vehicle-treated WKY rats, vehicle-treated SHRs exhibited higher blood pressure, increased oxidative stress, accompanied by exaggerated diuretic and natriuretic responses to candesartan (AT1 receptor antagonist) and vasoconstrictor responses to angiotensin II (Ang II). Moreover, SHRs had higher ACE and AT1R in the kidney and mesenteric artery, and higher Ang II and lower renin levels. Interestingly, paeonol treatment reduced the candesartan-induced increase in diuresis and natriuresis and vasoconstrictor responses to Ang II, and lowered blood pressure in SHRs, accompanied by reducing AT1R protein expression in the kidney and mesenteric artery of SHR, and Ang II levels in plasma and increasing renin levels in renal cortex. In addition, these changes were associated with reducing oxidative stress. Conclusions: The present study suggests that paeonol improves renal and vascular AT1R functions by inhibition of oxidative stress, thus lowering blood pressure in SHRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Endometriosis is recognized as an estrogen-dependent inflammation disorder, estimated to affect 8%-15% of women of childbearing age. Currently, the etiology and pathogenesis of endometriosis are not completely clear. Underlying mechanism for endometriosis is still under debate and needs further exploration. The involvement of transcription factors and immune mediations may be involved in the pathophysiological process of endometriosis, but the specific mechanism remains to be explored. This study aims to investigate the underlying molecular mechanisms in endometriosis. Methods: The gene expression profile of endometriosis was obtained from the gene expression omnibus (GEO) database. Gene set variation analysis (GSVA) and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) were applied to the endometriosis GSE7305 datasets. Cibersort and MCP-counter were used to explore the immune response gene sets, immune response pathway, and immune environment. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified and screened. Common biological pathways were being investigated using the kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis. Transcription factors were from The Human Transcription Factors. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) model identified four differential expressions of transcription factors (AEBP1, HOXB6, KLF2, and RORB). Their diagnostic value was calculated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis and validated in the validation cohort (GSE11691, GSE23339). By constructing the interaction network of crucial transcription factors, weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to search for key module genes. Metascape was used for enrichment analysis of essential module genes and obtained HOXB6, KLF2. The HOXB6 and KLF2 were further verified as the only two intersection genes according to Support Vector Machine Recursive Feature Elimination (SVM-RFE) and random forest models. We constructed ceRNA (lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA) networks with four potential transcription factors. Finally, we performed molecular docking for goserelin and dienogest with four transcription factors (AEBP1, HOXB6, KLF2, and RORB) to screen potential drug targets. Results: Immune and metabolic pathways were enriched in GSVA and GSEA. In single sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA), most immune infiltrating cells, immune response gene sets, and immune response pathways are differentially expressed between endometriosis and non-endometriosis. Twenty-seven transcription factors were screened from differentially expressed genes. Most of the twenty-seven transcription factors were correlated with immune infiltrating cells, immune response gene sets and immune response pathways. Furthermore, Adipocyte enhancer binding protein 1 (AEBP1), Homeobox B6 (HOXB6), Kruppel Like Factor 2 (KLF2) and RAR Related Orphan Receptor B (RORB) were selected out from twenty-seven transcription factors. ROC analysis showed that the four genes had a high diagnostic value for endometriosis. In addition, KLF2 and HOXB6 were found to play particularly important roles in multiple modules (String, WGCNA, SVM-RFE, random forest) on the gene interaction network. Using the ceRNA network, we found that NEAT1 may regulate the expressions of AEBP1, HOXB6 and RORB, while X Inactive Specific Transcript (XIST) may control the expressions of HOXB6, RORB and KLF2. Finally, we found that goserelin and dienogest may be potential drugs to regulate AEBP1, HOXB6, KLF2 and RORB through molecular docking. Conclusions: AEBP1, HOXB6, KLF2, and RORB may be potential biomarkers for endometriosis. Two of them, KLF2 and HOXB6, are critical molecules in the gene interaction network of endometriosis. Discovered by molecular docking, AEBP1, HOXB6, KLF2, and RORB are targets for goserelin and dienogest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Endometriosis is recognized as an estrogen-dependent inflammation disorder, estimated to affect 8%-15% of women of childbearing age. Currently, the etiology and pathogenesis of endometriosis are not completely clear. Underlying mechanism for endometriosis is still under debate and needs further exploration. The involvement of transcription factors and immune mediations may be involved in the pathophysiological process of endometriosis, but the specific mechanism remains to be explored. This study aims to investigate the underlying molecular mechanisms in endometriosis. Methods: The gene expression profile of endometriosis was obtained from the gene expression omnibus (GEO) database. Gene set variation analysis (GSVA) and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) were applied to the endometriosis GSE7305 datasets. Cibersort and MCP-counter were used to explore the immune response gene sets, immune response pathway, and immune environment. