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Conventional wound closure and dressing are two crucial, time-consuming but isolated principles in wound care. Even though tissue adhesive opens a new era for wound closure, the method and biomaterial that can simultaneously achieve noninvasive wound closure and promote wound healing are highly appreciated. Herein, a novel supramolecular poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) hybrid hydrogel dressing composed of quaternized chitosan-graft-β-cyclodextrin, adenine, and polypyrrole nanotubes via host-guest interaction and hydrogen bonds is developed. The hydrogel demonstrates thermal contraction of 47% remaining area after 2 h at 37 ℃ and tissue adhesion of 5.74 kPa, which are essential for noninvasive wound closure, and multiple mechanical and biological properties including suitable mechanical properties, self-healing, on-demand removal, antioxidant, hemostasis, and photothermal/intrinsic antibacterial activity (higher 99% killing ratio within 5 min after irradiation). In both full-thickness skin incision and excision wound models, the hydrogel reveals significant wound closure after 24 h post-surgery. In acute and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus-infected wound and photothermal/intrinsic antibacterial activity assays, wounds treated with the hydrogel demonstrate enhanced wound healing with rapid wound closure rate, mild inflammatory response, advanced angiogenesis, and well-arranged collagen fibers. Altogether, the results indicate the hydrogel is promising in synchronously noninvasive wound closure and enhanced wound healing.

Due to the frequent movement and stretching of skin, traditional wound dressings are difficult to adapt to motion wounds on the stretchable parts of the body surface (e.g. elbow, hip and knee). Moreover, chronic motion wounds are often accompanied by infections. To address these issues, a series of injectable adhesive self-healing photothermal dual dynamic Schiff base network hydrogels were developed based on adipic dihydrazide modified hyaluronic acid, benzaldehyde group functionalized poly(ethylene glycol)–co-poly(glycerol sebacate) and cuttlefish melanin nanoparticles, and their excellent tissue adhesion, stretchability and self-healing properties enable them to adapt to the frequent movement of motion wounds. Meanwhile, the hydrogels can prevent and treat motion wound infections through photothermal antibacterial therapy, and exhibit multifunctions (including anti-oxidation, hemostasis, exudate absorption and sustained release property) to promote wound healing. In in vivo normal and infected full-thickness skin defect motion wound models, the hydrogel dressings significantly prevented wound infections and promoted wound healing with milder inflammation, higher granulation tissue thickness and collagen disposition. Overall, the adhesive self-healing photothermal hydrogels can adapt to frequent movement of motion wounds, and can improve infection and promote healing in both normal and infected motion wounds, indicating their great potential in motion wound treatment in clinics.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), accounting for approximately 90% of liver cancer, is the most lethal malignant tumors in the world. Large amount of evidence indicate that microRNAs (miRNAs) contribute to the tumorigenesis and progression of HCC. Among them, miR-376c-3p was recently identified as a tumor-related miRNA and is up-regulated in HBV-related HCC. But, the clinical significance of miR-376c-3p and its biological function in HCC progression are still unclear. Here, we confirmed that miR-376c-3p expression level in HCC was markedly higher than that in noncancerous tissues. Up-regulation of miR-376c-3p was detected in four different HCC cell lines. High miR-376c-3p expression correlated with poor prognostic features, such as large tumor size and venous infiltration. Follow-up data indicated that high miR-376c-3p level evidently correlated with poor clinical outcomes of HCC patients. Moreover, knockdown of miR-376c-3p repressed HCC cell growth, migration and invasion in vitro. miR-376c-3p overexpression facilitated these malignant behaviors of Bel-7402 cells. Mechanistically, miR-376c-3p posttranscriptionally repressed ARID2 expression by directly interacting with its 3'-UTR. Furthermore, an obvious negative correlation between miR-376c-3p and ARID2 mRNA expression in HCC tissues was confirmed. Notably, miR-376c-3p knockdown suppressed HCC growth and metastasis in nude mice. Gain-of-function experiments showed that ARID2 inhibited cell growth and mobility of Hep3B cells. Subsequently, ARID2 knockdown rescued miR-376c-3p silencing attenuated Hep3B cell proliferation and mobility. Our results suggest that miR-376c-3p exerts an oncogenic role in HCC progression.

