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HIV incidence in sub-Saharan Africa declined substantially between 2000 and 2015. In this analysis, we consider the relative associations of nine structural and individual determinants with this decline. A linear mixed effects model of logged HIV incidence rates versus determinants was used. The data were from mathematical modelling as part of the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Study in 43 sub-Saharan African countries. We used forwards selection to determine a single final model of HIV incidence rate. The association of economic variables and HIV knowledge with incidence was found to be driven by education, while ART coverage had the largest impact on other determinants’ coefficients. In the final model, education years per capita contributed the most to explaining variation in HIV incidence rates; a 1-year increase in mean education years was associated with a 0.39 (− 0.56; − 0.2, t = − 4.48 p

The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of supranutritional selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) on immune and antioxidant capacity in rats. Forty male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were randomly divided into four groups and given intragastric administration of SeNPs at doses of 0, 0.2, 0.4, and 0.8 mg Se/kg BW, respectively, for 2 weeks. Serum immune parameters, serum and organic tissues (liver, heart, kidney) antioxidant indices, and liver mRNA expression of glutathione peroxidase 1 (GPx1) and glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPx4) were examined. The results showed that supranutritional doses of 0.4 and 0.8 mg Se/kg BW SeNPs promoted the immune responses in serum. SeNPs administration improved antioxidant capacity in the liver and kidney, and the best improvement on antioxidant capacity was found in the kidney. Furthermore, intragastric administration of SeNPs upregulated mRNA expression of GPx1 and GPx4 in the liver. The results obtained indicated that SeNPs administration at supranutritional levels had beneficial effects on immune and antioxidant capacity and supplemental SeNPs at dose of 0.4 mg Se/kg BW exhibited the best response in SD rats.

Studies have found that N-myc downstream-regulated gene 2 (Ndrg2) is involved in the progression of rheumatoid arthritis (RA); however, the specific mechanism still remains unclear. Gene expression profiles in the tibial joints of the collagen-induced rheumatoid arthritis model were obtained using Gene Expression Omnibus database. Western blot and real-time PCR were respectively performed to determine the expression of Ndrg2 and gene messenger RNA. Cell viability was measured by Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) method, and cell cycle was detected by flow cytometry. Cell scratch assays were carried out to detect migration. The binding ability of miR-130a to Ndrg2-3'-UTR was predicted by TargetScan website and confirmed by dual luciferase assay. A collagen-induced arthritis rat model was constructed to observe the effects of miR-130a on arthritis index, hind limb swelling, volume of rat hind paw, and inflammation. Ndrg2 was found downregulated in RA tissues, and knockdown of Ndrg2 promoted fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS) proliferation and inflammation, while overexpressed Ndrg2 produced opposite results. Ndrg2 was predicted as a target gene for miR-130a, and miR-130a mimic promoted FLS proliferation, while miR-130a inhibitor suppressed FLS proliferation. Moreover, we found that miR-130a antagomir could significantly reduce the arthritis index, swelling degree, foot volume, and inflammatory factor levels; inhibit the expression of miR-130a; and promote the expression of Ndrg2. The miR-130a/Ndrg2 axis signaling pathway is involved in the progression of RA. Our findings provide a theoretical basis for the clinical treatment of RA.

Multiple lines of evidence have shown that neuroinflammation and autophagy are highly involved in the process of depression. Nobiletin (NOB) displays neuroprotective effects and anti-depressant-like effects. Given the evidence that NOB exerts anti-inflammatory effects and regulates autophagy, we investigate the anti-neuroinflammatory properties and the effect of regulating the autophagy of NOB and subsequently uncover the potential anti-depressant mechanisms of NOB. The behavioral changes of rats were observed after prolonged lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treatment and NOB administration. Rat hippocampus and BV2 cells treated by LPS and NOB were evaluated. The methods of real-time PCR analysis, Western blot, immunostaining, and adenovirus transfection were employed to determine neuroinflammation, autophagic markers, and nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor 3 (NLRP3) activation. Our study showed LPS enhanced the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and NLRP3 inflammasome activation but inhibited autophagy in both rat hippocampus and BV2 cells. NOB significantly improved the behavioral deficits and ameliorated the neuroinflammation induced by LPS in rats. Furthermore, NOB promoted autophagy and attenuated NLRP3 inflammasome activation induced by LPS, involving in the process the adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) pathway. Neuroprotective and anti-depressant actions of NOB relied on its effects of promoting autophagy and suppressing the activation of NLRP3, in which process of AMPK pathway may be involved.

The air supply terminal located at the floor level attached to side-wall is widely used in large space buildings, leading to potential energy saving as well as significant vertical thermal stratification. The cooling load calculation of such system is challenging, especially the calculation of the load gained from unoccupied zone. This paper adopts experiment and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods to study the heat transfer upward and downward across the stratified surface in large space building with floor-level side wall air-supply system. Five experimental cases with different heat source power and exhaust airflow ratios are performed to study their effects on the indoor thermal environment. We investigate the same cases in CFD and verify the result of vertical temperature distribution and cooling load components. As a critical parameter in evaluating the thermal stratification environment of large space building, the inter-zonal heat transfer coefficient Cb is emphatically discussed. By comparing the Cb value obtained through the two methods, the accuracy of the microscopic method is verified by the heat balance method. The results show that the Cb value is mainly affected by the zonal division and air distribution, but less prominently by exhaust airflow ratio and heat source in the occupied zone.

