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IL-8-dependent inflammation is a hallmark of host lung innate immunity to bacterial pathogens, yet in many human lung diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bronchiectasis, and pulmonary fibrosis, there are progressive, irreversible, pathological changes associated with elevated levels of IL-8 in the lung. To better understand the duality of IL-8-dependent host immunity to bacterial infection and lung pathology, we expressed human IL-8 transgenically in murine bronchial epithelium, and investigated the impact of overexpression on lung bacterial clearance, host immunity, and lung pathology and function. Persistent IL-8 expression in bronchial epithelium resulted in neutrophilia, neutrophil maturation and activation, and chemotaxis. There was enhanced protection against challenge with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and significant changes in baseline expression of innate and adaptive immunity transcripts for Ccl5, Tlr6, IL-2, and Tlr1. There was increased expression of Tbet and Foxp3 in response to the Pseudomonas antigen OprF, indicating a regulatory T-cell phenotype. However, this enhanced bacterial immunity came at a high price of progressive lung remodeling, with increased inflammation, mucus hypersecretion, and fibrosis. There was increased expression of Ccl3 and reduced expression of Claudin 18 and F11r, with damage to epithelial organization leading to leaky tight junctions, all of which resulted in impaired lung function with reduced compliance, increased resistance, and bronchial hyperreactivity as measured by whole-body plethysmography. These results show that IL-8 overexpression in the bronchial epithelium benefits lung immunity to bacterial infection, but specifically drives lung damage through persistent inflammation, lung remodeling, and damaged tight junctions, leading to impaired lung function.

Multi-body dynamics simulation has been widely used in the design and analysis of valve mechanism. It not only reduces the difficulty in modeling but also improves the analytical precision and makes the design optimal. This paper, based on the multi-body dynamics theory, takes the valve mechanism of an engine as the object and the virtual prototype mode of the mechanical system is built in the simulation software. It simulated the operating conditions of three types of camshafts under the revolving speed of 1200r/min, 1500r/min and 1800r/min respectively. It acquired the changing situations of their valve stroke, speed and accelerated speed, and made an analysis on the influence of movement of the valve on the whole valve mechanism. The simulation result showed that the valve mechanism is stable, without displacement and reaction of the driving chain. This model well reflected the changing law and actual running condition of the mechanism, and verified the reasonability of the multi-body dynamics analysis based on the Automatic Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems ("ADAMS").

Kernel number per spike (KNPS) in wheat is a key factor that limits yield improvement. In this study, we genotyped a set of 264 cultivars, and a RIL population derived from the cross Yangmai 13/C615 using the 90 K wheat iSelect SNP array. We detected 62 significantly associated signals for KNPS at 47 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) loci through genome-wide association analysis of data obtained from multiple environments. These loci were on 19 chromosomes, and the phenotypic variation attributable to each one ranged from 1.53 to 39.52%. Twelve (25.53%) of the loci were also significantly associated with KNPS in the RIL population grown in multiple environments. For example, BS00022896_51-2ATT , BobWhite_c10539_201-2DAA , Excalibur_c73633_120-3BGG , and Kukri_c35508_426-7DTT were significantly associated with KNPS in all environments. Our findings demonstrate the effective integration of association mapping and linkage analysis for KNPS, and underpin KNPS as a target trait for marker-assisted selection and genetic fine mapping.

A three-dimension guidance method is proposed for the multi-constrained optimal terminal guidance problem. First, an adaptive proportion navigation (PN) guidance law is designed to obtain a nominal trajectory of the guidance task, and the guidance logic is designed to allocate the guidance commands. Then, the guidance problem is linearized as a linear time-varying quadratic convex optimal problem based on the nominal trajectory, and the discretization is done to convert the infinite-dimensional optimization problem to a finite-dimensional one. Finally, the linearized quadratic convex optimal problem can be solved by a convex optimization method with deterministic convergence properties, and the optimal guidance command is obtained. Simulation results show that the proposed method can satisfy the terminal state constraints and control constraints, and reduce the control consumption significantly.

