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The axial-vector mesons $f_1(1285)$ and $f_1(1420)$ are particularly viewed as the mixtures of flavor states $f_n$ and $f_s$ with mixing angle $\varphi$. In order to determine this angle, we study the $B_{d,s}^0\to J/\psi f_1(1285,1420)$ and $B_{d,s}^0\to \eta_c f_1(1285,1420)$ decays in perturbative QCD (PQCD) approach, including the effects of vertex corrections, nonfactorizable diagrams and penguin operators. Not only the branching fractions, but also the direct $CP$ asymmetries and the polarization fractions are calculated. It is found that the branching fractions of these decays are large enough to be measured in the running LHCb and Belle-II experiments. Moreover, in comparison with the observed ${\cal B}(B_{d,s}^0 \to J/\psi f_1(1285))$, $B_s^0 \to (J/\psi, \eta_c) f_1(1420)$ decays have large branching fractions, which could be measured promisingly through $f_1(1420) \to K_S^0 K^\pm \pi^\mp$ in experiments. We also propose several ratios that could be used to further constrain the absolute value of the mixing angle $\varphi$, but its sign cannot be determined yet in these decays. The direct CP asymmetries of these decays indicate the penguin pollution in the $B_d^0 \to (J/\psi, \eta_c) f_1$ decays cannot be neglected. We acknowledge that there are large theoretical uncertainties arising from the distribution amplitudes of axial-vector mesons and charmonium states, and more precise nonperturbative parameters are called. The comparisons between our results and future experimental data would help us to understand the nature of $f_1$ states and to test the PQCD approach., Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures, journal version, published in EPJC

Background Recently, increasing attention has been drawn to the impact of the tumor microenvironment (TME) on the occurrence and progression of malignant tumors. A variety of 3D culture techniques have been used to simulate TME in vitro. The purpose of this study was to reveal the differences in transcriptional and metabolic levels between osteosarcoma (OS) 2D cells, 3D cells, 3D cell-printed tissue, isolated tissue, and transplanted tumor tissue in vivo. Methods We cultured the OS Saos-2 cell line under different culture methods as 2D cells, 3D cells, 3D cell-printed tissue and isolated tissue for 14 days and transplanted tumors in vivo as a control group. Through transcriptomic and metabonomic analyses, we determined the changes in gene expression and metabolites in OS tissues under different culture methods. Results At the transcriptional level, 166 differentially expressed genes were found, including the SMAD family, ID family, BMP family and other related genes, and they were enriched in the TGF-β signaling pathway, complement and coagulation cascades, signaling pathways regulating pluripotency of stem cells, Hippo signaling pathway, ferroptosis, cGMP-PKG signaling pathway and other pathways. At the metabolic level, 362 metabolites were significantly changed and enriched in metabolic pathways such as the Fc Epsilon RI signaling pathway, histidine metabolism, primary bile acid biosynthesis, steroid biosynthesis, protein digestion and absorption, ferroptosis, and arachidonic acid metabolism. After integrating the transcriptome and metabolomics data, it was found that 44 metabolic pathways were changed, and the significantly enriched pathways were ferroptosis and pyrimidine metabolism. Conclusion Different culture methods affect the gene expression and metabolite generation of OS Saos-2 cells. Moreover, the cell and tissue culture method in vitro cannot completely simulate TME in vivo, and the ferroptosis and pyrimidine metabolism pathways mediate the functional changes of OS Saos-2 cells in different microenvironments.

Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) is the most common cariogenic bacteria and causes caries by forming biofilms. A novel gradient Cu-bearing titanium alloy (TC4-5Cu/TC4) was manufactured using selective laser melting (SLM) technology for dental applications, which is anticipated to inhibit the formation of biofilm. In this study, the released concentration of copper ions in both minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) was tested in order to assess the antibacterial property of the alloy against planktonic S. mutans, and the antibacterial and antibiofilm efficiencies of TC4-5Cu/TC4 alloy against sessile S. mutans were evaluated via quantitative antibacterial tests and biofilm determination. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was performed to analyze the expression of biofilm-related genes (gtfB, gtfC, gtfD, ftf and gbpB) and acid production-related gene (ldh). The results suggested that the MIC and MBC of Cu2+ were much higher than the release concentration of copper ions of the alloy, which was consistent with the lack of antibacterial effect against planktonic bacteria. On the contrary, TC4-5Cu/TC4 alloy exhibited significant bactericidal property against the sessile bacteria and efficient biofilm-restrained ability, and all genes detected in this research were down-regulated. The results indicated that the TC4-5Cu/TC4 alloy suppressed biofilm formation and the sessile bacterial viability by down-regulating biofilm-related genes.

A stable {$$\stackrel{\mathrm{-}}{1}{\text{10}}$$ 1 - 10 } single component sharp texture was obtained during ambient temperature tube High-Pressure Shearing (t-HPS) of 99.999% purity aluminum. It is shown that the grain size and the grain aspect ratio saturate at ~ 8 μm and ~ 1.6, respectively, at an equivalent strain of ~ 30 and the high-angle grain boundary fraction continues to decrease after this saturation even to equivalent strains exceeding ~ 200. The {$$\stackrel{\mathrm{-}}{1}{\text{10}}$$ 1 - 10 } texture emerges at an equivalent strain of ~ 6 to 9 with the completion of recrystallization and develops gradually as a sole component sharp texture with increasing intensity upon further processing. This component is a stable orientation in t-HPS processing although it was not previously observed experimentally as a shear texture. Thus, t-HPS processing provides a new and effective experimental tool for simple shear testing that is distinctly different from earlier shear strain methods such as torsional processing.

Intrinsic and acquired anti-HER2 resistance remains a major hurdle for treating HER2-positive breast cancer. Using genome-wide CRISPR/Cas9 screening in vitro and in vivo, we identify FGFR4 as an essential gene following anti-HER2 treatment. FGFR4 inhibition enhances susceptibility to anti-HER2 therapy in resistant breast cancer. Mechanistically, m6A-hypomethylation regulated FGFR4 phosphorylates GSK-3β and activates β-catenin/TCF4 signaling to drive anti-HER2 resistance. Notably, suppression of FGFR4 dramatically diminishes glutathione synthesis and Fe2+ efflux efficiency via the β-catenin/TCF4-SLC7A11/FPN1 axis, resulting in excessive ROS production and labile iron pool accumulation. Ferroptosis, a unique iron-dependent form of oxidative cell death, is triggered after FGFR4 inhibition. Experiments involving patient-derived xenografts and organoids reveals a synergistic effect of anti-FGFR4 with anti-HER2 therapy in breast cancer with either intrinsic or acquired resistance. Together, these results pinpoint a mechanism of anti-HER2 resistance and provide a strategy for overcoming resistance via FGFR4 inhibition in recalcitrant HER2-positive breast cancer.

In the area of large-scale graph data representation and semi-supervised learning, deep graph-based convolutional neural networks have been widely applied. However, typical graph convolutional network (GCN) aggregates information of neighbor nodes based on binary neighborhood similarity (adjacency matrix). It treats all neighbor nodes of one node equally, which does not suppress the influence of dissimilar neighbor nodes. In this paper, we investigate GCN based on similarity matrix instead of adjacency matrix of graph nodes. Gaussian heat kernel similarity in Euclidean space is first adopted, which is named EGCN. Then biologically inspired manifold similarity is trained in reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS), based on which a manifold GCN (named MGCN) is proposed for graph data representation and semi-supervised learning with four different kernel types. The proposed method is evaluated with extensive experiments on four benchmark document citation network datasets. The objective function of manifold similarity learning converges very quickly on different datasets using various kernel functions. Compared with state-of-the-art methods, our method is very competitive in terms of graph node recognition accuracy. In particular, the recognition rates of MGCN (Gaussian kernel) and MGCN (Polynomial Kernel) outperform that of typical GCN about 3.8% on Cora dataset, 3.5% on Citeseer dataset, 1.3% on Pubmed dataset and 4% on Cora_ML dataset, respectively. Although the proposed MGCN is relatively simple and easy to implement, it can discover local manifold structure by manifold similarity learning and suppress the influence of dissimilar neighbor nodes, which shows the effectiveness of the proposed MGCN.