Indoor contaminants jeopardize people’s health and may even cause serious consequences under extreme conditions. Therefore, the prompt and accurate identification of indoor airborne contaminant characteristics is significant for indoor health and safety. In this paper, we used an inverse Markov chain model, combined with the regularization proposed in our previous research, to identify periodic source strength under steady airflow in a multi-zone building. The impact of different measurement noise (0.05%, 0.1%, 0.2%) on the inverse results was investigated. The results showed that the greater the noise, the greater the oscillation of the inverse result. Furthermore, we also investigated the effect of adjusting the calculation time step (5 s, 10 s, 20 s, 30 s) and adding digital filters (Sliding window filter and Butterworth low pass filter) on the inverse source release rate. The results showed that properly increasing the calculation time step can reduce the impact of measurement noise. The root mean square error (RMSE) of the inverse source strength with 0.1% noise decreased from 22.89 under a 5-s time step to 0.9793 under a 30-s time step. It was also found that adding digital filters could reduce the oscillation of the inverse source results, and the performance of the filters also depends on the calculation time steps.

In this paper, we present a dual-wavelength flash Raman (DFR) mapping method for measuring the thermal diffusivity of a suspended nanowire. A heating pulse is used to heat the nanowire sample, and a probing pulse of different wavelength is used to measure the increase in temperature. The laser absorption coefficient can be eliminated by normalization, and the thermal diffusivity of the sample can be extracted from the normalized temperature increase. An infinite heat conduction model is used in this method to avoid the influence of boundary thermal resistance. By changing the position of the probing laser center, the measurement sensitivity of thermal diffusivity can be further improved. The position of maximum sensitivity is influenced by the thermal diffusivity of the nanowire, width of the heating pulse, radius of the heating laser spot, and characteristic length of the sample. To comprehensively analyze the influences of the various parameters, obtain the best measurement conditions, and attain maximum sensitivity, we propose a dimensionless physical model to analyze the heat conduction of the suspended nanowire. Based on the analysis of the best dimensionless parameters, the corresponding appropriate measurement conditions can be determined. Sensitivity analysis shows that when the radius of the heating laser spot is 1% of the length of the nanowire, the sensitivity of the DFR mapping method can be more than four times that of the concentric DFR method for measuring the thermal diffusivity of the nanowire.

Prompt identification of an indoor air pollutant source location is important for the safety of building residents in gaseous contaminant leakage incidents. Using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method in such inverse modeling is time consuming, especially for naturally ventilated residential buildings, which have multiple rooms and require consideration both indoor and outdoor environments. This paper compares the results of the pollutant source location identification and the simulation time based on two different inverse modeling methods: the CFD method and joint modeling of the multizone and CFD methods, to discuss the consumption of the computing time, as well as the accuracy of the location identification result. An instantaneous airborne pollutant source is assumed in a typical residential apartment that utilizes natural ventilation. A CFD model with the computational domain of the whole apartment and surrounding environment is built, for which the adjoint probability method is applied to simulate the source location probability from limited sensor readings. Meanwhile, a multizone model of the apartment is built to simulate and identify the room in which the source is located using the adjoint probability method. The CFD method is applied to the identified room afterwards to identify the exact location of the source within that room. The joint simulation of CFD and the multizone model is verified by a scaled model experiment of the apartment. It is found that the joint simulation method can significantly reduce the computing time and provides a good alternative for real-time inverse tracking of the indoor airborne pollutant.

This paper presents an in-situ, non-contact, non-destructive “dual-wavelength laser flash Raman spectroscopy method” for measuring the thermal diffusivity. In this method, a heating pulse is used to heat the sample and another pulsed laser with a different wavelength and negligible heating effect is used as a probe to measure the sample temperature changes during the heating and cooling periods from the Raman peak shifts. The sample temperature rise and fall curves are measured by changing the delay between the heating pulse and the probing pulse with the thermal diffusivity then characterized by fitting the temperature curves. The time delay between the heating and probing pulses can be precisely controlled with a minimum step of 100 ps. Hence, the temperature variation can be scanned with an ultra-high temporal resolution of up to 100 ps, which significantly improves the measurement accuracy of transient thermal parameters. The measurement accuracy of this method has been verified using a bulk material model and experiments. The measured thermal diffusivity of a silicon sample has been obtained to be 8.8×10-5 m2/s with a 3% difference between the measured value and the average result for bulk silicon in the literature which verifies the reliability and accuracy of this method.

Background Infectious blood meal experiments have been frequently performed with different virus-vector combinations to assess the transmission potential of arthropod-borne (arbo)viruses. A wide variety of host blood sources have been used to deliver arboviruses to their arthropod vectors in laboratory studies. The type of blood used during vector competence experiments does not always reflect the blood from the viremic vertebrate hosts in the field, but little is known about the effect of blood source on the experimental outcome of vector competence studies. Here we investigated the effect of avian versus human blood on the infection and transmission rates of the zoonotic Usutu virus (USUV) in its primary mosquito vector Culex pipiens. Methods Cx. pipiens biotypes (pipiens and molestus) were orally infected with USUV through infectious blood meals containing either chicken or human whole blood. The USUV infection and transmission rates were determined by checking mosquito bodies and saliva for USUV presence after 14 days of incubation at 28 °C. In addition, viral titers were determined for USUV-positive mosquito bodies and saliva. Results Human and chicken blood lead to similar USUV transmission rates for Cx. pipiens biotype pipiens (18% and 15%, respectively), while human blood moderately but not significantly increased the transmission rate (30%) compared to chicken blood (17%) for biotype molestus. USUV infection rates with human blood were consistently higher in both Cx. pipiens biotypes compared to chicken blood. In virus-positive mosquitoes, USUV body and saliva titers did not differ between mosquitoes taking either human or chicken blood. Importantly, biotype molestus had much lower USUV saliva titers compared to biotype pipiens, regardless of which blood was offered. Conclusions Infection of mosquitoes with human blood led to higher USUV infection rates as compared to chicken blood. However, the blood source had no effect on the vector competence for USUV. Interestingly, biotype molestus is less likely to transmit USUV compared to biotype pipiens due to very low virus titers in the saliva. Graphical Abstract

