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Drug resistance poses a significant challenge in the treatment of breast cancer. In recent years, a variety of nanomaterials have been discovered and synthesized that can selectively target tumor cells and play a crucial role in the advancement of breast cancer therapies. As our understanding of tumor heterogeneity deepens, the emerging potential of nanomaterials in addressing drug resistance has garnered considerable attention. These materials not only selectively target tumor cells but also possess unique properties that make them promising options for cancer treatment, including low toxicity, excellent biocompatibility, ease of preparation, the ability to carry antitumor drugs, and customizable surface functions. In this review, we will comprehensively summarize two key developments in breast cancer treatment: the application of antitumor drugs and nanomaterials. We will explore the mechanisms by which nanomaterials improve drug resistance in breast cancer, targeted nanotherapy strategies to mitigate this resistance, and recent research advancements in anticancer nanomaterials. This overview aims to highlight the significant role of nanomaterials in breast cancer treatment and provide a theoretical framework for identifying optimal treatment strategies in the future.

As a kind of natural disasters, geological hazards pose serious threats to the ecological security and socio-economic development of human society. Evaluating the sensitivity of regional geological hazards is essential for making disaster-preventing/mitigating strategies and land use plans. Based on multisource remote sensing data, this study evaluates the geological hazard sensitivity in Liaoning Province by using the method of spatial principal component analysis and spatial autocorrelation finding that such sensitivity is generally moderate, with an average value of 5.25, and is mainly concentrated in three levels: Mild sensitivity, moderate sensitivity and insensitivity, accounting for more than 67% of the total area. Liaodong Mountain Area and Liaoxi Hilly Area are found with the highest sensitivity of geological hazards, showcasing obvious spatial differences and aggregations, mainly because these areas have large terrain fluctuations, poor stability of rock and soil bodies, and strong erosion by precipitation. The main factors affecting the sensitivity of geological hazards include land use mode, elevation, slope, and lithology. Among them, the land use mode has the highest contribution rate to the first principal component, reaching 0.86. This study provides a theoretical reference for the prevention and control over geological hazards and the protection of ecological security in Liaoning Province.

Desertification in the context of global change and intensified anthropogenic activities poses a huge challenge to the sustainable development of the Earth’s systems, including the Qinghai Lake Basin, which is located in the Tibetan Plateau. However, we know little about desertification in the Qinghai Lake Basin, which is an urgent and important issue. To that end, this study used the enhanced vegetation index (EVI) and the albedo data from MODIS satellites to explore this issue. Results based on vegetation cover (FVC) calculated from EVI indicated that desertification in the Qinghai Lake Basin had reversed over the last 20 years, and the heavily desertified areas were concentrated along the northwestern to northern basin boundaries and on the sandy eastern shore of Qinghai Lake. More interestingly, we found that the relationship between albedo and EVI showed a “V” shape instead of the traditional monotonic trapezoid, which may be related to multiple factors such as soil moisture, soil type, and spatial scale of sampling. This study unfolds the spatial and temporal distribution of desertification in the Qinghai Lake Basin quantitatively and emphasizes the threshold of the desertification process revealed in the EVI-albedo feature space, which sheds light on the monitoring of desertification in alpine areas.

As they are the core components of the drive motor in electric vehicles, the accurate fault diagnosis of rolling bearings is the key to ensuring the safe operation of electric vehicles. At present, intelligent diagnostic methods based on current signals (CSs) are widely used owing to the advantages of the easy collection, low cost, and non-invasiveness of CSs. However, in practical applications, the fault characteristics of the CS are weak, resulting in diagnostic performance that fails to meet the expected standards. In this paper, a diagnosis method is proposed to address this problem and enhance the diagnosis accuracy. Firstly, CSs from two phases are processed by periodic resampling to enhance data features, which are then fused through splicing operations. Subsequently, a feature enhancement module is constructed using multi-scale feature fusion for decomposing the input. Finally, a diagnosis model is constructed by using an improved channel attention module (CAM) for enhancing the diagnosis performance. The results from experiments containing two different types of bearing datasets show that the proposed method can extract high-quality fault features and improve the diagnosis accuracy, presenting great potential in intelligent fault diagnosis and the maintenance of electric vehicles.

The polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) performance is closely related to the Nafion® ionomer content in catalyst layers (CLs). This study experimentally investigates the impact of anode and cathode Nafion® ionomer contents on the PEMWE performance at high temperatures. The Nafion® ionomer content is 5–30 wt% on both anode and cathode sides, while the temperature and operating pressure change from 80°C to 120°C and 0.1 MPa to 0.3 MPa, respectively. Experimental results reveal that elevated temperature and operating pressure can remarkably promote the performance of PEMWE with a reasonable Nafion® ionomer content and without dehydrating the membrane at 120°C and 0.3 MPa. However, the PEMWE performance deteriorates as the Nafion® ionomer content is too low. The anode Nafion® ionomer content has a relatively great impact on ohmic resistance, concentration, and activation overpotential, especially the concentration overpotential. Nevertheless, the cathode Nafion® ionomer content only affects the ohmic resistance. Finally, under the operating conditions of 120°C and 0.3 MPa, employing a Nafion ionomer content of 10 wt% in the anode–cathode sides minimizes the electrolysis voltage to 2.18 V at 18 A/cm2.

Semantic segmentation stands as a prominent domain within remote sensing that is currently garnering significant attention. This paper introduces a pioneering semantic segmentation model based on TransUNet architecture with improved coordinate attention for remote-sensing imagery. It is composed of an encoding stage and a decoding stage. Notably, an enhanced and improved coordinate attention module is employed by integrating two pooling methods to generate weights. Subsequently, the feature map undergoes reweighting to accentuate foreground information and suppress background information. To address the issue of time complexity, this paper introduces an improvement to the transformer model by sparsifying the attention matrix. This reduces the computing expense of calculating attention, making the model more efficient. Additionally, the paper uses a combined loss function that is designed to enhance the training performance of the model. The experimental results conducted on three public datasets manifest the efficiency of the proposed method. The results indicate that it excels in delivering outstanding performance for semantic segmentation tasks pertaining to remote-sensing images.

BackgroundAndrogen-deprivation therapy (ADT) is used for the treatment of prostate cancer. However, the specific risk factors for the development of castration-resistant disease are still unclear. The present study sought to identify predictors of patient prognostic outcomes through analyses of clinical findings in large numbers of prostate cancer patients following ADT treatment.MethodsData pertaining to 163 prostate cancer patients treated at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical University and Maoming People’s Hospital from January 1, 2015, to December 30, 2020, were retrospectively analyzed. Dynamic changes in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels were regularly assessed, including both time to nadir (TTN) and nadir PSA (nPSA). Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed with Cox risk proportional regression models, while differences in biochemical progression-free survival (bPFS) were compared among groups with Kaplan-Meier curves and log-rank tests.ResultsThe bPFS values over the median 43.5-month follow-up period differed significantly between patients with nPSA levels < 0.2 ng/mL and ≥ 0.2 ng/mL, being 27.6 months and 13.5 months, respectively (log-rank P < 0.001). A significant difference in median bPFS was also observed when comparing patients with a TTN ≥ 9 months (27.8 months) to those with a TTN < 9 months (13.5 months) (log-rank P < 0.001).ConclusionsTTN and nPSA are valuable predictors of prognosis in prostate cancer patients after ADT treatment, with better outcomes evident in patients with nPSA < 0.2 ng/mL and TTN > 9 months.

Aiming at the problem of low spatial resolution of Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) in long distance optical fiber link detection, this paper proposes a new scheme of Linear Frequency Modulation (LFM) -Golay OTDR. The scheme improves the dynamic range and spatial resolution of the OTDR by generating LFM signals to modulate optical signals and generating Golay sequence signals to modulate LFM optical signals. The experimental results show that the spatial resolution of the LFM-Golay OTDR can reach resolution of 0.22 m in the optical fiber link under test with a length of 200 km. Under the conditions of same setting parameters, the dynamic range is increased by about 15 dB compared with single pulse OTDR, and the dynamic range of LFM-Golay OTDR is about 6 dB higher than Golay OTDR and LFM OTDR.

