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Thirdhand smoke (THS) refers to residual tobacco smoking pollutants that can be adsorbed to indoor surfaces and dust and persist for years after active smoking. THS-related chemicals such as N-nitrosonornicotine (NNN) and 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK) are tobacco-specific lung carcinogens that involved in lung cancer development and progression. In this study, we computed the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between THS and paired control samples. THS-related overexpressed genes (OEs) were overlapped with OEs of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC). Survival analyses of these overlapped genes were performed using LUAD and LUSC data. 6 genes were selected for validation based on their expression levels and prognostic value. Hematological and neurological expressed 1 (HN1) was further selected due to its novelty in LUAD research. The potential roles of HN1 in LUAD were explored in several ways. In summary, HN1 is overexpressed in THS samples and is associated with the prognosis of patients with LUAD. It may promote cancer progression through several pathways and could serve as a potential therapeutic target especially for THS-related LUAD. In-depth mechanistic studies and clinical trials are warranted.

TiO2–NiO composite nanoflakes were in situ grown, followed by electrochemical polymerization of [C4MIM]PF6@PPPy as a fiber coating for solid phase microextraction.

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the most malignant tumors and has an abysmal prognosis, with a 5-year survival rate of only 11%. At present, the main clinical dilemmas in PC are the lack of biomarkers and the unsatisfactory therapeutic effects. The treatments for and outcomes of PC have improved, but remain unsatisfactory. Exosomes are nanosized extracellular vesicles, and an increasing number of studies have found that exosomes play an essential role in tumor pathology. In this review, we describe the process of exosome biogenesis, as well as exosome extraction methods and identification strategies, and we then explain in detail the roles and mechanisms of exosomes in invasion, metastasis, chemoresistance and immunosuppression in PC. Finally, we summarize the clinical applications of exosomes. Our observations indicate that exosomes represent a novel direction in the clinical treatment of PC.

Transposable elements (TEs) are a major determinant of eukaryotic genome size. The collective properties of a genomic TE community reveal the history of TE/host evolutionary dynamics and impact present-day host structure and function, from genome to organism levels. In rare cases, TE community/genome size has greatly expanded in animals, associated with increased cell size and changes to anatomy and physiology. Here, we characterize the TE landscape of the genome and transcriptome in an amphibian with a giant genome — the caecilian Ichthyophis bannanicus, which we show has a genome size of 12.2 Gb. Amphibians are an important model system because the clade includes independent cases of genomic gigantism. The I. bannanicus genome differs compositionally from other giant amphibian genomes, but shares a low rate of ectopic recombination-mediated deletion. We examine TE activity using expression and divergence plots; TEs account for 15% of somatic transcription, and most superfamilies appear active. We quantify TE diversity in the caecilian, as well as other vertebrates with a range of genome sizes, using diversity indices commonly applied in community ecology. We synthesize previous models that integrate TE abundance, diversity, and activity, and test whether the caecilian meets model predictions for genomes with high TE abundance. We propose thorough, consistent characterization of TEs to strengthen future comparative analyses. Such analyses will ultimately be required to reveal whether the divergent TE assemblages found across convergent gigantic genomes reflect fundamental shared features of TE/host genome evolutionary dynamics.

Objective Screening for novel prognostic biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets from colorectal cancer microenvironment. Results 372 genes were overexpressed in colorectal cancer microenvironment, five of which that had the most prognostic powers were enriched in Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition and cell cycle pathways. For the first time, we showed that SMARCD3 was mainly expressed in CAFs and could be a novel prognostic marker and potential therapeutic target. Function analyses indicated that MSARCD3 might promote CAFs activation and colorectal cancer metastasis through SMARCD3-WNT5A/TGF-β-MAPK14-SMARCD3 positive feedback loop. Signaling map of SMARCD3 was constructed and several potential drugs that could regulate SMARCD3 were also presented. Conclusions SMARCD3 is a novel prognostic biomarker and potential therapeutic target of colorectal cancer, which may promote cancer metastasis through activation of CAFs. Methods Colorectal cancer microenvironment related genes were screened based on immune and stromal scores. Function enrichment analyses were performed to show the underlying mechanistic insights of these tumor microenvironment related genes. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was used for evaluating the prognostic power. Gene-Pathway interaction network analysis and cellular heterogeneity analysis of tumor microenvironment were also performed. Gene set enrichment analysis was performed for signal gene pathway analysis. Protein data from The Cancer Genome Atlas were used for validation.