Background There is a lack of national report of the labour neuraxial analgesia (NA) rates in China in recent years, especially after the national promotion policy. The adverse maternal and perinatal outcomes associated with NA in China are also unknown. The aim of this study is to estimate the trends of NA rates from 2012 to 2019, to evaluate the effect of national policy on promoting NA and to identify the association between NA and adverse outcomes in China. Methods We used the individual data from China’s National Maternal Near Miss Surveillance System (NMNMSS) between 2012 and 2019, covering 438 hospitals from 326 urban districts or rural counties in 30 provinces across China. The analysis was restricted to singleton pregnant women who underwent vaginal delivery at or after 28 completed weeks of gestation. We estimate the trends of NA rates between 2012 and 2019, both at the national and provincial levels using Bayesian multilevel model. We also estimated the effect of the national pilot policy launched in 2018 using interrupted time-series analysis and identified the association between NA and adverse outcomes using modified Poisson regression combined with propensity score analysis. Results Over the study period, 620,851 of 6,023,046 women underwent vaginal delivery with NA. The estimated national NA rates increased from 8.4% in 2012 to 16.7% in 2019. Most provinces experienced the same rapid rise during this period. The national pilot policy accelerated the rise of the rates. No differences were observed between women with NA and without any analgesia in the incidence of uterine atony, placental retention, intrapartum stillbirths and 1- and 5-min Apgar scores lower than 7. However, women with NA had higher incidences of genital tract trauma (adjusted relative risk (aRR) 1.53, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.04–2.26) and maternal near miss (aRR 1.35, 95% CI 1.08–1.69), only in hospitals which were not covered by the national pilot policy and usually lack of sufficient equipment and personnel. Conclusions The national policy can effectively increase the NA rate. However, as genital tract trauma and maternal near miss may increase in low-resource hospitals, but not in high-resource hospitals, further study is required to identify the reasons.

Background The early diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer is of great significance to the prognosis of patients. However, traditional histopathology and imaging screening have certain limitations. Therefore, new diagnostical methods are urgently needed for the current clinical diagnosis. In this study we evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of CanPatrol™ technology for the detection of circulating tumor cells in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods CTCs in the peripheral blood of 98 patients with NSCLC and 38 patients with benign pulmonary diseases were collected by the latest typing of CanPatrol™ detection technology. A 3-year follow-up was performed to observe their recurrence and metastasis. Kruskal-Wallis test was used to compare multiple groups of data, Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare data between the two groups, and ROC curve analysis was used to obtain the critical value. The COX risk regression and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis were performed in the 63 NSCLC patients who were effectively followed up. Results The epithelial, epithelial-mesenchymal, and total CTCs were significantly higher in NSCLC patients than that in patients with benign lung disease (P P = 0.013). The AUC of the ROC curve of the total CTCs was 0.837 (95% CI: 0.76-0.914), and the cut-off value corresponding to the most approximate index was 0.5 CTCs/5 ml, at which point the sensitivity was 81.6% and the specificity was 86.8%. COX regression analysis revealed that the clinical stage was correlated with patient survival (P = 0.006), while gender, age, and smoking were not (P > 0.05). After excluding the confounders of staging, surgery, and chemotherapy, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that patients in stage IIIA with CTCs ≥0.5 had significantly lower DFS than those with CTCs P = 0.022). Conclusions CTC positive can well predict the recurrence of NSCLC patients. CanPatrol™ technology has good sensitivity and specificity in detecting CTCs in peripheral blood of NSCLC patients and has a certain value for clinical prognosis evaluation.

Fluorinated graphene has a tunable band gap that is useful in making flexible graphene electronics. But the carbon–fluorine (C–F) bonds in fluorinated graphene can be easily broken by increased temperature or electron beam irradiation. Here, we demonstrate that the stability of fluorinated graphene is mainly determined by its C–F configuration. The double-sided fluorinated graphene has a much stronger stability than the single-sided fluorinated graphene under the same irradiation dose. Density functional theory calculations show that the configuration of double-sided fluorinated graphene has a negative and low formation energy, indicating to be an energetically stable structure. On the contrary, the formation energy of single-sided fluorinated graphene is positive, leading to an unstable C–F bonding that is easily broken by the irradiation. Our findings make a new step towards a more stable and efficient design of graphene electronic devices.