Thyroid carcinoma is the most common endocrine maligancy, and the worldwide incidence has been rising in recent years. Differentiated thyroid carcinoma is the most common thyroid malignancy, which include thyroid papillary carcinoma and follicular thyroid carcinoma, accounting for about 90 percent of thyroid carcinoma incidence. Currently, surgical treatment, iodine radiotherapy and TSH suppressive therapy are the commonly accepted effective treatments for differentiated thyroid carcinoma, and most patients can be cured. But there are still some patients not sensitive to the general treatments, who have lost the treatment of opportunity. Molecular targeted therapy is an agonistic or suppressive treatment for molecular biology targets of malignant tumor, and currently is a frontier research in the field of malignancy treatment. By retrieving and analyzing the related literature of molecular targeted therapy of thyroid carcinoma through PUBMED in the past 5 years, the article introduced the current status of molecular targeted therapy of thyroid carcinoma.

SmCo5 is an emerging perpendicular magnetic material for super-high density magnetic recording, due to its large magnetic anisotropy energy. In this paper, the magnetic moments of SmCo5−x Cu x have been studied using first principles calculation based on density-functional theory (DFT). Calculations are performed using the pseudopotential plane wave DFT code Vienna ab initio simulation package (VASP) with the projector augmented wave (PAW) method. The local density approximation LDA+U method is used for the calculation of the exchange correlation energy of Sm. The calculation results show that the average Co magnetic moment of SmCo5−x Cu x decreases with the increase of Cu doping concentrations, and the influence of the Cu doping on the spin state of Co is greater than that of Sm. The magnetic anisotropy energy of SmCo5 is analyzed. The electronic density of states and the differential in spin densities of atoms show that the spatial distribution of 4f electron and the 4f–3d coupling are the controlling factors of the magnetic anisotropy energy of SmCo5.

Two floating structures in close proximity are very commonly seen in offshore engineering. They are often subjected to steep waves and, therefore, the transient effects on their hydrodynamic features are of great concern. This paper uses the quasi arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian finite element method (QALE-FEM), based on the fully nonlinear potential theory (FNPT), to numerically investigate the interaction between two 3-D floating structures, which undergo motions with 6 degrees of freedom (DOFs), and are subjected to waves with different incident angles. The transient behaviours of floating structures, the effect of the accompanied structures, and the nonlinearity on the motion of and the wave loads on the structures are the main focuses of the study. The investigation reveals an important transient effects causing considerably larger structure motion than that in steady state. The results also indicate that the accompanied structure in close proximity enhances the interaction between different motion modes and results in stronger nonlinearity causing 2nd-order component to be of similar significance to the fundamental one.

A set of amino acid descriptors including hydrophobic, stereo and electrical properties were applied to construct quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) models of three peptides datasets (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor dipeptides, bactericidal peptides and oxytocin peptides) with stepwise multiple regression combined partial least squares regression (SMR-PLS). The results of QASRs models are very robust, with multiple correlation coefficients (R2), and cross validation (Q2) equal to 0.687, 0.671; 0.977, 0.890 and 0.950, 0.802 respectively. The robust models show the descriptors can be further expanded for polypeptides and serve as a useful quantitative tool for the rational drug design and discovery.

MHC-epitope binding plays a key role in the cellular immune response. Accurate prediction of MHC-epitope binding affinity can greatly expedite epitope screening by reducing costs and experimental effort. In this paper, 13 T descriptors， which derived from 544 physicochemical properties of the natural amino acids, were used to characterize 4 MHC class I alleles epitope peptide sequences, the optimal QSAR models were constructed by using stepwise regression combines with multiple linear regression (STR-MLR). For HLA-A*0201, HLA-A*0203, HLA-A*0206 and HLA-A*1101 alleles, the leave one out cross validation values (Q(2)(train)) were 0.581, 0.553, 0.525 and 0.588, the correlation coefficients (R(2)(train)) of training datasets were 0.607, 0.582, 0.556 and 0.606, the correlation coefficients (R(2)(test)) of test datasets were 0.533, 0.506, 0.501 and 0.502, respectively. The results showed that all models can obtain good performance for prediction and explain the mechanism of interaction between MHC and epitope. The descriptors will be useful in structure characterization and activity prediction of peptide sequences.