In this paper we consider the convex integral functional $ I := \int _\Omega {\Phi (g_u)\,d\mu } $ in the metric measure space $(X,d,\mu )$, where $X$ is a set, $d$ is a metric, µ is a Borel regular measure satisfying the doubling condition, Ω is a bounded open subset of $X$, $u$ belongs to the Orlicz-Sobolev space $N^{1,\Phi }(\Omega )$, Φ is an N-function satisfying the $\Delta _2$-condition, $g_u$ is the minimal Φ-weak upper gradient of $u$. By improving the corresponding method in the Euclidean space to the metric setting, we establish the local boundedness for minimizers of the convex integral functional under the assumption that $(X,d,\mu )$ satisfies the $(1,1)$-Poincaré inequality. The result of this paper can be applied to the Carnot-Carathéodory space spanned by vector fields satisfying Hörmander's condition.

Amino-MIL-53(Al) nanosheets were synthesized by a hydrothermal reaction and were employed as a fluorescent probe because of their high quantum yield and excellent stability. The amino-MIL-53(Al) na...

In this paper, we establish weighted higher order exponential type inequalities in the geodesic space ( X , d , μ ) {({X,d,\mu})} by proposing an abstract higher order Poincaré inequality. These are also new in the non-weighted case. As applications, we obtain a weighted Trudinger’s theorem in the geodesic setting and weighted higher order exponential type estimates for functions in Folland–Stein type Sobolev spaces defined on stratified Lie groups. A higher order exponential type inequality in a connected homogeneous space is also given.

The goal of this note is to establish non-tangential convergence results for Schrodinger operators along restricted curves. We consider the relationship between the dimension of this kind of approach region and the regularity for the initial data which implies convergence. As a consequence, we obtain an upper bound for p such that the Schrodinger maximal function is bounded from $$H^{s}(\mathbb {R}^{n})$$ to $$L^{p}(\mathbb {R}^{n})$$ for any $$s > \frac{n}{2(n+1)}$$ .

Ionic liquid (IL), 1-dodecyl-3-methylimidazolium-3-hydroxy-2-naphthoate (C12mimHNC) was synthesized and coated on the surface of NiTi as solid phase microextractiom fiber coating for determination the octadecylamine in brine. Prior to modification with IL, the NiTi was hydrothermally treated for in-situ growth of titanium and nickel oxide composite nanosheets (TiO2/NiOCNSs). The TiO2/NiOCNSs fibers coating was oriented around the NiTi substrate and presented double-faced open access sites, which provided a desired support framework for the further modification with IL. The extraction performance of C12mimHNC-TiO2/NiOCNSs fiber coating was evaluated for detection of octadecylamine (ODA) coupled to HPLC with UV detection. As a result, the C12mimHNC-TiO2/NiOCNSs fiber coating illustrated excellent adsorption and extraction capability for ODA. The main factors affected extraction efficiency were optimized. Under the optimized conditions, good linearity was obtained in the range of 1-150 µg/L with correlation coefficients (r2) above 0.985. Limits of detection (LODs) for the developed method was 0.280 µg/L. The proposed method was first applied to extract the ODA in brine samples. Relative recoveries varied from 78.3% to 96.5% at spiking level of 15µg/L and 30 µg/L with the relative standard deviations (RSDs) less than 8.7%.