Background Restenosis is a serious problem in patients who have undergone percutaneous transluminal angioplasty. Endothelial injury resulting from surgery can lead to endothelial dysfunction and neointimal formation by inducing aberrant proliferation and migration of vascular smooth muscle cells. Exosomes secreted by mesenchymal stem cells have been a hot topic in cardioprotective research. However, to date, exosomes derived from mesenchymal stem cells (MSC-Exo) have rarely been reported in association with restenosis after artery injury. The aim of this study was to investigate whether MSC-Exo inhibit neointimal hyperplasia in a rat model of carotid artery balloon-induced injury and, if so, to explore the underlying mechanisms. Methods Characterization of MSC-Exo immunophenotypes was performed by electron microscopy, nanoparticle tracking analysis and western blot assays. To investigate whether MSC-Exo inhibited neointimal hyperplasia, rats were intravenously injected with normal saline or MSC-Exo after carotid artery balloon-induced injury. Haematoxylin-eosin staining was performed to examine the intimal and media areas. Evans blue dye staining was performed to examine re-endothelialization. Moreover, immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence were performed to examine the expression of CD31, vWF and α-SMA. To further investigate the involvement of MSC-Exo-induced re-endothelialization, the underlying mechanisms were studied by cell counting kit-8, cell scratch, immunofluorescence and western blot assays. Results Our data showed that MSC-Exo were ingested by endothelial cells and that systemic injection of MSC-Exo suppressed neointimal hyperplasia after artery injury. The Evans blue staining results showed that MSC-Exo could accelerate re-endothelialization compared to the saline group. The immunofluorescence and immunohistochemistry results showed that MSC-Exo upregulated the expression of CD31 and vWF but downregulated the expression of α-SMA. Furthermore, MSC-Exo mechanistically facilitated proliferation and migration by activating the Erk1/2 signalling pathway. The western blot results showed that MSC-Exo upregulated the expression of PCNA, Cyclin D1, Vimentin, MMP2 and MMP9 compared to that in the control group. Interestingly, an Erk1/2 inhibitor reversed the expression of the above proteins. Conclusion Our data suggest that MSC-Exo can inhibit neointimal hyperplasia after carotid artery injury by accelerating re-endothelialization, which is accompanied by activation of the Erk1/2 signalling pathway. Importantly, our study provides a novel cell-free approach for the treatment of restenosis diseases after intervention.

With the rapid increasing of published material science literatures, an effective literature retrieving system is important for researchers to obtain relevant information. In this paper we propose a cross-modal material science literatures retrieval method using transmission electron microscopy(TEM) image as query information, which provide a access of using material experiment generated TEM image data to retrieve literatures. In this method, terminologies are extracted and topic distribution are inferred from text part of literatures by using LDA, and we design a multi-task Convolutional Neuron Network(CNN) mapping query TEM image to the relevant terminologies and topic distribution predictions. The ranking score is calculated from output for query image and text data. Experimental results shows our method achieves better performance than multi-label CCA, Deep Semantic Matching(Deep SM) and Modality-Specific Deep Structure(MSDS).

Combining whole exome sequencing, transcriptome profiling, and T cell repertoire analysis, we investigate the spatial features of surgically-removed biopsies from multiple loci in tumor masses of 15 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). This revealed that the immune microenvironment has high spatial heterogeneity such that intratumoral regional variation is as large as inter-personal variation. While the local total mutational burden (TMB) is associated with local T-cell clonal expansion, local anti-tumor cytotoxicity does not directly correlate with neoantigen abundance. Together, these findings caution against that immunological signatures can be predicted solely from TMB or microenvironmental analysis from a single locus biopsy., Intratumoral immunity heterogeneity is poorly characterized. Here the authors apply exome sequencing, transcriptome profiling and T-cell repertoire profiling to multiple loci of non-small-cell lung cancer patients' biopsies and find high spatial immune heterogeneity with local mutational burden correlating with T-cell clonal expansion but not with cytotoxicity.

The nonlinear dynamic characteristics of Fe-Ga cantilever nanobeam subjected to stochastic excitation are studied in this paper where the nonlocal effect is considered. Nonlinear differential terms are introduced to explain the hysteretic phenomena of the Fe-Ga alloy’s strain-magnetic field intensity curves, and the nonlinear dynamic model of Fe-Ga cantilever composite nanobeam subjected to stochastic excitation is developed. The system’s nonlinear dynamic characteristics are discussed, and the optimal control strategy is proposed to enhance the system’s reliability. Numerical simulations show that the nonlocal effect can influence the system’s stochastic Hopf bifurcation; the boundary of the system’s safe basin has fractal characteristics, the area of safe basin decreases when the intensity of the noise increases, and it increases again through stochastic optimal control. The results of this study are helpful for the application of Fe-Ga composite nanobeam in engineering fields.

Recently, multicasting of video signals has become a useful technology in wireless networks, in which the main challenge is to scalably serve multiple receivers that have different channel characteristics. In this paper, we propose an adaptive residual-based distributed compressed-sensing scheme for soft video multicast (ARDCS-cast). At the encoder, we first adaptively determine if a block in a non-reference frame should be measured directly or predictively during compressed-sensing. The resulting adaptive measurements from non-reference frames are then packeted together with the measurements of the reference frames. We further derive the optimal power allocation scheme for the measurements from each frame within each packet. The packets are then transmitted over the wireless channel. At the decoder, the receivers with different channel characteristics obtain different numbers of packets and reconstruct videos with different quality. Experimental results show that the proposed ARDCS-cast is more effective than the state-of-the-art SoftCast-2D, SoftCast-3D and DCS-cast schemes in both unicast and multicast scenarios.