Standard plenoptic camera can be used to capture multi-dimensional radiation information of high temperature luminous flame to reconstruct the temperature distribution. In this study, a novel method for reconstructing three-dimensional temperature field is proposed. This method is based on the optical tomography combined with standard plenoptic camera. The flame projection information from different planes is contained in one radiation image. In this model, we introduced the effective concept of the nearest neighbor method in the frequency domain to strip the interference of redundant information in the projection and to realize three-dimensional deconvolution. The flame emission intensity received by the pixels on the charge-coupled device sensor can be obtained according to the optical tomographic model. The temperature distributions of the axisymmetric and non-axisymmetric flames can be reconstructed by solving the mathematical model with the nearest neighbor method. The numerical results show that three-dimensional temperature fields of high temperature luminous flames can be retrieved, proving the validity of the proposed method.

Background The purpose of this retrospective study was to investigate the determinants of postoperative respiratory failure in elderly patients with hip fracture. Methods The subjects of this study were 663 elderly patients who had hip fracture and had been treated with hip surgery at our hospital from January 2014 to May 2020. According to the occurrence of postoperative respiratory failure, 626 patients with no respiratory failure were retrospectively included in the control group, and 37 cases combined with respiratory failure were enrolled in the PRF group. The clinical and surgical data of the two groups were collected and analyzed to evaluate the determinants of respiratory failure by logistic regression analysis. Results There were no significant differences in the demographics and baseline variables including age, gender, fracture type and location between the groups (P > 0.05). All patients received hip surgery including total hip arthroplasty (THA), hemiarthroplasty (HA) and internal fixation with PFNA (proximal femoral nail anti-rotation). There were no significant differences in operative time and intraoperative blood loss between the groups (P > 0.05). However, close associations were found between pulmonary hypertension (univariate analysis: OR = 3.792, 95% CI = 1.421–10.203; multivariate analysis: OR = 1.132, 95% CI = 1.003–1.251), obstructive pulmonary disease (OR = 1.119, 95% CI = 1.009–1.238; multivariate analysis: OR = 13.298, 95% CI = 4.021–43.298), bronchiectasis and emphysema (OR = 4.949, 95% CI = 1.919–9.873; multivariate analysis: OR = 11.231, 95% CI = 187.87), and history of respiratory failure (OR = 6.098, 95% CI = 2.012–12.198; multivariate analysis: OR = 8.389, 95% CI = 2.391–21.982) with postoperative respiratory failure (P Conclusion Pulmonary hypertension, obstructive pulmonary disease, bronchiectasis, emphysema, history of respiratory failure, and hypoproteinemia may be risk factors for postoperative respiratory failure in elderly patients with hip fracture.

Background Silencing of the periostin gene (POSTN) can inhibit the biological process of several different cancers, and this inhibition may be related to down-regulation of PI3K/AKT signaling. However, the effect of POSTN on the progression, proliferation, and invasion of osteosarcoma (OS) remain unclear. Methods We used the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database to screen datasets on in situ OS and lung metastases to identify core genes and potential pathways. We used additional bioinformatics tools to identify protein–protein interactions (PPIs) and gene networks, and selected the top seven genes whose expression had the strongest correlations with other genes. Results The results indicated that POSTN was a major hub gene. Subsequent analysis of gene expression profiles showed that POSTN was highly expressed in 262 cases with sarcoma and expression was closely related to poor prognosis. We also performed enrichment analysis to identify differentially expressed genes and used real-time PCR, western blotting, and immunohistochemistry analyses to measure POSTN expression in cells and tissues. Transfection of a POSTN-shRNA plasmid into cultured OS cells (Saos-2) effectively inhibited the proliferation, invasion, and migration of these cells. Taken together, our results suggest that POSTN may play a role in promoting the proliferation and metastasis of OS by activation of the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway. Conclusions Our results provide a preliminary characterization of the mechanism by which POSTN may regulate the migration and invasion of OS cells and also provide a theoretical basis for identifying biomarkers that have potential use for the diagnosis and treatment of OS.