Leakage diseases frequently occur in mountain tunnels, and the lining joints are weak waterproof links. In order to solve the problems such as insufficient waterproof technology for existing tunnel joints, this paper relies on the scientific and technological project of the Hubei Provincial Department of Transportation to optimize the key parameters of the tunnel water-stop material and uses numerical simulation methods to analyze the impact of the hardness of the water-stop and the bond strength between the water-stop and concrete on its deformation and waterproof ability. Through the adhesion test, the optimization method of the bond strength between the water-stop and concrete is explored. The results show that: (1) the deformation stress of the water-stop will increase with the increase in hardness and reducing the hardness of the water-stop can improve its stress deformation state. Considering that low hardness increases the risk of damage and reduces the quality, it is recommended that the hardness be 55–60 (HA). (2) The adhesion between the water-stop and the concrete lining is the key to waterproofing the water-stop. Increasing the adhesion between the water-stop and the concrete is an effective optimization method. However, to prevent excessive deformation stress, it is necessary to optimize the geometric structure of the water-stop simultaneously. (3) Placing an epoxy–quartz sand coating on the surface of the water-stop can increase the adhesive force between the water-stop and the concrete. When the thickness of the epoxy layer is 2 mm, and the particle size of quartz sand is 26–40 mesh, the effect is best.

Growing evidence points at an association between microRNAs and tumor development. Although dysregulation of microRNA-103a-3p (miR-103a-3p) in multiple human cancers has been reported, its expression in prostate cancer (PCa) remains unknown and there is currently no research on the relationship between miR-103a-3p and tumor protein D52 (TPD52) in PCa. Our aim in this study was to explore the effect and potential mechanism of miR-103a-3p in PCa. qRT-PCR was performed to detected the level of miR-103a-3p in PCa tissues and cells, and in normal tissues. Colony, wound-healing, invasion, proliferation, and apoptosis assays were performed in search miR-103a-3p effect in PCa. TargetScan was used to predict potential targets of miR-103a-3p. Additionally, dual-luciferase reporter, western blot, and immunofluorescence assays were performed to detected the target gene of miR-103a-3p. Finally, we explore the differences in tumor xenograft experiments between nude mice injected with stably miR-103a-3p expressing cells and those expressing a miR-negative control. Low level of miR-103a-3p was detected in PCa tissues and cells, when compared with normal tissues. Enhancement of miR-103a-3p significantly inhibited migration and invasion of PCa cells, and negatively regulated expression of the oncogenic tumor protein D52 (TPD52) through direct binding to its 3’-UTR. Interestingly, overexpression of TPD52 significantly attenuated the effect of mir-103a-3p on PCa. Our study provides the first evidence that miR-103a-3p directly targets TPD52 and inhibits the proliferation and invasion of PCa. This finding helps clarify the role of mir-103a-3p-TPD52 axis in PCa and may provide new therapeutic targets for the disease.

The performance of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) closely depends on internal reactant diffusion and liquid water removal. As one of the key components of PEMFCs, bipolar plates (BPs) provide paths for reactant diffusion and product transport. Therefore, to achieve high fuel cell performance, one key issue is designing BPs with a reasonable flow field. This paper provides a comprehensive review of various modifications of the conventional parallel flow field, interdigitated flow field, and serpentine flow field to improve fuel cells’ overall performance. The main focuses for modifications of conventional flow fields are flow field shape, length, aspect ratio, baffle, trap, auxiliary inlet, and channels, as well as channel numbers. These modifications can partly enhance reactant diffusion and product transport while maintaining an acceptable flow pressure drop. This review also covers the detailed structural description of the newly developed flow fields, including the 3D flow field, metal flow field, and bionic flow field. Moreover, the effects of these flow field designs on the internal physical quantity transport and distribution, as well as the fuel cells’ overall performance, are investigated. This review describes state-of-the-art flow field design, identifies the key research gaps, and provides references and guidance for the design of high-performance flow fields for PEMFCs in the future.

Summary: There has been growing interest in water-processable conjugated polymers for biocompatible devices. However, some broadly used conjugated polymers like poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) are hydrophobic and they cannot be processed in water. We herein report a facile yet highly efficient assembly method to prepare water-dispersible pyridine-containing P3HT (Py-P3HT) nanoparticles (NPs) with a high yield (>80%) and a fine size below 100 nm. It is based on the fast nanoprecipitation of Py-P3HT stabilized by hydrophilic poly(acrylic acid) (PAA). Py-P3HT can form spherical NPs at a concentration up to 0.2 mg/mL with a diameter of ∼75 nm at a very low concentration of PAA, e.g., 0.01–0.1 mg/mL, as surface ligands. Those negatively charged Py-P3HT NPs can bind with metal cations and further support the growth of noble metal NPs like Ag and Au. Our self-assembly methodology potentially opens new doors to process and directly use hydrophobic conjugated polymers in a much broader context.