The aims of the study were to establish a culture system for sheep skin melanocytes and uncover the effects of endothelin-1 on melanin synthesis in cultured melanocytes in order to provide an optimal cell system and a theoretical basis for studying the regulatory mechanism of coat color in sheep. In this study, skin punch biopsies were harvested from the dorsal region of 1-3-yr-old sheep, and skin melanocytes were then obtained by the two-step digestion using dispase II and trypsin/ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA). The primary cultures of the melanocytes were established and characterized by dopa-staining, immunocytochemical localization of melanocyte markers, and RT-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis of coat color genes. To determine the effect of endothelin-1 on proliferation and melanin synthesis of melanocytes, the cultured cells were treated with different doses of endothelin-1 (10(-7), 10(-8), 10(-9), 10(-10), and 0 mol/L), and the growth rate of melanocytes, production of melanin, expression of related genes, and location of related protein in cultured cells were examined by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT), ultraviolet spectrophotometry, qRT-PCR, and immunocytochemical localization, respectively. The results showed that the established melanocyte culture functions properly. Endothelin-1 treatment increased markedly the number of melanocytes and melanin content. In responding to this treatment, expressions of microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF), melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R), tyrosinase (TYR), and endothelin receptor B (EDNRB) in the melanocytes were significantly up regulated (P 0.05). Immunocytochemical localization revealed that TYR was mainly localized in the cytoplasm. Positive staining of TYR in the melanocytes was significant. The findings demonstrated that the culture system of sheep skin melanocytes was established successfully in vitro, and endothelin-1 promotes the melanogenesis in sheep skin melanocytes.

Background To identify the value of unilateral pedal lymphangiography (LPG) plus computed tomography angiography (CTA) in accurate depiction of persistent idiopathic chyluria undetectable by ordinary contrast CT. Methods Eighteen patients 44–63 years of age with persistent idiopathic chyluria who failed conservative management were included. Ordinary CT had not revealed a chyle leak. Cystoscopy, unilateral LPG, and post-LPG CT angiography (CTA) were sequentially performed. Ligation and stripping of the perirenal lymphatics were subsequently performed guided by lymphangiography and CTA. Results LPG and post-LPG CTA detected 17 unilateral and one bilateral chyle leaks in the 18 patients, with clear images of the communication of lymphatic vessels and the renal collecting or vascular system. The success rate was significantly better than cystoscopy (100% vs 50.0%, P = 0.005) or LPG alone (100% vs. 72.2%, P = 0.016). Chyluria resolved after surgery in all patients; no relapses were found. Conclusions LPG plus post-LPG CTA accurately characterized perirenal lymphangiectasia that was not demonstrated by routine contrast-enhanced CT or not suitable for magnetic resonance imaging. Despite of its invasiveness, this method is a good diagnostic alternative to LPG in patients with persistent chyluria requiring surgery.

The apparent thermal conductivity (ATC) and laser absorptivity ( $$\alpha $$ ) are important properties of miro/nano materials but a challenge to measure due to their small size. In this paper, a simple and effective method employing Raman spectroscopy together with electrical heating is developed to measure thermal properties of micro/nano wires. The sample used in the experiment is very simple and easy to fabricate. The ATC is obtained by measuring the temperature difference induced by changing the electrical heating power; the laser heating power is neither neglected nor needed. Using the laser heating temperature rise and the measured ATC, the absorbed laser power can be calculated. Three individual carbon fibers were studied using the presented method.

The increased oxidative stress in diabetes is known to contribute to the development of diabetes. We investigate whether serum 8-hydro-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-oxo-dG) is associated with diabetes at the time of first diagnosis and evaluate whether it can be used as a reliable biomarker for the oxidative stress in diabetes. The study was designed as a case control study with two groups: patient with diabetes and control. The diabetes group consisted of a total of 28 patients consulting the hospital for the first time and definitely diagnosed for diabetes, and the control group was composed of 65 healthy subjects. Serum 8-oxo-dG was measured by a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit, specially developed to minimize cross-reaction of 8-oxo-dG antibody with serum guanosine. The average serum 8-oxo-dG levels in patients with diabetes and controls were 0.72 ± 0.41 and 0.24 ± 0.14 ng/mL, respectively, statistically significant (p

The mammalian integumentary system plays important roles in body homeostasis, and dysfunction of melanogenesis or epidermal development may lead to a variety of skin diseases, including melanoma. Skin pigmentation in humans and coat color in fleece-producing animals are regulated by many genes. Among them, microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) and paired-box 3 (PAX3) are at the top of the cascade and regulate activities of many important melanogenic enzymes. Here, we report for the first time that cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) is an essential regulator of MITF and PAX3. Cdk5 knockdown in mice causes a lightened coat color, a polarized distribution of melanin and hyperproliferation of basal keratinocytes. Reduced expression of Keratin 10 (K10) resulting from Cdk5 knockdown may be responsible for an abnormal epidermal structure. In contrast, overexpression of Cdk5 in sheep (Ovis aries) only produces brown patches on a white background, with no other observable abnormalities. Collectively, our findings show that Cdk5 has an important functional role in the regulation of melanin production and transportation and in normal development of the integumentary system.