In this work, we investigate the $$B_s\rightarrow V S$$ B s → V S decays in the perturbative QCD approach, where V and S denote the vector meson and scalar meson respectively. Based on the two-quark structure, considering two different scenarios for describing the scalar mesons, we calculate the branching fractions and the direct CP asymmetries of all $$B_s\rightarrow VS$$ B s → V S decays. Most branching fractions are predicted to be at $$10^{-7}$$ 10 - 7 to $$10^{-5}$$ 10 - 5 , which could be measured in the LHCb and Belle-II experiments, especially for these color-allowed decays $$B_s\rightarrow \kappa (800)(K_0^*(1430))K^*$$ B s → κ ( 800 ) ( K 0 ∗ ( 1430 ) ) K ∗ and $$B_s\rightarrow K_0^{*-}(1430)\rho ^+$$ B s → K 0 ∗ - ( 1430 ) ρ + . It is found that the branching fractions of $$B_s\rightarrow K_0^{*0}(1430){\bar{K}}^{*0}$$ B s → K 0 ∗ 0 ( 1430 ) K ¯ ∗ 0 and $$B_s\rightarrow K_0^{*+}(1430){\bar{K}}^{*-}$$ B s → K 0 ∗ + ( 1430 ) K ¯ ∗ - are very sensitive to the scenarios, which can be used to determine whether $$K_0^{*0}(1430)$$ K 0 ∗ 0 ( 1430 ) belongs to the ground state or the first excited state, if the data were available. We also note that some decays have large direct CP asymmetries, some of which are also sensitive to the scenarios, such as the $$B_s \rightarrow a_0^+(1450)K^{*-}$$ B s → a 0 + ( 1450 ) K ∗ - and the $$B_s\rightarrow f_0(1500) K^{*0}$$ B s → f 0 ( 1500 ) K ∗ 0 decays. Since the experimental measurements of $$B_s\rightarrow VS$$ B s → V S decays are on the way, combined with the available data in the future, we expect the theoretical predictions will shed light on the structure of the scalar mesons.

Social networks have gained tremendous popularity recently. Millions of people use social network apps to share precious moments with friends and family. Users are often asked to provide personal information such as name, gender, and address when using social networks. However, as the social network data are collected, analyzed, and re-published at a large scale, personal information might be misused by unauthorized third parties and even attackers. Therefore, extensive research has been carried out to protect the data from privacy violations in social networks. The most popular technique is graph perturbation, which modifies the local topological structure of a social network user (a vertex) via various randomization techniques before the social graph data is published. Nevertheless, graph anonymization may affect the usability of the data as random noises are introduced, decreasing user experience. Therefore, a trade-off between privacy protection and data usability must be sought. In this paper, we employ various graph and application utility metrics to investigate this trade-off. More specifically, we conduct an empirical study by implementing five state-of-the-art anonymization algorithms to analyze the graph and application utilities on a Facebook and a Twitter dataset. Our results indicate that most anonymization algorithms can partially or conditionally preserve the graph and application utilities and any single anonymization algorithm may not always perform well on different datasets. Finally, drawing on the reviewed graph anonymization techniques, we provide a brief overview on future research directions and challenges involved therein.

In order to use shear yield stress model of magnetorheological fluid more accurately, the influence of particle size, particle spacing and magnetic field intensity on the model error of single-chain dipole is compared and analyzed based on the finite element model. The results show that particle size and particle spacing have few effects on the single-chain dipole model, but the magnetic field intensity is the most important factor affecting the error of single-chain dipole model. As the magnetic field strengthens, the error of the single-chain dipole model decreases gradually. Based on the research, the single-chain dipole model is optimized by finite element method. Experimental results show that the error of optimized single-chain dipole model is reduced by 80% compared with that of the model before optimization, which is more accurate.

