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Activated pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) with an increased proliferation and migration ability are the partners in crime with pancreatic cancer cells. Acid-sensing ion channel 1 (ASIC1) is expressed in pancreatic cancer and PSCs, and especially, it mediates the activation of PSCs. However, whether ASIC1 is involved in pancreatic cancer cells-induced biological behavior re-educating of PSCs is unclear. In this study, the change of ASIC1 expression in PSCs and pancreatic cancer Panc-1 cells after in-direct co-culture was detected by western blotting, and the proliferation and migration of PSCs with ASIC1 knockdown under Panc-1 cells-conditioned medium (Panc-1-CM) was assessed. The results showed that pancreatic cancer cells induced ASIC1 overexpression, and the enhanced proliferation and migration of PSCs was weakened by ASIC1 inhibition. In addition, the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) expression in PSCs remained stable, but the phosphorylated ERK (p-ERK) expression in PSCs treated with Panc-1-CM increased, which was suppressed by ASIC1 knockdown. These results indicate that ASIC1 participates in the regulation of PSCs proliferation and migration induced by cancer cells via the ERK pathway, and ASIC1 inhibition may be beneficial to pancreatic cancer treatment.

To explore the impact of H-uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (H-UPPP) in obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) and gain insights into the potential mechanism underlying improvement by H-UPPP.In a cohort of 11 OSAS patients, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models of the upper airway were obtained using commercial software from computed tomography (CT) datasets before and after H-UPPP. Morphological and numerical parameters were respectively computed and compared during the peak tidal inspiratory flow. The correlations among polysomnography endpoints, airway dimensions, and pre- and post-operative airflow properties were analyzed with Spearman's rank correlation.The preoperative minimum cross-sectional area was significantly increased by 89.56% (p .05), with a positive correlation to the apnea hypoapnea index (AHI) (r = 0.974). However, the capacity of all pharyngeal regions was not significantly altered (p .05). Following H-UPPP, we observed a significant increase in pressure and reduction of velocity (p .05) in the previously constricted areas. The change in pressure and velocity were significantly correlated with AHI (r = 0.922 and r = 0.946, respectively). In addition, the pressure drop in the constricted area, oropharynx, and hypopharynx were also significantly decreased (p .05).H-UPPP is capable of expanding the constricted region of the velopharynx and can decrease the airway resistance which will in turn decrease the workload necessary for breathing and facilitate inspiration.

Conservation of natural resources is a vital and challenging task. Numerous animal genetic resources have been effectively conserved worldwide. However, the effectiveness of conservation programmes and the variation information of species have rarely been evaluated. Here, we performed whole-genome and whole-genome bisulfite sequencing of 90 Chinese indigenous chickens, which belonged to the Tibetan, Wenchang and Bian chicken breeds, and have been conserved under different conservation programmes. We observed that low genetic diversity and high DNA methylation variation occurs during ex situ in vivo conservation, while higher genetic diversity and differentiation occurs during in situ conservation. Further analyses revealed that most DNA methylation signatures are unique within ex situ in vivo conservation. Moreover, a high proportion of differentially methylated regions is found in genomic selection regions, suggesting a link between the effects of genomic variation and DNA methylation. Altogether our findings provide valuable information about genetic and DNA methylation variations during different conservation programmes, and hold practical relevance for species conservation.