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified and screened. Common biological pathways were being investigated using the kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis. Transcription factors were from The Human Transcription Factors. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) model identified four differential expressions of transcription factors (AEBP1, HOXB6, KLF2, and RORB). Their diagnostic value was calculated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis and validated in the validation cohort (GSE11691, GSE23339). By constructing the interaction network of crucial transcription factors, weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to search for key module genes. Metascape was used for enrichment analysis of essential module genes and obtained HOXB6, KLF2. The HOXB6 and KLF2 were further verified as the only two intersection genes according to Support Vector Machine Recursive Feature Elimination (SVM-RFE) and random forest models. We constructed ceRNA (lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA) networks with four potential transcription factors. Finally, we performed molecular docking for goserelin and dienogest with four transcription factors (AEBP1, HOXB6, KLF2, and RORB) to screen potential drug targets. Results: Immune and metabolic pathways were enriched in GSVA and GSEA. In single sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA), most immune infiltrating cells, immune response gene sets, and immune response pathways are differentially expressed between endometriosis and non-endometriosis. Twenty-seven transcription factors were screened from differentially expressed genes. Most of the twenty-seven transcription factors were correlated with immune infiltrating cells, immune response gene sets and immune response pathways. Furthermore, Adipocyte enhancer binding protein 1 (AEBP1), Homeobox B6 (HOXB6), Kruppel Like Factor 2 (KLF2) and RAR Related Orphan Receptor B (RORB) were selected out from twenty-seven transcription factors. ROC analysis showed that the four genes had a high diagnostic value for endometriosis. In addition, KLF2 and HOXB6 were found to play particularly important roles in multiple modules (String, WGCNA, SVM-RFE, random forest) on the gene interaction network. Using the ceRNA network, we found that NEAT1 may regulate the expressions of AEBP1, HOXB6 and RORB, while X Inactive Specific Transcript (XIST) may control the expressions of HOXB6, RORB and KLF2. Finally, we found that goserelin and dienogest may be potential drugs to regulate AEBP1, HOXB6, KLF2 and RORB through molecular docking. Conclusions: AEBP1, HOXB6, KLF2, and RORB may be potential biomarkers for endometriosis. Two of them, KLF2 and HOXB6, are critical molecules in the gene interaction network of endometriosis. Discovered by molecular docking, AEBP1, HOXB6, KLF2, and RORB are targets for goserelin and dienogest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cuproptosis, a copper-dependent controlled cell death, is a novel form of cell death that differs from known cell death mechanisms; however, its overall regulation in cancer remains elusive. Methods: Multiple open-source bioinformatic platforms were used to comprehensively elucidate the expression levels, prognostic efficiency, potential biological functions, genomic and epigenetic characteristics, immune microenvironment, and drug sensitivity of cuproptosis regulators (ATP7A, ATP7B, DLAT, DLD, FDX1, GLS, LIAS, LIPT1, MTF1, NLRP3, PDHA1, PDHB, and SLC31A1) in pan-cancer. Results: Cuproptosis-related genes (CRGs) were upregulated in most cancers tested. In KIRC, KIRP, LGG, MESO, and PCPG, most highly expressed CRGs predicted a better prognosis but poorer prognosis in patients with ACC, LIHC, and UCEC. Pathway analysis confirmed that cuproptosis regulators were associated with the metabolism-related pathways. The expression of MTF1, NLRP3, and SLC31A1 was positively related with ImmuneScore, StromalScore, and ESTIMATEScore in almost all types of tumor, whereas ATP7B, DLAT, DLD, LIAS, PDHA1, and PDHB were significantly negatively correlated with the scores. In addition, CRGs were significantly correlated with RNA stemness score, DNA stemness score, microsatellite instability, and tumor mutational burden. The expression of ATP7A, ATP7B, LIAS, and DLAT was significantly positively correlated with the drug sensitivity of Docetaxel. ATP7A, LIAS, and FDX1 were significantly negatively correlated with the drug sensitivity of UNC0638, XMD13-2, YM201636, and KIN001-260. Conclusions: The altered genomic and clinical characteristics of cuproptosis regulators were comprehensively elucidated, providing a preliminary basis for understanding the functions of cuproptosis in pan-cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the development trends and variation characteristics of China's economy, energy consumption and carbon emissions from 2007 to 2030, and