Transposable elements (TEs) are a major determinant of eukaryotic genome size. The collective properties of a genomic TE community reveal the history of TE/host evolutionary dynamics and impact present-day host structure and function, from genome to organism levels. In rare cases, TE community/genome size has greatly expanded in animals, associated with increased cell size and altered anatomy and physiology. We characterize the TE landscape of the genome and transcriptome in an amphibian with a giant genome — the caecilian Ichthyophis bannanicus, which we show has a genome size of 12.2 Gb. Amphibians are an important model system because the clade includes independent cases of genomic gigantism. The I. bannanicus genome differs compositionally from other giant amphibian genomes, but shares a low rate of ectopic-recombination-mediated deletion. We examine TE activity using expression and divergence plots; TEs account for 15% of somatic transcription, and most superfamilies appear active. We quantify TE diversity in the caecilian, as well as other vertebrates with a range of genome sizes, using diversity indices commonly applied in community ecology. We synthesize previous models integrating TE abundance, diversity, and activity, and we test whether the caecilian meets model predictions for genomes with high TE abundance. We propose thorough, consistent characterization of TEs to strengthen future comparative analyses. Such analyses will ultimately be required to reveal whether the divergent TE assemblages found across convergent gigantic genomes reflect fundamental shared features of TE/host genome evolutionary dynamics.

Silica nanosheets (SiO2NSs) were successfully fabricated on the superelastic nickel-titanium alloy (NiTi) wire as a novel fiber for solid-phase microextraction (SPME). Before sol-gel coating, the NiTi wire was hydrothermally treated in alkaline solution for the in situ growth of NiO/TiO2 nanosheets (NiO/TiO2NSs). The sol-gel coating of SiO2 on the surface of NiO/TiO2NSs template was investigated and a thin shell of SiO2 was found to cover NiO/TiO2NSs, which can enlarge the effective surface area of the SiO2 coating. This SiO2 capped NiO/TiO2NSs coated NiTi (NiTi@NiO/TiO2@SiO2NSs) fiber shows good extraction selectivity for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and enhanced mechanical stability. After the self-assembled modification of SiO2NSs by phenyltrichlorosilane, the NiTi@NiO/TiO2@SiO2NSs@Ph fiber shows higher extraction capability for non-polar PAHs. Thus, the conditions for the extraction of PAHs were investigated and optimized coupled to HPLC with UV detection. Under the optimized conditions, the analytical parameters of the SPME-HPLC methods with the NiTi@NiO/TiO2@SiO2NSs and the NiTi@NiO/TiO2@SiO2NSs@Ph fibers were determined and compared. The SPME-HPLC method with the NiTi@NiO/TiO2@SiO2NSs@Ph fiber was developed for the concentration and the determination of PAHs in environment water samples. The relative recovery of PAHs in real water samples spiked at 5 μg L−1, 10 μg L−1 and 30 μg L−1 ranged from 88.1% to 109%. Furthermore, this fiber is stable due to the chemical bonding between different coatings and NiTi substrates. The fabrication of the NiO/TiO2@SiO2NSs@Ph coating on the NiTi fiber substrate is precisely controllable.

In this paper, we consider the pointwise convergence for a class of generalized Schrodinger operators with suitable perturbations, and convergence rate along curves for a class of generalized Schrodinger operators with polynomial growth. We show that the almost sharp results of pointwise convergence remain valid for a class of generalized Schrodinger operators under small perturbations. As applications, we get the almost sharp pointwise convergence results for Boussinesq operator and Beam operator in R 2 . Moreover, the pointwise convergence results for a class of non-elliptic Schrodinger operators with finite-type perturbations are obtained. Furthermore, we build the relationship between smoothness of the functions and convergence rate along curves for a class of generalized Schrodinger operators with polynomial growth. We show that the convergence rate depends only on the growth condition of the phase function and regularity of the curve. Our result can be applied to a wide class of operators. In particular, pointwise convergence results along curves for a class of generalized Schrodinger operators with non-homogeneous phase functions are obtained and then the convergence rate is established.

A novel solid-phase microextraction (SPME) fiber was fabricated by direct electrodeposition of polyaniline (PANI) coated the titania nanotube arrays in situ grown on the titanium wire followed by carbonization at 500°C under nitrogen atmosphere. The resulting titanium-based fiber with nitrogen-enriched carbonaceous material coated titania nanotubes (N-C/TiO2NTs/Ti) showed better extraction performance for ultraviolet (UV) filters among model aromatic compounds compared with common PANI as well as commercial polydimethylsiloxane and polyacrylate coatings. The influence of various experimental parameters on the extraction efficiency of UV filters were investigated and optimized. The calibration curves were linear from 0.2 to 200μgL-1 for each analyte with correlation coefficients above 0.9980. Limits of detection (LODs) and limits of quantitation (LOQs) ranged from 0.03 to 0.05μgL-1 and from 0.11 to 0.18μgL-1 for UV filters, respectively. Relative standard deviations (RSDs) for single fiber repeatability ranged from 3.3% to 4.1% (n=5) and RSDs for fiber-to-fiber reproducibility (n=3) varied from 5.7% to 7.7%. The proposed method was successfully applied to the preconcentration and determination of target UV filters in river water and wastewater samples with good recoveries from 86.2% to 113%. Moreover this novel Ti-based fiber is mechanically and chemically stable, and can be easily prepared in a highly reproducible manner.