Human epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) has become a well-established target for the treatment of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, a large number of somatic mutations in such protein have been observed to cause drug resistance or sensitivity during pathological progression, limiting the application of reversible EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy in NSCLC. In the current work, we describe an integration of in silico analysis and in vitro assay to profile six representative EGFR inhibitors against a panel of 71 observed somatic mutations in EGFR tyrosine kinase domain. In the procedure, the changes in interaction free energy of inhibitors with EGFR upon various mutations were calculated one by one using a rigorous computational scheme, which was preoptimized based on a set of structure-solved, affinity-known samples to improve its performance in characterizing the EGFR-inhibitor system. This method was later demonstrated to be effective in inferring drug response to the classical L858R and G719S mutations that confer constitutive activation for the EGFR kinase. It is found that the Staurosporine, a natural product isolated from the bacterium Streptomyces staurosporeus, exhibits selective inhibitory activity on the T790M and T790M/L858R mutants. This finding was subsequently solidified by in vitro kinase assay experiment; the inhibitory IC50 values of Staurosporine against wild-type, T790M and T790M/L858R mutant EGFR were measured to be 937, 12 and 3 nM, respectively.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common cancer worldwide. Previous studies have suggested that abnormal expression of BMP-4, BMP-7, and BMP-9 is correlated with tumor progression in HCC, but the role played by BMP-2 in HCC has not yet been reported. To determine the role of BMP-2 in HCC, we first investigated the effect of exogenous BMP-2 on the growth of the cell lines HCC SK-Hep-1, Hep G2, and Hep 3B. Next, we studied the function of BMP-2 in SK-Hep-1 HCC cell line using a recombinant lentivirus vector to deliver BMP-2. We also used siRNA to silence endogenous BMP-2 expression in the HCC Hep 3B cell line. Then, cell growth and migration were assayed in vitro using WST-8, wound-healing, and transwell invasion assays. Cellular apoptosis and cell-cycle distribution were assessed using flow cytometry. We also investigated the effects of BMP-2 overexpression and knockdown on the expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), matrix metallopeptidase-2 (MMP-2), phosphorylated AKT (p-AKT), phosphoinositide 3-kinase p85α (PI3Kp85α), Bax, Bcl-2, caspase-3, cleaved caspase-3, p21, and cyclin E. As a result, we observed that BMP-2 inhibited the proliferation of HCC cells. Furthermore, HCC cell proliferation and migration were significantly diminished by BMP-2 overexpression, as was indicated by WST-8, would healing, and transwell assays, while knockdown of BMP-2 led to an increase in proliferation and migration of Hep 3B cells. BMP-2 overexpression significantly increased the susceptibility of SK-Hep-1 cells to low-serum-induced apoptosis, while BMP-2 knockdown reduced the susceptibility of Hep 3B cells. Overexpression of BMP-2 induced G1 phase arrest through upregulation of p21. When BMP-2 expression was elevated in SK-Hep-1 cells, the expression of PI3Kp85α, p-AKT, PCNA, and MMP-2 declined. These results suggest that BMP-2 exerts an inhibitory effect on the growth and migration of HCC cells, possibly via a blockade of PI3K/AKT signaling.

This paper studies the expression of proinflammatory cytokines such as IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, and IFN-γ and anti-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-10 in diabetic rat aortas, the effects of resveratrol on these cytokines, and the potential epigenetic mechanisms involved. The experiment was performed on rats divided into four groups: normal group (NC), normal interventional group (NB), diabetic group (DM), and diabetic interventional group (DB). The NB and DB groups were treated with resveratrol. After more than 3 months, the rats’ aortas were removed and analyzed for cytokines by using immunohistochemistry, Western blotting, real-time PCR, and methylation-specific PCR. Histological localization of these cytokines was mainly found in the arterial intima of diabetic rats. The protein and mRNA expression levels of IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, and IFN-γ were significantly higher in the DM group than in the NC group (p

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a useful tool in building indoor environment study. However, the notorious computational effort of CFD is a significant drawback that restricts its applications in many areas and stages. Factors such as grid resolution and turbulence modeling are the main reasons that lead to large computing cost of this method. This study investigates the feasibility of utilizing inherent numerical viscosity induced by coarse CFD grid, coupled with simplest turbulence model, to greatly reduce the computational cost while maintaining reasonable modeling accuracy of CFD. Numerical viscosity introduced from space discretization in a carefully specified coarse grid resolution may have similar magnitude as turbulence viscosity for typical indoor airflows. This presents potentials of substituting sophisticated turbulence models with inherent numerical viscosity models from coarse grid CFD that are often used in fast CFD analysis. Case studies were conducted to validate the analytical findings, by comparing the coarse grid CFD predictions with the grid-independent CFD solutions as well as experimental data obtained from literature. The study shows that a uniform coarse grid can be applied, along with a constant turbulence viscosity model, to reasonably predict general airflow patterns in typical indoor environments. Although such predictions may not be as precise as fine-grid CFDs with well validated complex turbulence models, the accuracy is acceptable for indoor environment study, especially at an early stage of a project. The computing speed is about 100 times faster than a fine-grid CFD, which makes it possible to simulate a complicated 3-dimensional building in real-time (or near real-time) with personal computer.

With the explosive growth of multimedia applications, video transmission over HSDPA networks has attracted more and more attentions. Particularly in the last few years, lots of special transmission schemes have been proposed to improve the end-to-end qualities of mobile video applications. However, due to lack of a common video delivery simulation platform over HSDPA networks, the researchers have met obstacles in evaluating and comparing the performance of these schemes in a unified simulation environment. To fill this gap, a common system-level video transmission simulation platform is proposed in this paper, which is implemented specially for the HSDPA networks. To the best of our knowledge, this platform is the first one in integrating the video encoder/decoder, the video quality evaluator and the HSDPA simulator together. In this way, the researchers can study and analyze not only the overall system performance of the video-aware cross-layer transmission solutions, but also explore the influence and interaction of those separate sub-layers in the HSDPA wireless networks, such as the video application-layer, the transmission control layer, the HSDPA MAC layer, and the physical layer. Moreover, to test and verify our simulation platform, we implement eight representative fast scheduling algorithms over the HSDPA networks, and evaluate their transmission performances for the H.264/AVC video applications. Experimental simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and rationality of our simulation system.

The rigid delay constraint is one of the most challenging issues in real-time video delivery over wireless networks. The expired video packets will become useless for the decoding and display even if they are received correctly at the receiver. Because the significance of each video packet is different, the schedulers have to take into account not only the urgency of the packet but also its importance in the real-time video applications. However, the existing QoS-based IEEE 802.11e MAC protocol leaves the urgency and the importance of video packets out of consideration. This paper proposes a Priority and Delay Aware Packet Management Framework (PDA-PMF) to improve the transmission quality of real-time video streaming over IEEE 802.11e WLANs. In the MAC layer, this framework estimates the delay of each video packet. Subsequently, video packets are sent or dropped according to both the significance of the video packets and the estimation value of the delay. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can not only reduce the packet losses, but also protect the more important video packets, so as to improve the received video quality effectively.