the impacts on China's economic growth, energy consumption, and carbon emissions under the carbon tax policy scenarios, based on the dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The results show that during the simulation period, China's economy will keep a relatively high growth rate, but the growth rate will slow down under the benchmark scenario. The energy consumption intensity and the carbon emissions intensity per unit of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will continually decrease. The energy consumption structure and industrial structure will gradually optimize. With the economic growth, the total energy consumption will constantly increase, and the carbon dioxide emissions are still large, and the situation of energy-saving and emission-reduction is still serious. The carbon tax is very important for energy-saving and emission-reduction and energy consumption structure optimization, and the effect of the carbon tax on GDP is small. If the carbon tax could be levied and the enterprise income tax could be reduced at the same time, the dual goals of reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions and increasing the GDP growth can be achieved. Improving the technical progress level of clean power while implementing a carbon tax policy is very meaningful to optimize energy consumption structure and reduce the carbon emissions, but it has some offsetting effect to reduce energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orderly YPO4:Eu3+olivary architectures with a length of about 8 μm and a diameter of about 5 μm have been synthesized successfully by a limited anion-exchange reaction (LAER) under hydrothermal conditions. These 3D olives in fact are composed of irregular tetragonal nanoflakes with an average size of 1500 × 1000 × 60 nm3, these flakes align parallel or interlace with each other. The evolution of this special morphology of the samples has been investigated in detail. It was found that the amount of the HNO3used in the solution, the change of the phosphorous sources, and the reaction time have visible influences on the morphologies of the product. A possible formation and growth mechanism of the hierarchical structures was suggested according to the experimental results and analysis. The luminescent properties of the products were also studied. Both the obtained products and the synthesis methods used in the preparation may shed some light on the further synthesis and application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ca9Gd(PO4)7and Ca9Gd(PO4)7:xEu2+,yMn2+were synthesized by solid-state reaction. The refinement confirmed that Ca9Gd(PO4)7belongs to space group R3c(No. 161) with unit cell parameters a= 10.4526 Å, c= 37.3769 Å, V= 3536.61 Å3, and Z= 6. Upon the excitation from 250 to 430 nm, the Ca9Gd(PO4)7:xEu2+,yMn2+phosphors exhibit a broad blue-green emission band at 490 nm and a red emission band at 645 nm, which originate from the Eu2+and Mn2+ions, respectively. The varied emitted color from blue-green through white and eventually to red can be achieved by properly tuning the relative ratio of the Eu2+to Mn2+ions in the phosphors through the energy transfer from the Eu2+and Mn2+ions. The energy transfer from Eu2+to Mn2+was demonstrated to be a resonant type viaa dipole-quadrupole reaction by the luminescence spectra, energy transfer efficiency, and decay curves of the phosphors. Furthermore, the critical distance of the Eu2+and Mn2+ions has also been calculated. More importantly, compared to the multiple emitting components of white LEDs system, single-emitting-component phosphors would enable easy fabrication with perfect stability and color reproducibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uniform Lu2O3hollow microspheres have been successfully fabricated viaa urea-based homogeneous precipitation method with colloidal melamine formaldehyde (MF) microspheres as hard templates followed by a subsequent calcination process. The uniform Lu2O3hollow microspheres with diameters about 1.8 μm inherit the perfect spherical shape and good dispersion of MF templates. The shell of Lu2O3hollow spheres is composed of a large amount of uniform nanoparticles, and the thickness is about 100 nm. The crystal structure, elemental analysis, morphology, and formation process of the as-synthesized hollow microspheres were investigated in detail. The rare earth ion Ln3+doped Lu2O3(Ln = Eu, Er, and Yb) hollow microspheres show bright down- and up conversion luminescence with different colours coming from different activator ions under ultraviolet or 980 nm light excitation, which may find potential applications in the fields such as light phosphor powders, advanced flat panel displays, drug delivery or biological labelling. Furthermore, this study may open new possibilities to synthesize other hollow spherical materials and extend their applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flower-like LaPO4:Ln3(Ln = Ce, Tb) hierarchical architectures composed of polygon prisms originated from the same center have been prepared by direct precipitation in solution-phase under moderate conditions. CTAB and citric acid were chosen as surfactant and chelating reagent, respectively. It is found that the addition of CTAB plays an important role in controlling the flower-like morphology of the products. The factors that influence the morphology and the luminescent properties of