Abstract Although micro RNA (miRNA) expression profiles are widely investigated in renal cell carcinoma (RCC), their potential roles for affecting RCC initiation and progression remain largely unknown. Here, we examined the aberrant expression profiles of miRNAs inhuman metastatic RCC tissues based on Gene Expression Omnibus (GSE37989). We further validated them iRNAs expression data in the largest clinical dataset: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). And cell adhesion and migration abilities and epithelial me senchymal transition (EMT) related proteins were assessed in both normal and tumor RCC cell lines. We suggest that hsa‐miR‐143 is a potential tumor suppressor in RCC as its down regulation positively correlated with adverse prognosis. Biologically, cell adhesion, migration, and EMT were dramatically inhibited by miR‐143. Mechanistically, we found that miR‐143 targets ABL proto‐oncogene 2 (ABL2), which was also found to be an indicator for poor survival in TCGA database. Our results have important implications in understanding functions of miRNAs in metastatic RCC and will provide a basis for further clinical application.

A new positioning algorithm based on RSS measurement is proposed. The algorithm adopts maximum likelihood estimation and semi-definite programming. The received signal strength model is transformed to a non-convex estimator for the positioning of the target using the maximum likelihood estimation. The non-convex estimator is then transformed into a convex estimator by semi-definite programming, and the global minimum of the target location estimation is obtained. This algorithm aims at the L0 known problem and then extends its application to the case of L0 unknown. The simulations and experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has better accuracy than the existing positioning algorithms.

Heavy dump vehicles are usually working with big load changes and bad work environment, thus change the friction performance of transmission clutches, as well as great affect the shift quality seriously, which influence the vehicle performance. Many researchers developed a lot to design a useful automatic transmission control system. Using PID tracking control and Monte Carlo method, the controller based on an dynamic model was set up to analyze the shifting process of automatic transmission and its robustness in this paper．The shift process was divided into four stages, low-gear phase, torque phase, inertia phase and high-gear phase. The model presents the process from the first gear to the second gear when the torque has big change．Since the jerk and the friction work of clutch are both related to the speed of clutch which was easier to control, it was chose as the target to control the oil pressure for satisfying the requirement of shift quality．The simulation software, Maplesim and Simulink, were used to build the vehicle model and shifting controller for simulation under different working conditions, and the maximum jerk was changed from 34 m/s3 to 12 m/s3 after the optimization. In this paper the Monte Carlo has been used to quantize and evaluate the robustness of the closed-loop system for the friction coefficients and output torque of turbine variation leading by the friction feature parameters and throttle angle changed. Monte Carlo method was used to analyze the effectiveness and robustness of PID controller, which proves that it has good control effect when the throttle is ongoing minor fluctuations. When the throttle is full opening, a quadratic optimal controller based on disturbance is designed by the method of multi-objective optimization. When it changes within 20 percent, PID controller was designed under the guidance of tracking thoughts. The results also show that the controller could still obtain better effect when the friction coefficient ranged from -40 % to 40 % as well as engine torque changed from -20 % to 20 %, which indicates the robustness of controller.

Soil respiration induced by biological soil crusts (BSCs) is an important process in the carbon (C) cycle in arid and semi-arid ecosystems, where vascular plants are restricted by the harsh environment, particularly the limited soil moisture. However, the interaction between temperature and soil respiration remains uncertain because of the number of factors that control soil respiration, including temperature and soil moisture, especially in BSC-dominated areas. In this study, the soil respiration in moss-dominated crusts and lichen-dominated crusts was continuously measured using an automated soil respiration system over a one-year period from November 2015 to October 2016 in the Shapotou region of the Tengger Desert, northern China. The results indicated that over daily cycles, the half-hourly soil respiration rates in both types of BSC-covered areas were commonly related to the soil temperature. The observed diel hysteresis between the half-hourly soil respiration rates and soil temperature in the BSC-covered areas was limited by nonlinearity loops with semielliptical shapes, and soil temperature often peaked later than the half-hourly soil respiration rates in the BSC-covered areas. The average lag times between the half-hourly soil respiration rates and soil temperature for both types of BSC-covered areas were two hours over the diel cycles, and they were negatively and linearly related to the volumetric soil water content. Our results highlight the diel hysteresis phenomenon that occurs between soil respiration rates and soil temperatures in BSC-covered areas and the negative response of this phenomenon to soil moisture, which may influence total C budget evaluations. Therefore, the interactive effects of soil temperature and moisture on soil respiration in BSC-covered areas should be considered in global carbon cycle models of desert ecosystems.