The aim of the present study was to predict and identify B‑cell epitopes for mouse tumor necrosis factor‑α (mTNF‑α). DNAStar and BcePred software were used to predict B‑cell epitopes for mTNF‑α. A predicted eight‑branch multiple antigenic polypeptide (MAP) was synthesized and used to immunize BALB/c mice, combined with a promiscuous helper interleukin‑1β epitope (VQGEESNDK, amino acids 163‑171). The serum titer was measured. The specificity and avidity were determined by western blotting and indirect enzyme‑linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Amino acids 54‑65 (MAP1) and 78‑92 (MAP2) of mTNF‑α were predicted as most likely to be B‑cell epitopes. Dynamic monitoring of antibody concentration demonstrated that MAP1 and MAP2 may induce the production of specific antibodies with a higher antibody level for MAP2. Furthermore, MAP1 and MAP2 were confirmed to induce mTNF‑α‑specific antibodies by western blotting. Indirect ELISA was used to confirm that MAP2 had the highest affinity with commercial anti‑mTNF‑α antibody. Amino acids 54‑65 and 78‑94 of mTNF‑α are B‑cell epitopes, wherein amino acids 78‑94 have the strongest immunogenicity. The present study provides a theoretical basis for further research into the mTNF‑α polypeptide antibody and a B‑cell MAP vaccine.

A novel polyaniline coated titania composite nanotube (TiO2@PANI CNT) array was fabricated on a titanium wire by direct electrochemical oxidation. The effects of acid media, the concentration of aniline monomers and applied voltages on the electropolymerization of aniline were investigated. Surface morphological and compositional analyses revealed that a thin PANI coating was uniformly immobilized onto the TiO2 nanotube array. This TiO2@PANI CNT coating combined the merits of both PANI and TiO2, and thereby has several advantages over that of individual PANI and TiO2 coatings such as improved extraction efficiency for UV filters, enhanced mechanical stability and prolonged service life. Coupled with a high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detector (HPLC-UV), the applicability of the developed fiber was evaluated through extraction of UV filters. The linear range is 0.25–500 μg L−1 with correlation coefficients of 0.9953 to 0.9998. The recoveries varied from 92.6% to 110% and the relative standard deviations for single fiber repeatability and fiber-to-fiber reproducibility were between 4.3% and 5.7% and between 6.9% and 9.3%, respectively. The limits of detection ranged from 0.04 to 0.06 μg L−1. The developed SPME-HPLC-UV method is suitable for sensitive determination of UV filters in environmental water samples.

Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) was hyphenated with electrochemical anodization for the fabrication of phenyl modified mesoporous silica (MPS-Ph) particles onto Nitinol (NiTi) wire as a solid-phase microextraction (SPME) fiber. The anodized NiTi wire offers an ideal conductive fiber substrate with a large available contact surface for subsequent EPD and surface modification of MPS particles. The resulting NiTi-based fiber showed better extraction selectivity and efficiency for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) compared with commercial polydimethylsiloxane and polyacrylate fibers. Under optimized conditions for SPME of PAHs, the proposed method presented wide linear ranges from 0.02 to 500 μg L−1 with correlation coefficients higher than 0.999. The limits of detection ranged from 3.6 ng L−1 to 5.2 ng L−1. Relative standard deviations (RSDs) for single fiber repeatability varied from 4.3% to 5.4% for intra-day and inter-day measurements (n = 5), and RSDs for fiber-to-fiber reproducibility from 6.0% to 6.9% (n = 5). Moreover, the resulting fiber was stable for at least 200 extraction and desorption cycles in SPME and was fabricated in a precisely controllable manner. The proposed method was successfully applied to the selective preconcentration and sensitive determination of target PAHs in river water, rain water and wastewater samples with recoveries from 89.4% to 102%.