In 2017, LHCb collaboration reported their first observation of the rare decays$$B_s \rightarrow \phi (f_0(980)$$Bs→ϕ(f0(980)$$/f_2(1270) \rightarrow ) \pi ^+\pi ^-$$/f2(1270)→)π+π-and the evidence of$$B^0 \rightarrow \phi (f_0(980)/f_2(1270)\rightarrow )\pi ^+\pi ^-$$B0→ϕ(f0(980)/f2(1270)→)π+π-. Motivated by this, we study these quasi-two-body decays in the perturbative QCD approach. The branching fractions,CPasymmetries and the polarization fractions are calculated. We find that within the appropriate two-meson wave functions, the calculated branching fractions are in agreement with the measurements of LHCb. Based on the narrow-width approximation, We also calculate the branching fractions of the quasi-two-body$$B_{d,s}\rightarrow \phi (f_0(980)/f_2(1270)\rightarrow ) \pi ^0\pi ^0$$Bd,s→ϕ(f0(980)/f2(1270)→)π0π0and$$B_{d,s}\rightarrow \phi (f_2(1270)\rightarrow ) K^+K^-$$Bd,s→ϕ(f2(1270)→)K+K-, and hope the predictions to be tested in the ongoing LHCb and Belle II experiments. Moreover, the processes$$B_{d,s}\rightarrow \phi f_2(1270)$$Bd,s→ϕf2(1270)are also analyzed under the approximation. We note that theCPasymmetries of these decays are very small, because these decays are either penguin dominant or pure penguin processes.

The photothermal characteristics of semi-transparent medium are the basis for describing the transmission process of photothermal radiation. Therefore, the related measurement researches have important application value for the non-destructive testing of high-tech module. In the present work, an infrared thermal wave radar imaging (TWRI) technique combined with sequential quadratic programming (SQP) algorithm was proposed for simultaneous reconstruction of the photothermal property distributions in 2D semi-transparent materials containing defects. The Fourier transform, Hilbert transform, and the Chirp lock-in correlation algorithm were applied and the results of the amplitude and phase information of the temperature signals were compared, so as to identify the position of internal defects, which reduced the number of parameters needed to reconstruct. Then, the SQP algorithm was introduced to simultaneously reconstruct the absorption coefficient and thermal conductivity coefficient distributions in the medium. The TWRI-SQP technique absorbs the advantages of fast identification of defects by TWRI technique and the accurate reconstruction of the photothermal properties of the semi-transparent materials by SQP algorithm. The number of internal defects, geometric dimensioning, shape, and photothermal properties can be reconstructed accurately. The results show that this method is practical and robust to detect the photothermal properties of 2D semi-transparent materials with defects.

Agroforestry system, as the most promising substitute plantation approach, has been widely regarded as a prominent strategy for mitigating the conflicts between rapid growing population and limited arable land resources. This paper aims to screen the optimal planting pattern for Gentiana rigescens base on the content of gentiopicroside, providing the scientific basis for sustainable supply and application of this plant. Generally, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is effective to integrally monitor and reflect the whole constituents of natural materials. FTIR combined with chemometrics was used for distinguishing the G. rigescens from different compound planting models in this research. The result of partial least square discriminant analysis implied that planting year of G. rigescens had a greater impact on the content of gentiopicroside than that of Camellia sinensis. The gentiopicroside content in 1.5- or 2-year-old G. rigescens was higher. Wavelet denoising was effective for the classification. Samples which had higher contents of gentiopicroside were clustered together relatively, while those with lower contents of gentiopicroside were classified into the other large category. Our investigation revealed that G. rigescens can be successfully cultivated with C. sinensis, which met the requirement of the gentiopicroside content recommended by Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China. That 2-year-old G. rigescens grown with 12-year-old C. sinensis was the optimal compound planting pattern, according this study. The present study provided the optimal compound planting pattern of G. rigescens, which is helpful for improving land-use efficiency and economic returns.