Background We aimed to identify methylation-driven genes (MDGs) and predict the prognosis of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) based on several cohorts with high-throughput data.Methods The transcriptome profiles, 450K methylated data and corresponding clinical information were extracted from the cancer genome atlas (TCGA) database. MethylMix package was used to screen aberrant methylation events. Next, the Cox regression models were applied via survival package. Functional analysis was mainly performed based on ConsensusPathDB database. Besides, “mimifi” R package were adopted to analyze methylated alterations from three Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets. The predictive efficiency of constructed MDGs signature was assessed and validated in TCGA-KIRC and ICGC-RCC cohort, respectively. Unsupervised clustering analysis was conducted via ConsensusClusterPlus package. Moreover, MDGs-nomogram for OS prediction was conducted via glm and survival packages. Results Totally, we collected We finally identified 761 samples from TCGA-KIRC, ICGC-RCC, GSE61441, GSE105260 and GSE105261. We combined the expression data and 450K methylated data to find 5 hub prognostic MDGs (TAGLN2, PDK2, HHLA2, HOXA2, XAF1). We used the TCGA-KIRC cohort as the training dataset to verify the superior predictive significance of the 5 MDGs signature (AUC = 0.713), and validated it in ICGC-RCC cohort with AUC = 0.769. Kaplan-Meier analysis suggested that patients with high MDGs levels suffered from worse suvival outcomes. Besides, we further conducted the unsupervised clustering analysis in the whole ccRCC patients and identified the sub-cluster with the worst prognosis, indicating the MDGs could be used as efficient molecular classifier for ccRCC. We also identified 32 prognostic risk loci associated with hub MDGs in KIRC. Superior predictive efficiency was found in the MDGs-nomogram [Area Under Curve (AUC) of 3-year: 0.842, AUC of 5-year: 0.862], compared with traditional independent feature such as TNM stage (AUC of 3-year: 0.759, AUC of 5-year: 0.717). The 5 MDGs signature were mainly associated with oxygen metabolism, glycometabolism, even the HIF-1 signaling pathway. Conclusions Collectively, this study indicated several hub-MDGs and explored the prognostic value in ccRCC, which would provide new insights on the exploration of epigenetic pathogenesis and therapeutic targets for ccRCC.

Background The underlying mechanism of pulsatile flushing technique has not been fully elucidated, and the partial understanding of the mechanism has been confined to hydrodynamic simulation, ignoring the dynamic interaction among the catheter, blood vessel, blood stream, and saline. Methods The peripheral intravenous catheter and vein models and their internal flow fields were assessed using a commercial software. The parameters of both fluid and structural mechanics were calculated and compared in the push and pause phase. The effect of different flushing volumes per bolus before each pause (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 mL) were compared, respectively corresponding to group (A, B, C and D). Findings In groups C and D, the wall shear stress value (≥2 Pa) and enhanced shear rates (peaks up to 10,000 s−1) were higher in the vessel wall near the catheter tip, which may be at risk of vascular endothelial injury. Furthermore, extraluminal flushing might be attributed to the recirculation of jet from the catheter outlet. The vortices of all groups faded away in an extremely short period (≤0.1 s) if the push was suddenly discontinued. Finally, overlarge displacement of the catheter tip in groups C and D (0.91 and 1.1 mm, respectively) caused the peripheral intravenous catheters to angle with the venous wall. Interpretation The pulsatile flushing technique can facilitate intra- and extraluminal flushing of peripheral intravenous catheters. Furthermore, an insufficient volume per bolus can lead to inefficient flushing, and an overdose of single push may cause mechanical endothelial injury.

Background The aim of the present study was to explore the efficacy and safety of saxagliptin in a large Chinese population with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods In all, 1423 T2DM patients from 92 research centers, either drug naive or uncontrolled by metformin, were enrolled in this single-arm cohort study; patients were treated with saxagliptin 5 mg once daily for 24 weeks. The primary efficacy endpoint was the change from baseline in HbA1c at 24 weeks in the per-protocol analysis set. Secondary endpoints included the proportion of patients achieving HbA1c

Published reports about polyps of larynx at the ventricular bands are extremely rare. The first symptom of this case presents recurrent hemoptysis. The video laryngoscope demonstrated that a smooth-faced and hyperemic polypoid lesion was found in the anterior part of the right false vocal cord, close to laryngeal surface of epiglottis. Postoperative pathological report revealed that the mass was a vascular polyp.

The aim of the present study was to explore the efficacy and safety of saxagliptin in a large Chinese population with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).In all, 1423 T2DM patients from 92 research centers, either drug naïve or uncontrolled by metformin, were enrolled in this single-arm cohort study; patients were treated with saxagliptin 5 mg once daily for 24 weeks. The primary efficacy endpoint was the change from baseline in HbA1c at 24 weeks in the per-protocol analysis set. Secondary endpoints included the proportion of patients achieving HbA1c7% and changes from baseline in fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and 2-h postprandial plasma glucose (PPG) concentrations at 24 weeks. Safety endpoints included adverse events (AEs) and the incidence of hypoglycemia.Among 1210 patients in the per-protocol analysis set, mean HbA1c, FPG and 2-h PPG decreased by 1.61 ± 0.04%, 0.55 ± 0.07 mmol/L, and 2.83 ± 0.27 mmol/L, respectively, at week 24. The proportion of patients achieving HbA1c7% was 44.1%. No new (previously unreported) AEs occurred. The incidence of serious AEs and hypoglycemia was low (1.8% and 1.2%, respectively). There were no significant differences in efficacy endpoints in subgroup analyses by age, creatinine clearance, body mass index, or treatment background. In elderly patients (≥65 years) and those with mild renal impairment (50 CCr ≤ 80 mL/min), the incidence of AEs was similar to that of the entire study population.Saxagliptin significantly improved glycemic control and was well tolerated in Chinese T2DM patients, including the elderly and patients with mild renal impairment.