A novel flower-like nanostructure was successfully in situ fabricated on the surface of nitinol wire through Fenton’s oxidation for the first time. It was found that the densely immobilized coating on the surface of the nitinol fiber was composed of nickel and titanium oxide nanocomposite (NiO/TiO 2 NC). The NiO/TiO 2 NC coated fiber was used to extract aromatic compounds coupled with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with UV detection and exhibited excellent extraction efficiency for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) with larger delocalized π-system among the studied analytes. Important factors affecting extraction efficiency of PAHs were examined. Under the optimized conditions, the calibration curves were linear in the range from 0.05 to 500 μg L −1 with correlation coefficients of R 2 ≥0.999, and the lowest limit of detection of 0.006 μg L −1 was achieved for benzo[a]pyrene. Furthermore, the intra-day and inter-day precisions for the single fiber varied from 4.69% to 5.97% and from 5.28% to 6.32% for five replicates of PAHs at the spiking level of 50 μg L −1 , respectively. The fiber-to-fiber precision for five fibers prepared in different batches ranged from 6.19% to 8.35%. The developed method was successfully applied to concentration and determination of target PAHs from real environmental water samples. Moreover, this novel nitinol-based fiber exhibited long lifespan. Therefore, the proposed fiber can be used as a promising candidate for a conventional fused silica-based fiber in SPME.

A novel, uniform nanosheet coating was hydrothermally grown in situ on pretreated NiTi alloy wire in an aqueous NaOH solution. The nanosheets were covalently linked to the NiTi substrate and crosslinked. They were radially oriented around the NiTi wire and composed of more titanium oxide than nickel oxide (TiO2/NiO). The TiO2/NiO composite nanosheet (TiO2/NiOCNSs) coating exhibited a porous structure, providing a desirable nanostructured support for subsequent uniform electrodeposition of AuNPs, which greatly improved the available surface area. The extraction performance of the AuNPs modified TiO2/NiOCNSs coated NiTi fiber was evaluated using aromatic compounds as model analytes and was coupled to HPLC with UV detection. The results obtained indicated that the novel fiber exhibited excellent extraction efficiency and good selectivity for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The main experimental factors for PAHs extraction were optimized. Under the optimized conditions, good linearity was obtained in the range of 0.05–350 μg L−1 with correlation coefficients greater than 0.998. The limits of detection for the developed method ranged from 0.012 μg L−1 to 0.053 μg L−1. The single fiber repeatability and fiber-to-fiber reproducibility were less than 6.05% and 7.19%, respectively. The developed method was successfully applied to the selective concentration and sensitive determination of trace PAHs in different environmental water samples. Relative recoveries varied from 86.3% to 104% at spiking levels of 7 μg L−1 and 30 μg L−1 with relative standard deviations in the range of 4.4–7.5%. Furthermore, the novel fiber could be fabricated in a highly reproducible manner, and had a high stability and long life span.

Uniform and dense ZnO nanosheets (ZnONSs) as a solid-phase microextraction (SPME) fiber coating were fabricated on the surface of nickel and titanium oxide composite nanosheets (NiO/TiO 2 CNSs) which were in situ grown on the Nitinol (NiTi) wire in a hydrothermal procedure. The SEM micrographs illustrate that ZnONSs with the average thickness of 50 nm have been electrochemically grown on the NiTi fibers. The interconnected ZnONSs coating presents a porous nanostructure with large surface area. The as-fabricated fiber exhibits high extraction capability and excellent extraction selectivity for ultraviolet (UV) filters among the selected aromatic compounds. The main parameters affecting extraction performance were examined and optimized. Under the optimized conditions, the calibration curves were linear from 0.05 to 500 ng mL −1 with correlation coefficients above 0.999. The limits of detection (S/N = 3) ranged from 0.011 to 0.042 ng mL −1 , while the limits of quanitification (S/N = 10) were in the range of 0.037–0.14 ng mL −1 . Relative standard deviations (RSDs) for the single fiber repeatability were less than 7.4% (n = 5) and RSDs for the fiber-to-fiber reproducibility were below 8.2% (n = 5). The proposed method was successfully applied to the proconcentraction and determination of trace UV filters in real water samples. Moreover, the ZnONSs coating can be fabricated in highly reproducible manner with long durability.