The localization factor is used to describe the band structures for P wave propagating normally in the nanoscaled nearly periodic layered phononic crystals. The localization factor is calculated by the transfer matrix method based on the nonlocal elastic continuum theory. Three kinds of nearly periodic arrangements are concerned, i.e., random disorder, quasi-periodicity and defects. The influences of randomly disordered degree of the sub-layer's thickness and mass density, the arrangement of quasi-periodicity and the location of defect on the band structures and cut-off frequency are analyzed in detail.

As a result of the pressure from population explosion, agricultural land resources require further protecting and rationally utilizing. Intercropping technique has been widely applied for agricultural production to save cultivated area, improve crop quality, and promote agriculture economy. In this study, we employed high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis) combined with chemometrics for determination and qualitative evaluation of several kinds of intercropping system with Gentiana rigescens Franch. ex Hemsl. (GR), which is used as an hepatic protector in local communities in China. Results revealed that GR in a Camellia sinensis intercropping system contained most gentiopicroside, sweroside, and total active constituents (six chemical indicators), whose content reached 91.09 ± 3.54, 1.03 ± 0.06, and 104.05 ± 6.48 mg g(-1), respectively. The two applied quantitative and qualitative methods reciprocally verified that GR with 2 years of growth period performed better in terms of quality than 1 year, collectively.

Objective To evaluate the overall diagnostic value related to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in patients with early osteonecrosis of the femoral head. Methods By searching multiple databases and sources, including PubMed, Cochrane, and Embase database, by the index words updated in December 2017, qualified studies were identified and relevant literature sources were also searched. The qualified studies included prospective cohort studies and cross-sectional studies. Heterogeneity of the included studies were reviewed to select proper effect model for pooled weighted sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR). Summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) analyses were performed for meniscal tears. Results Forty-three studies related to diagnostic accuracy of MRI to detect early osteonecrosis of the femoral head were involved in the meta-analysis. The global sensitivity and specificity of MRI in early osteonecrosis of the femoral head were 93.0% (95% CI 92.0–94.0%) and 91.0% (95% CI 89.0%–93.0%), respectively. The global positive likelihood ratio and global negative likelihood ratio of MRI in early osteonecrosis of the femoral head were 2.74 (95% CI 1.98–3.79) and 0.18 (95% CI 0.14–0.23), respectively. The global DOR was 27.27 (95% CI 17.02–43.67), and the area under the SROC was 93.38% (95% CI 90.87%–95.89%). Conclusions This review provides a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of MRI in early osteonecrosis of the femoral head. Moderate to strong evidence indicated that MRI appears to be significantly associated with higher diagnostic accuracy for early osteonecrosis of the femoral head.

For enhancing the emission intensity and broadening the excitation region of Ba3Eu(PO4)3 (BEP), Sm3+ is doped as sensitizer in this paper. BEP:Sm3+ can produce an obvious red emission at near ultraviolet (n-UV) radiation. An effective energy transfer from Sm3+ to Eu3+ is proved. The commission international de I’Eclairage (CIE) chromaticity coordinates of BEP:Sm3+ locate at red region. When the environment temperature is 150 °C, the emission intensity of BEP:0.10Sm3+ is decreased to 76% of the initial one at room temperature, and the activation energy is calculated to be 0.164 eV, which can prove the good thermal stability of BEP:Sm3+. The results indicate that BEP:Sm3+ may have potential applications in white light emitting diodes (LEDs).

This paper introduces a feasible process to achieve the molybdenum disulfide atomic layers using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method, with molybdenum thin film and solid sulfur as precursors. And some improvements were made to reduce the amount of metastable MoS2–3R. The morphology of the acquired MoS2 layers, existing as triangular flakes or large-area continuous films, can be controlled by adjusting the synthesis time and reacting temperature. The characterization results show that the monolayer MoS2 flakes reveal a (002)-oriented growth on SiO2/Si substrates, and its crystalline domain size is approximately 30 μm, and the thickness is 0.65 nm. Since the synthesis of MoS2–3R is restrained, the electronic transport properties of MoS2 with different layers were investigated, revealing that those properties equal with those of MoS2 samples prepared by exfoliation methods.

