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To overcome the limitation of minority carrier diffusion length and high recombination of electron-hole pairs, porous ultrathin tungsten trioxide (WO3) nanoplate arrays with amorphous layer were prepared by one-step hydrothermal method without pre-seeded which possessed the highest photocurrent density of 1.80 mA cm−2 at 1.23 V vs RHE and 100 mV cathodic shift of onset potential with 0.20 g dosage of (NH4)2C2O4. The remarkable photoelectrochemical performance mainly benefits from enhanced red-shift light absorption, cathodic shifted onset potential, lowest recombination of photoelectron-hole pairs and abundant active surface areas. These results confirm that engineering the thickness and surface state of oxide semiconductor nanoplate arrays are the promising ways to improve the photoelectrochemical performance for solar water splitting.

The thermal stability of Al–Cu–Mg–Ag alloy was tested by thermal exposure and creep performance. The results show that the under-aged Al–Cu–Mg–Ag alloy possessed better thermal stability compared to the peak-aged one, due to the secondary precipitations of the strengthening phases. The number of the precipitations in the under-aged sample increased and then decreased with increasing the thermal exposure or creep time while that of the peak-aged sample decreased gradually. The tensile strength of the under-aged sample increased and then decreased with increasing the thermal exposure time with a peak value of 524 MPa after exposed for 20 h, which was 19 MPa higher than that of the peak-aged alloy. The steady creep rate of the under-aged sample was much lower and the creep-life was much longer to that of the peak-aged one, indicating that the under-aged sample possessed excellent creep resistance property at elevated temperatures.

The functions of miR-9 in some cancers are recently implicated in regulating proliferation, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), invasion and metastasis, apoptosis, and tumor angiogenesis, etc. miR-9 is commonly down-regulated in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), but the exact roles of miR-9 dysregulation in the pathogenesis of NPC remains unclear. Therefore, we firstly used miR-9-expressing CNE2 cells to determine the effects of miR-9 overexpression on global gene expression profile by microarray analysis. Microarray-based gene expression data unexpectedly demonstrated a significant number of up- or down-regulated immune- and inflammation-related genes, including many well-known interferon (IFN)-induced genes (e.g., IFI44L, PSMB8, IRF5, PSMB10, IFI27, PSB9_HUMAN, IFIT2, TRAIL, IFIT1, PSB8_HUMAN, IRF1, B2M and GBP1), major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I molecules (e.g., HLA-B, HLA-C, HLA-F and HLA-H) and interleukin (IL)-related genes (e.g., IL20RB, GALT, IL7, IL1B, IL11, IL1F8, IL1A, IL6 and IL7R), which was confirmed by qRT-PCR. Moreover, the overexpression of miR-9 with the miRNA mimics significantly up- or down-regulated the expression of above-mentioned IFN-inducible genes, MHC class I molecules and IL-related genes; on the contrary, miR-9 inhibition by anti-miR-9 inhibitor in CNE2 and 5-8F cells correspondingly decreased or increased the aforementioned immune- and inflammation-related genes. Taken together, these findings demonstrate, for the first time, that miR-9 can modulate the expression of IFN-induced genes and MHC class I molecules in human cancer cells, suggesting a novel role of miR-9 in linking inflammation and cancer, which remains to be fully characterized.

Single-crystal PbTiO 3 (PT) nanorods have been synthesized by annealing PT nanocrystals in NaCl flux. The as-prepared PT nanorods are straight, with diameters of 50–80 nm and lengths of a few micrometers. The nanorods are in tetragonal crystal structure with lattice constants a = b = 3.926 A and c = 3.963 A. All the Raman modes of the PT nanorods have been indexed and the soften behavior of mode E(1TO) was observed, implying the weakening of ferroelectricity. The formation of the nanorods has also been discussed.