ZnO nanoflakes (ZnONFs) were electrochemically grown on a nickel-titanium alloy (NiTi) wire for use in solid-phase microextraction. Prior to the growth of ZnONFs, the NiTi wire was hydrothermally treated for in-situ growth of TiO2/NiO nanoflakes as a seeding base. The applied potential was used to control the dimensions of vertically oriented hexagonal ZnONFs. After annealing at 600 °C, the resulting fiber display fairly selective affinity for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The fibers were applied to the preconcentration of PCBs which then were quantified by HPLC with UV detection. Compared to commercial polydimethylsiloxane coatings, the new coating displays high extraction capability, rapid extraction kinetics and superior cycling stability. This is assumed to be due to its high surface-to-volume ratio, double-sided open access structure, and enhanced structural stability. The assay excels by (a) a wide analytical range (0.10 to 200 μg L−1 of PCBs), (b) low limits of detection (20–17 ng L−1), and (c) low standard deviations for the single fiber repeatability (

The rapidly increasing scale of data warehouses is challenging today's data analytical technologies. A conventional data analytical platform processes data warehouse queries using a star schema -- it normalizes the data into a fact table and a number of dimension tables, and during query processing it selectively joins the tables according to users' demands. This model is space economical. However, it faces two problems when applied to big data. First, join is an expensive operation, which prohibits a parallel database or a MapReduce-based system from achieving efficiency and scalability simultaneously. Second, join operations have to be executed repeatedly, while numerous join results can actually be reused by different queries. In this paper, we propose a new query processing framework for data warehouses. It pushes the join operations partially to the pre-processing phase and partially to the post-processing phase, so that data warehouse queries can be transformed into massive parallelized filter-aggregation operations on the fact table. In contrast to the conventional query processing models, our approach is efficient, scalable and stable despite of the large number of tables involved in the join. It is especially suitable for a large-scale parallel data warehouse. Our empirical evaluation on Hadoop shows that our framework exhibits linear scalability and outperforms some existing approaches by an order of magnitude.

MapReduce is a popular framework for large-scale data analysis. As data access is critical for MapReduce's performance, some recent work has applied different storage models, such as column-store or PAX-store, to MapReduce platforms. However, the data access patterns of different queries are very different. No storage model is able to achieve the optimal performance alone. In this paper, we study how MapReduce can benefit from the presence of two different column-store models -- pure column-store and PAX-store. We propose a hybrid storage system called hybrid columnstore (HC-store). Based on the characteristics of the incoming MapReduce tasks, our storage model can determine whether to access the underlying pure column-store or PAX-store. We studied the properties of the different storage models and create a cost model to decide the data access strategy at runtime. We have implemented HC-store on top of Hadoop. Our experimental results show that HC-store is able to outperform PAX-store and column-store, especially when confronted with diverse workload.

A new strategy for the immobilization of phenyl-functionalized silica nanoparticles onto nickel-titanium alloy wires is presented. The homogeneous and compact silica nanoparticle coating was achieved on the hydrothermally treated nickel-titanium wires with large surface area by electrophoretic deposition, and followed by self-assembled modification of phenyltrichlorosilane. Coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection, the extraction performance of the fabricated fiber was evaluated using typical aromatic compounds in direct-immersion mode of solid-phase microextraction. Due to its high extraction efficiency and good selectivity for ultraviolet filters, the novel fiber was employed to investigate the key factors affecting the extraction of ultraviolet filters. Under the optimized conditions, the proposed method presented linear ranges from 0.05 to 300 μg/L with correlation coefficients higher than 0.999 and limits of detection from 0.005 to 0.058 μg/L. Relative standard deviations were below 4.3 and 5.6% for intraday and interday analyses at the spiking level of 50 μg/L ultraviolet filters with the single fiber, respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied to the selective concentration and sensitive detection of target ultraviolet filters from environmental water samples. Furthermore, the developed fiber can be used at least 200 times, and fabricated in a precisely controllable manner.