Electron–phonon (e–ph) relaxation in thin metal films is an important consideration in many ultra-small and ultra-fast applications. In this work, e–ph relaxation in thin gold and aluminum films has been studied using the transient thermoreflectance technique which is demonstrated sensitive enough to study the relaxation process. The optical properties of the thin metal films are different from those of bulk metal and have been measured. Based on confirmation of the measurements, the effects of metal type, film thickness, and interface on e–ph relaxation have been experimentally studied. The thermoreflectance traces of gold and aluminum films have been compared. The results show that the e–ph relaxation and the effect of electron and lattice temperatures on the thermoreflectance of gold and aluminum are quite different. The e–ph relaxation is independent of film thickness and interface.

The electrical and thermal conductivities of polycrystalline gold and platinum nanofilms have been measured simultaneously using a direct current heating method from 60 to 300 K. The measured electrical and thermal conductivities are greatly decreased from the corresponding bulk values. And it is found that the reduction increases as the temperature decreases. The deviation from the bulk value is due to the effect of grain boundary scattering. Furthermore, the experimental results indicate that the grain boundary scattering effect imposes greater influence to the charge transport than to the heat transport. Consequentially, the Lorentz number is several times larger than that of bulk materials, leading to the violation of the Wiedemann–Franz law. The reflection coefficient R (0.86 in platinum, 0.42 in gold) at grain boundaries is obtained based on the Mayadas-Shatzkes theory and Matthiessen’s rule, which agrees well with the previous experiments.

The thermon gas may be seen as the main thermal-energy carrier in heat conduction. Consider phonons, which are defined as the energy quanta for quantized lattice vibrationss, and the phonon gas, which consists of a large number of randomly moving phonons. In the same way, a thermon in gas and metal is defined as the equivalent mass of thermal energy of a gas molecule or an electron, respectively, and the thermon gas consists of a large number of randomly moving thermons. Like the phonon and the photon, the rest mass of a thermon is zero. Because the mass of a moving thermon changes continuously, the thermon may be regarded as a nonquantized quasiparticle. Thus, heat flux can be seen as the directional flow of the thermon gas due to a given temperature gradient. The thermon mass is m h =E/c 2, where E is the thermal energy and c is the speed of light, and the thermon gas is actually a compressible gas flow with real mass. According to the principle of aerodynamics, the state equations of a thermon gas in either gas or metal are obtained by different statistical functions. Furthermore, Newtonian mechanics may be applied to obtain the momentum-conservation equation of a thermon gas, which is actually the general heat-conduction law, and which reduces to Fourier’s law when thermal inertia is negligible. The general heat-conduction law is a damped wave equation that can be used to quantitatively investigate thermal wave phenomena caused by heating of thin metal films by ultrafast laser pulses. The numerical solution of the general heat-conduction law is obtained using a finite-difference method with double precision, and the results show that the thermal wave increases as the spatial inertia of the thermon gas increases.

In light of the problems of low-quality and low degree of comprehensive utilization of Guangdong muscovite-type kaolin, the reasons affecting the quality of kaolin were found to be a small amount of maroon powdery goethite adhering to the surface of kaolin and minor muscovite affecting the firing whiteness of products. The ores were dealt with by using the new combined process of attritioning-classification-bleaching and flotation. The separation of kaolin from muscovite, quartz and feldspar can come true through the new process. The high-quality kaolin with the firing whiteness of 91% can be obtained, and the muscovite is comprehensively recovered by adopting the key technology of flotation. The content of high-purity muscovite produced is over 99%. The muscovite discarded by original process can be comprehensively recovered.

Three novel solid phase extraction agents were developed by functionalising sub-micron sized silica gel with organic functional moieties possessing {SN}-ligating atoms. The extractors were characterised by FTIR and TGA. Their capability of adsorbing the ions Fe(III), Cu(II), Zn(II), Cd(II), Cr(VI), Hg(II), Pb(II), Co(II), Ni(II), and Ag(I) is described. The extractors show pH-tunable selectivity for Ag(I) and/or Pb(II). By adjusting the pH to 5 or 6, high affinity is found for both Ag(I) and Pb(II), with little or no interference by the other metal ions. At pH values of

A new structure-based approach was proposed to quantitatively characterize the binding profile of human amphiphysin-1 (hAmph1) SH3 domain-peptide complexes. In this protocol, the protein/peptide atoms were classified into 16 types in terms of their physicochemical meaning and biological function, and then a 16 x 16 atom-pair interaction matrix was constructed to describe 256 atom-pair types between the SH3 domain and the peptide ligand, with atoms from peptide and SH3 domain served as the matrix columns and rows, respectively. Three non-covalent effects dominating SH3 domain-peptide binding as electrostatic, van der Waals (steric) and hydrophobic interactions were separately calculated for the 256 atom-pair types. As a result, 768 descriptors coding detailed information about SH3 domain-peptide interactions were yielded for further statistical modeling and analysis. Based on a culled data set consisting of 592 samples with known affinities, we employed this approach, coupled with partial least square (PLS) regression and genetic algorithm (GA), to predict and to interpret the peptide-binding behavior to SH3 domain. In comparison with the previous works, our method is more capable of capturing important factors in the SH3 domain-peptide binding, thus, yielding models with better statistical performance. Furthermore, the optimal GA/PLS model indicates that the electrostatic effect plays a crucial role in SH3 domain-peptide complexes, and steric contact and hydrophobic force also contribute significantly to the binding.