HKT1 and SOS1 are two key Na+ transporters that modulate salt tolerance in plants. Although much is known about the respective functions of HKT1 and SOS1 under salt conditions, few studies have examined the effects of HKT1 and SOS1 mutations on the expression of other important Na+ and K+ transporter genes. This study investigated the physiological parameters and expression profiles of AtHKT1;1, AtSOS1, AtHAK5, AtAKT1, AtSKOR, AtNHX1, and AtAVP1 in wild-type (WT) and athkt1;1 and atsos1 mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana under 25 mM NaCl. We found that AtSOS1 mutation induced a significant decrease in transcripts of AtHKT1;1 (by 56–62% at 6–24 h), AtSKOR (by 36–78% at 6–24 h), and AtAKT1 (by 31–53% at 6–24 h) in the roots compared with WT. This led to an increase in Na+ accumulation in the roots, a decrease in K+ uptake and transportation, and finally resulted in suppression of plant growth. AtHKT1;1 loss induced a 39–76% (6–24 h) decrease and a 27–32% (6–24 h) increase in transcripts of AtSKOR and AtHAK5, respectively, in the roots compared with WT. At the same time, 25 mM NaCl decreased the net selective transport capacity for K+ over Na+ by 92% in the athkt1;1 roots compared with the WT roots. Consequently, Na+ was loaded into the xylem and delivered to the shoots, whereas K+ transport was restricted. The results indicate that AtHKT1;1 and AtSOS1 not only mediate Na+ transport but also control ion uptake and the spatial distribution of Na+ and K+ by cooperatively regulating the expression levels of relevant Na+ and K+ transporter genes, ultimately regulating plant growth under salt stress.

A novel cellulose-chitosan gel was successfully prepared in three steps: (1) ferrocene- (Fc-) cellulose with degrees of substitution (DS) of 0.5 wt% was synthesised by ferrocenecarboxylic acid and cellulose within dimethylacetamide/lithium chloride (DMAc/LiCl); (2) the β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) groups were introduced onto the chitosan chains by reacting chitosan with epichlorohydrin in dimethyl sulphoxide and a DS of 0.35 wt%; (3) thus, the cellulose-chitosan gel was obtained via an intermolecular inclusion interaction of Fc-cellulose and β-CD-chitosan in DMA/LiCl, that is, by an intermolecular inclusion interaction, between the Fc groups of cellulose and the β-CD groups on the chitosan backbone at room temperature. The successful synthesis of Fc-cellulose and β-CD-chitosan was characterised by 13C-NMR spectroscopy. The gel based on β-CD-chitosan and Fc-cellulose was formed under mild conditions which can engender autonomous healing between cut surfaces after 24 hours: the gel cannot self-heal while the cut surfaces were coated with a solution of a competitive guest (adamantane acid). The cellulose-chitosan complex made by this method underwent self-healing. Therefore, this study provided a novel method of expanding the application of chitosan by binding it with another polymer.

Inflammation and immunity play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Toll-like receptor 4- (TLR4-) mediated nuclear factor kappa-B (NF𝜅B) signaling plays critical roles in the activation and regulation of inflammatory responses in injured brain. However, the involvement of TLR4-mediated NF𝜅B signaling in the pathogenesis of ICH remains unknown. The present study was to evaluate the temporal profile of the expression of TLR4 and the activation of TLR4-mediated NF𝜅B signaling in brain tissues of Wistar rats after ICH. TLR4 mRNA and protein, the phosphorylation of inhibitors of kappa B (p-I𝜅B𝛼), and the activity of NF𝜅B were examined in hemorrhagic cerebral tissue by Rt-PCR, Western blots, immunohistochemistry staining, and EMSA. Compared with saline control, the TLR4 mRNA and protein significantly increased starting at 6 hours after ICH, peaked on the 3rd day after ICH, and then decreased but still maintained at a higher level on the 7th day after ICH (𝑃