Search

We extend the concept of graph representations modulo integers introduced by Erdös and Evans to graph representations over finite rings and generalize it to representations of signed graphs. We introduce several representation numbers and product dimensions of graphs and signed graphs and compute these quantities for a few special classes of signed graphs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmers' participation in food safety governance is an important part of food safety social co-governance, and the accurate identification of its influencing factors and their related paths is of guiding significance to the scientific decision-making of food safety governance. The system of influencing factors of farmers' participation in food safety governance was constructed from four dimensions, and the influence network of each dimension was revealed by decision laboratory analysis (DEMATEL). The hierarchical structure and correlation path of influencing factors were determined by interpretive structural model (ISM), and the attributes of influencing factors were further classified by cross influence matrix multiplication (MICMAC). The results show that the influencing factors of farmers' participation in food safety governance can be divided into seven levels, among which the level of education and the status of village cadres are the fundamental characteristic factors. The degree of rural informatization, the intensity of government supervision, the promotion of village committees, the response of the government and the degree of disclosure of government information are the deep core factors, and risk cognition, political trust and family eating habits are special factors. Taking the importance and attribute status of farmers' participation in food safety governance into decision-making considerations is of great significance to improve the efficiency of food safety governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lung cancer is the most malignant form of cancer and has the highest morbidity and mortality worldwide. Due to drug resistance, the current chemotherapy for lung cancer is not effective and has poor therapeutic effects. Tripchlorolide (T4), a natural extract from the plant Tripterygium wilfordii, has powerful immunosuppressive and antitumour effects and may become a potential therapeutic agent for lung cancer. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of T4 on reducing chemoresistance in lung cancer cells and to explore the mechanism. 1. A549 and A549/DDP cells were separately transfected with AEG-1 overexpression and AEG-1 knockdown plasmids. A549/DDP cells were divided into the A549/DDP empty group, T4 group, and T4 + AEG-1 overexpression group. A CCK-8 assay was used to evaluate the proliferation of cells in each group. RT–qPCR and Western blotting were used to detect the expression of AEG-1 and MDR-1. Expression of AEG-1 in A549 and A549/DDP cells was positively correlated with cisplatin resistance. When the AEG-1 protein was overexpressed in A549 cells, the lethal effect of cisplatin on A549 cells was attenuated (all P < 0.05). After the AEG-1 protein was knocked down in A549/DDP cells, cisplatin was applied. The lethal effect was significantly increased compared to that in the corresponding control cells (all P < 0.05). AEG-1 protein expression gradually decreased with increasing T4 concentration in A549 and A549/DDP cells. Resistance to cisplatin was reduced after the addition of T4 to A549/DDP cells (P < 0.05), and this effect was enhanced after transfection with the AEG-1 knockdown plasmid. T4 plays an important role in increasing the sensitivity of lung cancer cells to cisplatin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eye-specific segregation in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) and superior colliculus (SC) starts from the embryonic stage and continues to develop postnatally until eye-opening in mice. However, there have been few systematic studies on the details of this developmental process. Here, we carried out time-dependent studies of eye-specific segregation in the dLGN and SC. Our results demonstrated that the development of eye-specific segregation in the SC is completed before postnatal day 12 (P12), which is earlier than in the dLGN (P20). During the whole period, ipsilateral and overlapping axonal projections decreased continuously in both the dLGN and SC. On the other hand, contralateral axonal projections showed little change, except for a slight decrease between P8 and P20 in the dLGN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The properties of the reflectance for a superconductor multilayer structure with periodically varying ambient temperature have been theoretically investigated by the transfer matrix method (TMM). From the numerical results, it has been shown that such system has the photonic band gap (PBG) properties of photonic crystals (PCs), so it can also be called superconductor photonic crystals (SPCs). It is found that the locations and bandwidths of PBGs can be modulated by the incident angle. The frequency ranges and central frequencies of PBGs can be tuned by the temperature and thickness of superconductor layer A (higher temperature superconductor layer), respectively. The bandwidths of PBGs can be notably enlarged with increasing the temperature of superconductor layer A. The frequency ranges of PBGs can be controlled by increasing the thickness of superconductor layer A, and the more PBGs appear. The damping coefficient of superconductor and the number of periods have little effect on the bandwidths of PBGs under low-temperature conditions. It is shown that this kind of SPCs has potential applications in filters, microcavities, and fibers, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among new biological markers that could become useful prognostic factors for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Survivin is one of the most commonly over-expressed oncogenes, however, its role in NSCLC remains controversial. We performed a systematic review of the literature with meta-analysis to clarify this issue. Electronic databases were used to identify published studies before August 2011. Pooled hazard ratio ( HR) with 95 % confidence interval (95 % CI) was used to estimate the strength of the association of survivin expression with survival of NSCLC patients. Heterogeneity and publication bias were also assessed. Overall 29 relevant published studies including 2,517 lung cancer patients were identified from electronic databases. We found that overexpression of survivin in NSCLC patients might be a poor prognostic factor for survival 1.95 (95 % CI: 1.65-2.29; P < 0.001). Heterogeneity testing indicated that there was heterogeneity among studies. When stratified by histology types, the heterogeneity was absent. We should point out that the publication bias may partly account for the result, but the conclusion might not be affected deeply by the publication bias. When we accounted for publication bias using the trim and fill method, the results remained significant ( HR = 1.71, 95 % CI: 1.44-2.02, P < 0.001), suggesting the stability of our results. Therefore, our study suggested that survivin overexpression had a poor prognosis value in patients with NSCLC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]