IL-17, which exerts strong pro-inflammatory effects, has emerged as an important mediator in inflammation-associated cancer. However, the characteristics of IL-17-producing cells, the relevance of IL-17 to clinical parameters and its function in the development and progression of colorectal carcinoma still remain to be explored. In the present study, we first found the levels of IL-17 producing cells were significantly increased in the tumor regions of samples from colorectal carcinoma patients compared with non-tumor regions. Confocal microscopic analysis showed co-staining of IL-17 with CD4 and CD68, indicating IL-17 in colorectal carcinoma was expressed by macrophage and Th17. High expression of IL-17 was associated with high microvessel density. Univariate and multivariate analysis revealed that IL-17 was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival. To explore the underlying mechanisms of IL-17 in angiogenesis, we used PCR-array to find pro-angiogenic factor in cancer cells specifically induced by IL-17, then validated VEGF as one of factors in IL-17-mediated angiogenesis with the use of quantitative RT-PCR, ELISA and VEGF immunohistochemistry. Our results propose IL-17 as a novel indicator of prognosis in the patients with colorectal carcinoma and could serve as a novel therapeutic target for colorectal carcinoma, furthermore our results indicate that IL-17 producing cells may facilitate development of colorectal carcinoma by fostering angiogenesis via promote VEGF production from cancer cells.

Protein–protein interaction plays a critical role in signal transduction and many other key biological processes. The present study evaluated four parameters selected from among 554 physiochemical variables of 20 natural amino acids listed in AAindex, namely, hydrophobicity, electronic properties, steric properties, and hydrogen-bond properties. Human amphiphysin-1 Src homology 3 (SH3) domain-binding decapeptides were the object of analysis. A quantitative structure–activity relationship model of the SH3 domain-binding peptides was constructed using multivariate linear regression. The results showed that the four parameters ably characterize the structure of SH3 domain-binding decapeptides, have definitive physicochemical properties and a low level of computational complexity, are accessible, and may be used in integrated prediction models for other protein–peptide interactions.

Interleukin-17 (IL-17), a potent pro-inflammatory cytokine, plays an active role in inflammation and cancer. Recently, we found that increased IL-17-producing cells correlate with poor survival and increased lymphangiogenesis in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but the mechanism is unknown. Here, we show that IL-17 promotes lymphangiogenesis via inducing vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C) production by lung cancer cells. We found that IL-17 receptor (IL-17R) is expressed on the surface of Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) cells but not on lymphatic endothelial cells (LEC). Moreover, LEC chemotaxis and tube formation (measures of net lymphangiogenic potential) were increased by conditioned medium from recombinant mouse IL-17 (rmIL-17)-stimulated LLC but not by rmIL-17. Interleukin-17 increased production of VEGF-C in lung cancer cell lines. The enhanced chemotaxis and endothelial cord formation in the presence of LLC/rmIL-17 was inhibited by addition of recombinant mouse VEGF R3/Fc chimera. Treatment of the A549 cells with rIL-17 significantly increased VEGF-C expression, which was extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase 1/2 (ERK 1/2) dependent. Importantly, we found significant correlations between IL-17 expression, VEGF-C expression and lymphatic vascular density (LVD) in NSCLC. We conclude that IL-17 is involved in lymphangiogenesis in NSCLC by enhancing production of VEGF-C, and IL-17 may be an important target for the treatment of NSCLC.

In recent years, the central government in China has been leading the re-establishment of its rural health insurance system, but local government institutions have considerable flexibility in the specific design and management of schemes. Maintaining a reasonable balance of funds is critical to ensure that the schemes are sustainable and effective in offering financial protection to members. This paper explores the financial management of the NCMS in China through a case study of the balance of funds and the factors influencing this, in six counties in two Chinese provinces. The main data source is NCMS management data from each county from 2003 to 2005, supplemented by: a household questionnaire survey, qualitative interviews and focus group discussions with all local stakeholders and policy document analysis. The study found that five out of six counties held a large fund surplus, whilst enrolees obtained only partial financial protection. However, in one county greater risk pooling for enrolees was accompanied by relatively high utilisation levels, resulting in a fund deficit. The opportunities to sustainably increase the financial protection offered to NCMS enrolees are limited by the financial pressures on local government, specific political incentives and low technical capacities at the county level and below. Our analysis suggests that in the short term, efforts should be made to improve the management of the current NCMS design, which should be supported through capacity building for NCMS offices. However, further medium-term initiatives may be required including changes to the design of the schemes.