the products have been investigated in detail. The evolution of the morphology of the products has been studied and a possible formation mechanism of the flower-like structure was proposed according to the time dependent experimental results and analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Y4O(OH)9NO3:Eu3+nanotubes and nanobundles were successfully synthesized from nanolamellar precursors in large quantities with a direct hydrothermal method. Different choices of solvents led to different products with distinct morphologies. Nanosheet precursors were obtained using water as the solvent while Y4O(OH)9NO3:Eu3+nanotubes and nanobundles were produced by introducing ethylene glycol into the solvent. The observations of scanning and transmission electron microscopy are in good agreement with the proposed “rolling mechanism” and the effects of solvents on the morphology changes were discussed. The Y2O3:Eu3+nanotubes and nanobundles were obtained by subsequent calcinations of the corresponding Y4O(OH)9NO3:Eu3+precursors. The photoluminescent properties of the phosphors have been discussed in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uniform octahedral LuVO4microcrystals have been successfully prepared through a designed two-step hydrothermal method. One-dimensional lutetium precursor was first prepared through a simple hydrothermal route. Subsequently, a well-shaped octahedral LuVO4sample was synthesized at the expense of the wirelike precursors during the hydrothermal process. The whole process in this method was carried out in aqueous conditions without the use of any organic solvents, surfactant, or catalyst. The conversion process from nanowire precursor to octahedral product has been investigated in detail. The LuVO4 : Ln3+(Ln = Eu, Dy, Sm, and Er) phosphors show strong light emissions with different colors coming from different activator ions under ultraviolet light excitation or low-voltage electron beam excitation. Furthermore, this general and facile method may be of much significance in the synthesis of many other lanthanide compounds with polyhedral morphology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large-scale synthesis of the metal–organic framework Eu(1,3,5–BTC)·6H2O nanocrystallites with delicate morphologies such as sheaflike, butterflylike, and flowerlike superstructures composed of nanowires have been realized viaa simple solution phase method at room temperature. Time-dependent experiments indicate that these superstructures were constructed by the splitting crystal growth mechanism, as has been noted in some minerals in nature. The synthetic parameters such as reaction time, concentration and molar ratio of reactants, surfactant, and reaction temperature all affected the morphology of the Eu(1,3,5–BTC)·6H2O architectures. These well-arranged architectures exhibit red emission corresponding to the 5D0→ 7F2transition of the Eu3+ions under UV light excitation, and the lifetime is determined to be about 0.22 ms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A model was established to illustrate the relation between cumulative exploration investment and growth of total proved reserves on the basis of growth model of total proved reserves. The Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) theory was used to give an optimal solution of the function of constructed productivity and development investment, and, together with an exponential oil & gas operational cost function, a model of the relation between development investment and oil & gas output was deduced. Based on the models of investment-exploration-development relations, and considering maximum profit, yield component, reserves-to-output ratio and production rate, an optimal function of multi-stage investment was established, which can result in multi-stage investment structure under given conditions with genetic algorithms. The method can provide scientific basis for oil companies to make a long-term strategic program and investment plan in oil and gas exploration and development, decrease the subjective blindness in the investment and bring about a reasonable and orderly exploration and development of oil and gas resources [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We illustrate the utility of the situation calculus for representing complex scheduling tasks by axiomatizing a deadline driven scheduler in the language. The actions arising in such a scheduler are examples of natural actions, as investigated in the concurrent situation calculus by Pinto (PhD thesis, 1994), and later by Reiter (Proc. Common Sense 96, 1996). Because the deadline driven scheduler is sequential, we must first suitably modify Reiter's approach to natural actions so it applies to the sequential case. Having done this, we then show how the situation calculus axiomatization of this scheduler yields a very simple simulator in GOLOG, a situation calculus-based logic programming language for dynamic domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By direct precipitation in solution at room temperature, cerium benzendicarboxylate complexes with various morphologies have been obtained facilely for the first time. After calcination, CeO2with large surface areas can be obtained, which inherited their parents' morphologies and exhibited better catalytic properties for CH4oxidation than commercial CeO2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]