The aim of this study was to predict and characterize a novel HLA-A2-restricted T-cell epitope of the human heparanase (HPSE) protein, as well as to evaluate its antitumor immunological effects in vitro with an 8-branched multiple antigenic peptide (MAP) design. The amino acid sequence of HPSE was scanned, and the cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes were predicted using HLA-A2-restricted epitope-predictive algorithms based on supermotif and quantitative motif methods. The affinity of candidate peptides to HLA-A2 was evaluated using peptide-binding assay, by virtue of the characteristics of T2 cells. The MAPs consisting of the selected peptides were synthesized using an 8-branched design. The specific CTL-inducing ability of the MAPs was assessed by LDH release assay, and the CTL activity was evaluated by INF-γ ELISPOT assay. Among the predicted nonapeptides, the FLNPDVLDI peptide of HPSE showed the highest affinity to the HLA-A2 molecule. The 8-branched MAP comprising FLNPDVLDI induced specific CTLs for human HPSE in vitro, which effectively secreted IFN-γ and potently lysed HCC97-H human hepatocarcinoma cells and SW-480 human colonic carcinoma cells. The nonapeptide FLNPDVLDI of human HPSE appears to be a novel HLA-A2-restricted CTL epitope, and its 8-branch designed MAP is capable of inducing a potent HPSE-specific CTL response against tumor cells in vitro. Our study provides theoretical evidence for the peptide-based antitumor immunotherapy.

A novel titanium and nickel oxide composite nanosheets (TiO2/NiOCNSs) coating was in situ grown on a Nitinol (NiTi) wire by direct hydrothermal treatment and modified by self-assembly of trichlorophenylsilane for solid phase microextraction (SPME). TiO2/NiOCNSs were radially oriented and chemically bonded to the NiTi substrate with double-faced open access sites. Moreover the phenyl modified TiO2/NiOCNSs (TiO2/NiOCNSs-Ph) coating exhibited original surface supporting framework favorable for effective SPME. The extraction performance of TiO2/NiOCNSs-Ph coated NiTi (NiTi-TiO2/NiOCNSs-Ph) fiber was investigated for the concentration and detection of ultraviolet (UV) filters, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), phthalate acid esters and polychlorinated biphenyls coupled to HPLC with UV detection. The novel fiber exhibited better selectivity for UV filters and PAHs and presented greater extraction capability compared to commercial polydimethylsiloxane and polyacrylate fibers. Under the optimized conditions for SPME of UV filters, the proposed method presented linear ranges from 0.1 to 300 μg/L with correlation coefficients of higher than 0.999 and limits of detection from 0.030 μg/L to 0.064 μg/L. Relative standard deviations (RSDs) were below 7.16% and 8.42% for intra-day and inter-day measurements with the single fiber, respectively. Furthermore RSDs for fiber-to-fiber reproducibility from 6.57% to 8.93% were achieved. The NiTi-TiO2/NiOCNSs-Ph fiber can be used up to 200 times. The proposed method was successfully applied to the preconcentration and determination of trace target UV filters in different environmental water samples. The relative recoveries from 87.3% to 104% were obtained with RSDs less than 8.7%.