Proxy cryptosystem, first proposed by Mambo and Okamoto [M.Mambo, E. Okamoto, Proxy cryptosystem: delegation of a power to decrypt ciphertexts, IEICE Trans. Fundam. Electron. Commun. Comput. Sci. E80-A/1 (1997) 54-63], allows the original decryptor to delegate his decrypting capability to the proxies. However, until now, no practical proxy cryptosystem modes are proposed. Therefore, in this paper, we present a novel proxy cryptosystem model: proxy cryptosystem based on time segmentation. Under this mode, a security analysis model will be proposed. Furthermore, a proxy cryptosystem scheme is presented as an example. We will show that the proposed scheme is proven security in the proposed security analysis model. Finally, we will give the ID-based version of this construction.

This paper presents a method for exo-atmospheric ascent guidance to accomplish the orbital insertion with full states satisfied for the new generation of launch vehicles with variable-thrust engine. The variable thrust provides the possibility to verify the Iterative Guidance Mode (IGM) to overcome its deficiency of not satisfying all the 6 terminal states constraints. A feedback guidance scheme is formed by setting the thrust needed as a feedback. The thrust needed is obtained through the differential relationship between the estimated orbital insertion error and thrust parameters. By embedding the IGM to the feedback scheme, a closed-loop guidance mode is built. Simulation results demonstrate that the adaptive variable thrust iterative guidance method proposed can complete the full-state insertion missions accurately, and the algorithm in the method is simple and easy to implement for engineering practice.

A novel hypothesis in cancer biology proposes that cancer growth is driven by cancer stem-like cells (CSLCs), also called tumor-initiating cells, which can self-renew and differentiate into multilineage progeny in a fashion similar to stem cells. However, the impact and underlying mechanisms of this process in lung adenocarcinoma (LAC) remain to be elucidated. Here, we report that microRNA-214 (miR-214) contributes to cell self-renewal by directly targeting catenin beta interacting protein 1 (CTNNBIP1), a member of the Wnt signaling pathway. We demonstrate that miR-214 overexpression enhances stem-like properties in LAC cells and that miR-214 shows increased expression in CSLCs derived from primary tumor tissue and from two LAC cell lines (A549 and NCI-H1650). Strikingly, downregulation of miR-214 expression in CSLCs resulted in a significant decrease in spheroid formation and the expression of the stem-cell markers Nanog, Oct-4, and Sox-2. Finally, CTNNBIP1 was identified as a target of miR-214. miR-214 expression in LAC was negatively correlated with CTNNBIP1 expression and positively correlated with differentiated cellular states. Moreover, CTNNBIP1 expression correlated with longer overall survival in LAC patients. This study reveals that miR-214 plays a critical role in CSLC self-renewal and stemness by targeting CTNNBIP1. The identification of this functional miR-214-CTNNBIP1 interaction that regulates self-renewal in CSLCs has the potential to direct the development of novel therapeutic strategies for LAC. Stem Cells 2015;33:3423–3436

Common wheat is one of the most important crops in China, which is the largest producer in the world. A set of 230 cultivars was used to identify yield-related loci by association mapping. This set was tested for seven yield-related traits, viz. plant height (PH), spike length (SL), spikelet number per spike (SNPS), kernel number per spike (KNPS), thousand-kernel weight (TKW), kernel weight per spike (KWPS), and sterile spikelet number (SSN) per plant in four environments. A total of 106 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers distributed on all 21 chromosomes were used to screen the set. Twenty-one and 19 of them were associated with KNPS and TKW, respectively. Association mapping detected 73 significant associations across 50 SSRs, and the phenotypic variation explained (R2) by the associations ranged from 1.54 to 23.93%. The associated loci were distributed on all chromosomes except 4A, 7A, and 7D. Significant and potentially new alleles were present on 8 chromosomes, namely 1A, 1D, 2A, 2D, 3D, 4B, 5B, and 6B. Further analysis showed that genetic effects of associated loci were greatly influenced by association panels, and the R2 of crucial loci were lower in modern cultivars than in the mini core collection, probably caused by strong selection in wheat breeding. In order to confirm the results of association analysis, yield-related favorable alleles Xgwm135-1A138, Xgwm337-1D186, Xgwm102-2D144, and Xgwm132-6B128 were evaluated in a double haploid (DH) population derived from Hanxuan10 xLumai14.These favorable alleles that were validated in various populations might be valuable in breeding for high-yield.