The thermal quenching behaviors of the temperature sensitivity paints (TSP) composed of europium(III) thenoyltrifluoroacetonate (EuTTA) and Eu-phenanthrene complex (Eu-2) in polystyrene (PS), polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and epoxy resin (EP) were investigated. It is found that both the emission intensity and temperature sensitivity were not only affected by the luminescence probes, but also by the polymer matrix. The interaction between probes and matrix results in the alteration of both the non-radiation decay rate and the activation energy of the non-radiative process for the thermal quenching process, i.e. larger activation energy of the non-radiative process shows higher temperature sensitivity and less emission intensity. Therefore, it was confirmed that the temperature sensitivity and luminescent intensity of TSP depended not only on the luminescence probes but also on the polymer matrix.

Background AHNAK, also known as desmoyokin, is a giant protein with the molecular size of approximately 700 kDa and exerts diverse functions in different types of cancer. Results In the present study, we demonstrated that AHNAK mRNA levels were down-regulated in 7 out of 8 human breast cancer cell lines, especially in triple - negative breast cancer (TNBC) cell lines. Moreover, in patients with TNBC, the expression of AHNAK gene was inversely correlated with the tumor status (P = 0.015), lymph node status (P

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is characterized by lung remodeling arising from epithelial injury, aberrant fibroblast growth, and excessive deposition of extracellular matrix. Repeated epithelial injury elicits abnormal wound repair and lung remodeling, often associated with alveolar collapse and edema, leading to focal hypoxia. Here, we demonstrate that hypoxia is a physiological insult that contributes to pulmonary fibrosis (PF) and define its molecular roles in profibrotic activation of lung epithelial cells. Hypoxia increased transcription of profibrotic genes and altered the proteomic signatures of lung epithelial cells. Network analysis of the hypoxic epithelial proteome revealed a crosstalk between transforming growth factor-β1 and FAK1 (focal adhesion kinase-1) signaling, which regulated transcription of galectin-1, a profibrotic molecule. Galectin-1 physically interacted with and activated FAK1 in lung epithelial cells. We developed a novel model of exacerbated PF wherein hypoxia, as a secondary insult, caused PF in mice injured with subclinical levels of bleomycin. Hypoxia elevated expression of phosphorylated FAK1, galectin-1, and α-smooth muscle actin and reduced caspase-3 activation, suggesting aberrant injury repair. Galectin-1 inhibition caused apoptosis in the lung parenchyma and reduced FAK1 activation, preventing the development of hypoxia-induced PF. Galectin-1 inhibition also attenuated fibrosis-associated lung function decline. Further, galectin-1 transcript levels were increased in the lungs of IPF patients. In summary, we have identified a profibrotic role of galectin-1 in hypoxia signaling driving PF.

The nonleptonic two body decays involving a light tensor meson in final states are studied in the perturbative QCD approach based on factorization. The decay modes with a tensor meson emitted, are prohibited in naive factorization, since the emission diagram with a tensor meson produced from vacuum is vanished. While contributions from the so-called hard scattering emission diagrams and annihilation type diagrams are important and calculable in the perturbative QCD approach. The branching ratios of most decays are in the range of -, which are bigger by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude than the predictions given by the naive factorization, but consistent with the predictions from the QCD factorization and the recent experimental measurements. We also give the predictions for the direct asymmetries, some of which are large enough for the future experiments to measure. We also find that, even with a small mixing angle, the mixing between and can bring remarkable changes to both branching ratios and the direct asymmetries for some decays involving mesons. For decays with a vector meson and a tensor meson in final states, we predict a large percentage of transverse polarization contributions due to the contributions of the orbital angular momentum of the tensor mesons.