Many cities around the world are developed at alluvial fans. With economic and industrial development and increase in population, quality and quantity of groundwater are often damaged by over-exploitation in these areas. In order to realistically assess these groundwater resources and their sustainability, it is vital to understand the recharge sources and hydrogeochemical evolution of groundwater in alluvial fans. In March 2006, groundwater and surface water were sampled for major element analysis and stable isotope (oxygen-18 and deuterium) compositions in Xinxiang, which is located at a complex alluvial fan system composed of a mountainous area, Taihang Mt. alluvial fan and Yellow River alluvial fan. In the Taihang mountainous area, the groundwater was recharged by precipitation and was characterized by Ca–HCO3 type water with depleted δ18O and δD (mean value of −8.8‰ δ18O). Along the flow path from the mountainous area to Taihang Mt. alluvial fan, the groundwater became geochemically complex (Ca–Na–Mg–HCO3–Cl–SO4 type), and heavier δ18O and δD were observed (around −8‰ δ18O). Before the surface water with mean δ18O of −8.7‰ recharged to groundwater, it underwent isotopic enrichment in Taihang Mt. alluvial fan. Chemical mixture and ion exchange are expected to be responsible for the chemical evolution of groundwater in Yellow River alluvial fan. Transferred water from the Yellow River is the main source of the groundwater in the Yellow River alluvial fan in the south of the study area, and stable isotopic compositions of the groundwater (mean value of −8.8‰ δ18O) were similar to those of transferred water (−8.9‰), increasing from the southern boundary of the study area to the distal end of the fan. The groundwater underwent chemical evolution from Ca–HCO3, Na–HCO3, to Na–SO4. A conceptual model, integrating stiff diagrams, is used to describe the spatial variation of recharge sources, chemical evolution, and groundwater flow paths in the complex alluvial fan aquifer system.

A generalized discrete-continuum model is developed to simulate ground water flow in the karst aquifers of North China. The model is a hybrid numerical flow model, which takes into account both quick conduit flow and diffusive fissure flow. The conduit flow is represented by a discrete network model, and the fissure flow is modeled by a continuum approach. The developed model strongly emphasizes the function of the conduits in the flow fields. They control the general drainage pattern, as demonstrated in the simulation of a complex karst aquifer in North China. The model reproduces reasonably well the flow field in response to an unanticipated discharge of ground water from the karst aquifer into an underground mine based on the aquifer parameters that are manually calibrated from a multiple-well pumping test. Sensitivity of the model to the aquifer parameters was evaluated in the context of the case study.

To evaluate the treatment modalities and the prognostic factors of nasal cavity carcinoma.A retrospective study was done on 60 nasal cavity carcinoma patients treated from 1985 to 1992. Thirty-four patients received radiotherapy alone and 26 patients received surgery plus radiotherapy. Kaplan-Meier method was used to evaluate the survival, Log-rank test to assess the difference between these two groups and Cox proportional hazard model by multivariate analysis.The overall 5- and 10-year survival rates were 55.9% and 36.9% respectively. The 5- and 10-year survival rates were 79.0% and 57.9% in patients with early lesions (stage I, II) and 44.1% and 26.0% in patients with advanced lesions (stage III, IV) (P = 0.005). There was no significant difference in the survival rate between radiotherapy alone and radiotherapy plus surgery (P = 0.33). Patients with squamous cell carcinoma had obviously poorer survival rate than patients with adenocarcinoma (P = 0.04). Patients with positive nodes had a lower survival rate compared with negative node patients (P = 0.09).Histological type and clinical stage, but not method of treatment or neck node metastasis, are the important prognostic factors.