International audience; BACKGROUND & AIMS: Viral clearance involves immune cell cytolysis of infected cells. However, studies of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in chimpanzees have indicated that cytokines released by T cells also can promote viral clearance via noncytolytic processes. We investigated the noncytolytic mechanisms by which T cells eliminate HBV from infected hepatocytes. METHODS: We performed a cytokine enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay of serum samples from patients with acute and chronic hepatitis B. Liver biopsy specimens were analyzed by in situ hybridization. HepG2-H1.3 cells, HBV-infected HepaRG cells, and primary human hepatocytes were incubated with interferon-gamma (IFNgamma) or tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), or co-cultured with T cells. We measured markers of HBV replication, including the covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA). RESULTS: Levels of IFNgamma and TNF-alpha were increased in serum samples from patients with acute vs chronic hepatitis B and controls. In human hepatocytes with stably replicating HBV, as well as in HBV-infected primary human hepatocytes or HepaRG cells, IFNgamma and TNF-alpha each induced deamination of cccDNA and interfered with its stability; their effects were additive. HBV-specific T cells, through secretion of IFNgamma and TNF-alpha, inhibited HBV replication and reduced cccDNA in infected cells without the direct contact required for cytolysis. Blocking IFNgamma and TNF-alpha after T-cell stimulation prevented the loss of cccDNA. Deprivation of cccDNA required activation of nuclear APOBEC3 deaminases by the cytokines. In liver biopsy specimens from patients with acute hepatitis B, but not chronic hepatitis B or controls, hepatocytes expressed APOBEC3A and APOBEC3B. CONCLUSIONS: IFNgamma and TNF-alpha, produced by T cells, reduce levels of HBV cccDNA in hepatocytes by inducing deamination and subsequent cccDNA decay

Nanoscale inorganic electronic synapses or synaptic devices, which are capable of emulating the functions of biological synapses of brain neuronal systems, are regarded as the basic building blocks for beyond-Von Neumann computing architecture, combining information storage and processing. Here, we demonstrate a Ag/AgInSbTe/Ag structure for chalcogenide memristor-based electronic synapses. The memristive characteristics with reproducible gradual resistance tuning are utilised to mimic the activity-dependent synaptic plasticity that serves as the basis of memory and learning. Bidirectional long-term Hebbian plasticity modulation is implemented by the coactivity of pre- and postsynaptic spikes, and the sign and degree are affected by assorted factors including the temporal difference, spike rate and voltage. Moreover, synaptic saturation is observed to be an adjustment of Hebbian rules to stabilise the growth of synaptic weights. Our results may contribute to the development of highly functional plastic electronic synapses and the further construction of next-generation parallel neuromorphic computing architecture.