An oriented titanium-nickel oxide composite nanotubes coating was in situ grown on a nitinol wire by direct electrochemical anodization in ethylene glycol with ammonium fluoride and water for the first time. The morphology and composition of the resulting coating showed that the anodized nitinol wire provided a titania-rich coating. The titanium-nickel oxide composite nanotubes coated fiber was used for solid-phase microextraction of different aromatic compounds coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography with UV detection. The titanium-nickel oxide composite nanotubes coating exhibited high extraction capability, good selectivity, and rapid mass transfer for weakly polar UV filters. Thereafter the important parameters affecting extraction efficiency were investigated for solid-phase microextraction of UV filters. Under the optimized conditions, the calibration curves were linear in the range of 0.1-300 μg/L for target UV filters with limits of detection of 0.019-0.082 μg/L. The intraday and interday precision of the proposed method with the single fiber were 5.3-7.2 and 5.9-7.9%, respectively, and the fiber-to-fiber reproducibility ranged from 6.3 to 8.9% for four fibers fabricated in different batches. Finally, its applicability was evaluated by the extraction and determination of target UV filters in environmental water samples.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the anti‑growth effect of the self‑designed multiple antigenic polypeptide (MAP) vaccine comprising B‑cell epitopes of heparanase (HPSE) on HCC97‑H hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in mice. The polyclonal antibodies against the B‑cell epitopes of HPSE were prepared by immunizing rabbits with freshly synthesized MAP vaccine. HCC‑bearing models were constructed on BALB/c nude mice. Anti‑MAP antibodies were administrered to the models to assess the effects on HPSE activity, HCC growth, the expression of VEGF/bFGF and the value of micro‑vessel density (MVD). The anti‑MAP antibodies were harvested, purified and identified. These antibodies were able to specifically bind with the dominant epitopes of the precursor protein and large subunit monomer of HPSE, decrease HPSE activity, suppress the expressions of VEGF and bFGF, reduce the MVD, and markedly shrink the HCC volume. Based on these findings, MAP vaccine based on the B‑cell epitopes of HPSE seemed to provide theoretical evidence for further study of the synthesized HPSE MAP vaccine in the treatment of HCC.

MapReduce has shown vigorous vitality and penetrated both academia and industry in recent years. MapReduce not only can be used as an ETL tool, it can do even much more. The technique has been applied to SQL summation, OLAP, data mining, machine learning, information retrieval, multimedia data processing, science data processing etc. Basically MapReduce is a general purpose parallel computing framework for large dataset processing. A big data analytics ecosystem built around MapReduce is emerging alongside the traditional one built around RDBMS. The objectives of RDBMS and MapReduce, as well as the ecosystems built around them, overlap much really, in some sense they do the same thing and MapReduce can accomplish more works, such as graph processing, which RDBMS can not handle well. RBDMS enjoys high performance of relational data processing, which MapReduce needs to catch up. The authors envision that the two techniques are fusing into a unified system for big data analytics. With the ongoing endeavor to build up the system, much of the groundwork has been laid while some critical issues are still unresolved, we try to identify some of them. Two of our works as well as experiment results are presented, one is applying a hierarchical encoding to star schema data in Hadoop for high performance of OLAP processing, another is leveraging the natural three copies of HDFS blocks to exploit different data layouts to speed up queries in a OLAP workload, a cost model is used to route user queries to different data layouts.

In algorithm trading, computer algorithms are used to make the decision on the time, quantity, and direction of operations (buy, sell, or hold) automatically. To create a useful algorithm, the parameters of the algorithm should be optimized based on historical data. However, Parameter optimization is a time consuming task, due to the large search space. We propose to search the parameter combination space using the MapReduce framework, with the expectation that runtime of optimization be cut down by leveraging the parallel processing capability of MapReduce. This paper presents the details of our method and some experiment results to demonstrate its efficiency. We also show that a rule based strategy after being optimized performs better in terms of stability than the one whose parameters are arbitrarily preset, while making a comparable profit.

Big data analysis is a main challenge we meet recently. Cloud computing is attracting more and more big data analysis applications, due to its well scalability and fault-tolerance. Some aggregation functions, like SUM, can be computed in parallel, because they satisfy distributive law of addition. Unfortunately, some of statistical functions are not naturally parallelizable. That means they do not satisfy distributive law of addition. In this paper, we focus on percentile computing problem. We proposed an iterative-style prediction-based parallel algorithm in a distributed system. Prediction is done through a sampling technique. Experiment results verify the efficiency of our algorithm.

Operating on computer clusters, parallel databases enjoy enhanced performance. However, the scalability of a parallel database is limited by a number of factors. Although MapReduce-based systems are highly scalable, their performance is not satisfactory for data intensive applications. In this paper, we explore the feasibility of building a data warehouse that incorporates the best features from both technologies - the efficiency of parallel database and the scalability and fault tolerance of MapReduce. Towards this target, we design a prototype system called LinearDB. LinearDB organizes data in a decomposed snowflake schema and adopts three operations - transform, reduce and merge - to accomplish query processing. All these techniques are specially designed for the cluster environment. Our experimental results show that its scalability matches MapReduce and its performance is up to 3 times as good as that of PostgreSQL.