The gene sod in Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans may play a crucial role in its tolerance to the extremely acidic, toxic and oxidative environment of bioleaching. For insight into the anti-toxic mechanism of the bacteria, a three-dimensional (3D) molecular structure of the protein encoded by this gene was built by homology modeling techniques, refined by molecular dynamics simulations, assessed by PROFILE-3D and PROSTAT programs and its key residues were further detected by evolutionary trace analysis. Through these procedures, some trace residues were identified and spatially clustered. Among them, the residues of Asn38, Gly103 and Glu161 are randomly scattered throughout the mapped structure; interestingly, the other residues are all distinctly clustered in a subgroup near Fe atom. From these results, this gene can be confirmed at 3D level to encode the Fe-depending superoxide dismutase and subsequently play an anti-toxic role. Furthermore, the detected key residues around Fe binding site can be conjectured to be directly responsible for Fe binding and catalytic function.

To address the problems that input variables should be reduced as much as possible and explain output variables fully in building neural network model of complicated system, a variable selection method based on cluster analysis was investigated. Similarity coefficient which describes the mutual relation of variables was defined. The methods of the highest contribution rate, part replacing whole and variable replacement are put forwarded and deduced by information theory. The software of the neural network based on cluster analysis, which can provide many kinds of methods for defining variable similarity coefficient, clustering system variable and evaluating variable cluster, was developed and applied to build neural network forecast model of cement clinker quality. The results show that all the network scale, training time and prediction accuracy are perfect. The practical application demonstrates that the method of selecting variables for neural network is feasible and effective.

Cement production is characterized by its great capacity, long-time delay, multi variables, difficult measurement and multi disturbances. According to the distributed intelligent control strategy based on the multi agent, the multi agent control system of cement production is built, which includes integrated optimal control and diagnosis control. The distributed and multiple level structure of multi agent system for the cement control is studied. The optimal agent is in the distributed state, which aims at the partial process of the cement production, and forms the optimal layer. The diagnosis agent located on the diagnosis layer is the diagnosis unit which aims at the whole process of the cement production, and the central management unit of the system. The system cooperation is realized by the communication among optimal agents and diagnosis agent. The architecture of the optimal agent and the diagnosis agent are designed. The detailed functions of the optimal agent and the diagnosis agent are analyzed. At last the realization methods of the agents are given, and the application of the multi agent control system is presented. The multi agent system has been successfully applied to the off-line control of one cement plant with capacity of 5 000 t/d. The results show that the average yield of the clinker increases 9.3% and the coal consumption decreases 7.5 kg/t.

Direct visualization and manipulation of individual carbon nanotubes in ambient conditions is of great significance for their characterizations and applications. However, the observation of individual carbon nanotubes usually requires electron microscopes under high vacuum. Optical microscopes are much more convenient to be used, yet their resolution is low. Here we realize the visualization and manipulation of individual ultralong carbon nanotubes under optical microscopes by deposition of TiO2 nanoparticles on them. The strong scattering of TiO2 nanoparticles to visible light renders them visible by optical microscopes. Micro-Raman-spectroscopy measurement of individual carbon nanotubes is greatly facilitated by their optical visualization. With the assistance of TiO2 nanoparticles, individual carbon nanotubes can be easily manipulated under an optical microscope at macroscopic scale and in ambient conditions. Based on our approach, various manipulation of ultralong carbon nanotubes, including cutting, transfer, fabrication of structures/devices and pulling out inner shells of multiwalled carbon nanotubes, are demonstrated. The characterization and manipulation of carbon nanotubes is of relevance for a range of nanotechnology applications, but usually requires electron microscopes. Here Zhang et al. evaporate nanoparticles on carbon nanotubes to make them visible even under an optical microscope.

The thermal behavior of synthetic schoenite (K2SO4·MgSO4·6H2)) during heating has been studied by thermal methods. The temperatures of dehydration and decomposition of schoenite have also been determined by DTA, TG and DSC. The thermal reaction equations and the X-ray power diffraction results of the products have been given and the corresponding kinetic parameters have also been obtained.

Background/AimFas/FasL system is a major regulator of apoptosis. The mechanisms by which Fas mediates cisplatin resistance remain unclear. The aim of this study is to explore the effect of Fas over-expression on cisplatin resistance of small cell lung cancer cells and its possible mechanisms.Materials and methodsFas was over-expressed in H446/CDDP cells by infection with the adenoviruses containing Fas. Sensitivity of Fas-overexpressed H446/CDDP cells to cisplatin was evaluated using MTT assay. Expressions of Fas, GST-π and ERCC1 were detected by RT-PCR and Western blot analysis. Apoptosis rate was examined by FACS.ResultsOver-expression of Fas in H446/CDDP cells significantly decreased the expressions of GST-π and ERCC1 at mRNA and protein levels, and increased the cell apoptosis. Furthermore, up-regulation of Fas significantly decreased the tolerance of H446/CDDP cells to cisplatin.ConclusionOver-expression of Fas reverses drug resistance of H446/CDDP cells, possibly due to the increased cell sensitivity to apoptosis and the decreased expressions of GST-π and ERCC1.

In order to control sintering process, improve permeability and stabilize burn through point, a control scheme which combines thermal state with permeability state is proposed, and an expert system for controlling sintering process state is developed, the software which includes about 1000 expert rules is successfully applied to off-line control of sintering process.