OBJECTIVE: Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays an important role in cancer tumorigenesis. However, the underlying mechanisms of EMT in lung adenocarcinoma, and how this process might be inhibited, remain to be explored. This study investigated the role of IL-6 in lung adenocarcinoma cell EMT and explored the potential effects of metformin on this process. METHODS: Invasion assay and MTT assay was performed to determine cell invasion and cell proliferation. Western blotting, immunofluorescence, real-time PCR, ELISA, and immunohistochemistry were performed to detect the expression of IL-6, E-cadherin, Vimentin, and p-STAT3. RESULTS: We discovered that IL-6, via STAT3 phosphorylation, could promote lung adenocarcinoma cell invasion via EMT in vitro. This was supported by the inverse correlation between E-cadherin and IL-6 expression, positive correlation between IL-6 and vimentin mRNA expression and between STAT3 phosphorylation and IL-6 expression in tumor tissues. Importantly, metformin inhibited tumor growth and distant metastases in tumor-bearing nude mice and reversed IL-6-induced EMT both in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, we found that blockade of STAT3 phosphorylation might be the underlying mechanism of metformin inhibition of IL-6-induced EMT. CONCLUSIONS: Collectively, our present results show that enhanced IL-6 expression, via STAT3 phosphorylation, is a mechanism of EMT in lung adenocarcinoma. We found that metformin could inhibit IL-6-induced EMT possibly by blocking STAT3 phosphorylation.

Clearance of Chronic Virus The family of mRNA-editing enzymes, APOBEC, restricts hepatitis B virus (HBV) replication. Lucifora et al. (p. 1221 , published online 20 February; see the Perspective by Shlomai and Rice ) provide evidence that specific APOBECs mediate the anti-HBV effects of host cytokines, which in turn apparently induce nuclear deaminase activity without damaging host cells. Thus, there may be potential in these findings for developing a therapeutic route to curing chronic HBV infection.

BACKGROUND In the decade after 1983, the annual growth rate of drug expenditure was about four times as high as that of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in Shanghai. In 1993 and 1994, a drug list policy and hospital revenue capping policy were introduced in Shanghai to contain drug expenditure. We studied the impact of these two policies, as a model for similar policies in other parts of China and elsewhere. METHODS Quarterly drug expenditure data were collected from 1992 to 1996 and more detailed drug expenditure flow was obtained at seven selected hospitals. Twelve focus group discussions were organized to obtain opinions from all stakeholders. RESULTS The research findings showed a dramatic and continuing decline in the growth rates of total medical and drug expenditures after the implementation of the two policies. The proportion of total medical expenditure attributable to drugs declined from 67% in 1992 to 51% in 1996. The annual growth rate of drug expenditure per ambulatory visit and per bed-day was reduced as well. Drug revenue as a proportion of total hospital revenue declined gradually in all seven hospitals. The two policies did not alter the equity of drug utilization between the insured and non-insured. The government, insurance authority and state-owned drug enterprises all favoured the new policies, while hospital administrators, professionals, joint venture and foreign manufacturers wished for the reimbursement mechanisms to be improved, for retention of their freedom of choice, and for the drug list to be further expanded. CONCLUSIONS The drug list and capping policies in Shanghai appear to have achieved their objectives of containing the escalation of drug expenditure and improving the rational use of drugs without loss of equity. The underlying causes of the escalation of drug expenditure in China need to be further elucidated.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer‑related mortality worldwide. The complement component 3 (C3) is a central protein of the complement system, expressed in numerous cancer tissues and considered crucial for tumor progression. This study aimed to investigate the prognostic value of C3 in non‑small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the underlying mechanisms. We used immunohistochemistry to observe the expression of C3 in malignant pulmonary lesion specimens from biopsy of 80 patients with NSCLC at stages I‑III, who underwent lobectomy. We further assessed the correlation between C3 expression and a number of clinical features, as well as its prognostic value. To investigate the mechanism by which C3 exerts its effects, the correlation of C3 expression to T lymphocyte infiltration was also assessed. There was no significant correlation between the C3 level and clinical features such as gender, smoking status, degree of differentiation, histological type and malignant tumor stage based on the TNM classification system, while a significant correlation was found to age. However, analysis of overall survival (OS) and disease‑free survival (DFS) rates showed that low C3 expression was related to poor prognosis. Univariate survival analysis revealed that C3 level and TNM stage are independent prognostic factors. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that the low level of C3 and TNM stage are also associated with poor prognosis. Furthermore, in tissues from biopsies, the C3 level positively correlated to the number of infiltrated CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes (P

A pressure strip method is developed for the prediction of hydrodynamic forces acting on planing hulls moving on the surface of calm water. Within the frame of linearized potential flow theory, the presence of a planing surface is represented by an assemblage of strips of transversely variable pressure placed on the mean free surface. The unknown pressure distribution on each strip is represented by a sine series with unknown coefficients which are determined by solving an integral equation relating the pressure distribution to the free-surface elevation underneath the planing hull. Numerical solutions are obtained for the planing of 3-D flat plate and three basic profiles of 2-D planing surfaces, which are taken as the extreme cases of large-aspect-ratio 3-D planing surfaces. The results are compared with experimental data and good agreement is achieved.

The transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP) is essential for peptide delivery from the cytosol into the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), where these peptides are loaded on a major histocompatibility complex (MHC) I molecules and form peptide-MHC complex. The peptide-MHC leaves the ER and displays their antigenic cargo on the cell surface to cytotoxic T cells. In this study, 89 physicochemical properties of amino acid were collected from AAIndex database, and used to characterize the peptides which were binding to TAP. Then, the stepwise regression (STR) was used to optimize the parameters which characterized the TAP binding peptides, and the multiple linear regression (MLR) was used to construct the quantitative structural activity relationship (QSAR) model based on optimized parameters. The quantitative models had good reliability and predictive ability: the Q² of "leave one out" validation is 0.676 and R² of test dataset is 0.722 respectively. Additionally, the standardized coefficients of the models could demonstrate the attributions for each position of epitope and determine which special amino acid is suitable at any position of the peptide. Therefore, the QSAR model constructed by STR-MLR has many advantages, such as, easier calculation and explanation, good performance, and definite physiochemical indication, which could be used to guide the design and modification of the TAP binding peptide.

In this study, physicochemical scale (P-scale), was recruited as a novel set of physicochemical descriptors derived from component analysis on four short of physicochemical properties variables (hydrophobic, electronic, steric and hydrogen bond contribution) of 20 coded amino acids, By using partial least squares (PLS), we applied P-scale for the study of quantitative structure activity relationship models (QASRs) on three angiotensin I converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory peptides datasets (58 dipeptides, 55 tripeptides, and 50 tetrapeptides).The results of QSARs were superior to that of the earlier studies, with correlation coefficient (r(2)) and cross-validated(q(2)) equal to 0.902, 0.86; 0.985, 0.951 and 0.872, 0.77, respectively. By analysis, hydrophobic and steric properties of ACE-inhibitory peptide sequences play important roles in their bioactivities, and novel peptide sequence could be designed based on these properties of the amino acid residues. These results showed that P-scale descriptors can well represent the peptide sequence. Furthermore, the robust models show that P-scale descriptors can be further expanded for polypeptides and can serve as a useful quantitative tool for the rational drug design and discovery.

To survey on men who have sex with men (MSM) population's sexual behaviors, condom-service condition, HIV related knowledge and other issues among MSM population at sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics to understand the characteristics of behaviors and offer suggestions for effective health education and behavior intervention.From January to December, 2009, we used anonymous questionnaires which involved in their mastery of demographic characteristics, sexual behavior, condom-service condition, HIV related knowledge, and so one, to investigate 200 MSM at 3 STD clinics of comprehensive hospital.The average age of informant was (26.7+/- 8.9) years and 121 individuals (62.6%) had confirmed with STD in recent one year. In the recent 6 months, the average number of homosexual partners was 9.2+/- 4.8 and 102 (52.8%) had heterosexual partners. In the sexual intercourse with homosexual, 123 individuals had anal intercourse (63.7 %) and 117 had oral intercourse (60.6%). In the sexual intercourse with heterosexual, 92 (90.2%) individuals had vaginal intercourse, 37 (36.2%) had anal intercourse, and 59 (57.8%) had oral sex behavior.There were a statistical difference between heterosexual and homosexual sex behaviors (P0.01). The condom-using frequency had statistic difference in different sexual behaviors(χ²=188.396, P0.001). There was no linear correlation between HIV related knowledge and condom-using condition in sexual behaviors except the heterosexual anal intercourse.High AIDS knowledge mastery rate is found in our survey. The respondents get HIV/AIDS knowledge through various ways actively. There is no obvious relation between the mastery of HIV related knowledge and condom-using frequency. The ratio of non-protected sexual behaviors is high in heterosexuals. How to adopt effective methods for behavior intervention to MSM at STD clinic needs to be further studied.

Model tests of an internal turret moored deepwater FPSO will be conducted in the deepwater offshore basin recently completed in Harbin Engineering University. Considering the limitations of the basin facilities and to reduce the complexity of fixing risers on the basin bottom, the 13 risers are simplified and combined to 4 risers. In addition, the horizontal dimension of the basin is not able to accommodate mooring system at the test model scale. Therefore, certain mooring lines have to be truncated. Two truncation methods are proposed according to the similitude of static characteristics of the mooring system. The first method only truncates the portion of the line that lies on the seabed and the second method truncates the suspended line portion. Numerical simulations have been carried out in the time domain with mooring lines coupled with FPSO. The calculated results are found to agree well with those of the prototype mooring system. Both truncation methods are found to be robust and reliable which provide a valuable reference for the forthcoming model tests.Copyright © 2010 by ASME

Opposite to the almost persistent p-type conductivity of the crystalline chalcogenides along the GeTe-Sb2Te3 tie line, n-type Hall mobility is observed in crystalline GeTe/Sb2Te3 superlattice-like material (SLL) with a short period length. We suggest that this unusual carrier characteristic originates from the structural disorder introduced by the lattice strain and dangling bonds at the SLL interfaces, which makes the crystalline SLLs behave like the amorphous chalcogenides. Detailed structural disorder in crystalline SLL has been studied by Raman scattering, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, as well as Variable-energy positron annihilation spectroscopy measurements. First-principles calculations results show that this structural disorder gives rise to three-site junctions that dominate the charge transport as the period length decreases and result in the anomalously signed Hall effect in the crystalline SLL. Our findings indicate a similar tetrahedral structure in the amorphous and crystalline states of SLLs, which can significantly reduce the entropy difference. Due to the reduced entropy loss and increased resistivity of crystalline phase introduced by disorder, it is not surprising that the SLLs exhibit extremely lower RESET current and power consumption.

Dendritic cells (DC), the most potent antigen presenting cells (APC), have been shown able to process apoptotic tumor cells and necrotic tumor cells for antigen presentation. Apoptosis and necrosis are the two common final pathways through which the tumors are killed by chemotherapy or radiation therapy. The tumor cells receiving radiation often produce the "danger signal" cytokines such as TNF-alpha and IL-1. Another cytokine MIP-3alpha that is able to attract DC to the tumor site is normally not secreted. We hypothesize that if artificial introduction of a large number of DC to the necrotic tumor site after radiation therapy by transfecting any cells at the tumor site to secrete DC-tropic MIP-3alpha, an anti-tumor immune response would be initiated. C57BL/6J mice bearing a well-known Lewis lung carcinoma are used to assess efficacy of this modality. The plasmid DNA containing pcDNA3.1/MIP-3alpha was injected into the subcutaneous tumors after radiation treatment. We demonstrate a detectable local expression of MIP-3alpha and local accumulation of DC. Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes after the treatment are predominantly CD8+ T-cells with rare CD4+ T-cells. The anti-tumor immune response was also measurable, which contributes at least in part to the finding that the treated mice have smaller tumor and prolonged survival, comparing to the control groups. This study suggests a potential new means of immune modulation and provides us a new concept of immunotherapy of cancer.

In this paper, dynamic loads acting on a twin-tube hydraulic shock absorber are derived out both in wheel and axle planes by modeling mechanically car rear suspensions, and internal and external forces that yield lateral surface damage and wear-out of the piston rod for the absorber are analyzed according to bench and real road test measures. From viewpoint of vehicle system dynamics and experiment, such key factors as road unevenness, very high car speed and severe shock induced vibrations are investigated, by which stochastic bending moments and dramatically increasing shock loading are introduced directly to the piston rod. From viewpoint of the whole car assembly, on the other hand, due to hardly perfectly placements of the piston rods in their positions between the car suspension and body, unacceptable manufacturing quality of the body may cause additional dynamic forces on the piston rod. Significant results obtained by theoretical and experimental analysis of lateral frictions of the piston rod are presented systematically for improving design of the shock absorber.