Waste paper was incorporated into the preparation of composite of rice straw powder (RSP) and carobxymethylcelluose (CC) in order to solve the problems of difficult mold release, easy break and low strength during the course of preparing RSP/CC composite. A series of whole composite samples were obtained and the effects of ratio of raw materials and hot-pressing time on the performance of composites were studied. Results showed that the tensile strength of composites increased with the increase of CC content when composite were prepared by hot-pressing at 130°C for 10 min. The tensile strength arrived at 4.2 MPa when CC mass content was 44%. Strength at tensile break also increased with the increase of CC content as tensile strength. The maximum arrived at 4.1 MPa. Tensile stretch increases with increasing the CC amount. When mass content of CC was changed from 17% to 64%, the tensile stretch changed from 8.7% to 10.8%. Otherwise tensile strength increased with the increase of hot-pressing time. Introduction Development of environmentally friendly materials is an important investigation content in materials science field because resource deficiency and environmental pollution are hindering the development of human society and economics. Plant straw is good raw materials to prepare environmentally friendly composite. Plant straw includes many kinds and currently the most often used plant straw is crop straw . Liang et al studied the preparation and performance of novel lignocellulosic hybrid particleboard composites with low cost and high performance using the mixture of rice straws and coir fibers . The coir fibers content had a significant negative linear effect on the bending properties and thickness swelling, but a significant positive linear effect on the internal bonding strength due to the lower wax and holocellulose content of coir fiber. Hot-pressing is an appropriate method of preparing straw based composites and is characterized by high production efficiency, simple technological process and low energy consumption. Our research team carried out wide preliminary exploration in the preparation of crop straw based composite by using hot-pressing method. When RSP and CC were used as raw materials to prepare composite, it was found to be difficult to succeed. Causes contained two aspects. One was that the composite had very low strength and it was difficult to obtain complete composite sample. The other was difficult mold release. In order to solve these two problems, the application of WP in RSP/CC composite was studied here. WP is from renewable resource. If all the raw materials of composite come from renewable resources, the composite has completely environmentally friendly property without a doubt. Materials and Methods Materials. WP was obtained from waste general exercise book. RS was obtained from Jiujiang suburbs farmland and was dried in the sun before use. The preparation course of RSP including three procedures: chopping RS into about 1 cm segments, shearing the segments into the mixture of powder and slice and then removing slice by seiving. CC was purchased from Hongda Cellulose company (Heibei, China) and was used as received. Water was obtained from urban water-supplying system. International Conference on Information Sciences, Machinery, Materials and Energy (ICISMME 2015) © 2015. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 95 Dimethicone oil was purchased from Xilong chemical company (Shantou, China) and was used as received. Preparation of RSP/CC/WP Composite. 25 g RSP was weighed into beaker and then 10 mL water was added, followed by stirring for 5 min so that RSP was uniformly moistened. Thereafter, certain amount of CC was weighed and added into moistened RSP, followed by stirring for 5 min. A 125 mm×125 mm×2 mm iron mold was prepared by brushing a layer of dimethicone oil onto the top and bottom surfaces of mold and laying a sheet of WP on bottom surface. Then the mixed raw material was put in the prepared mold, another sheet of WP was laid on mixed raw material, upper mold plate was set and then was hot-pressed on MZ-3012 machine at 10MPa pressure. After cooling to room temperature, the product was taken out to be tested. Measurement of Composite. 2.5 cm wide strips were cut out from products to test tensile performance. Tensile strength and tensile elongation were measured on MZ-2000D.D1 electronic universal testing machine (Mingzhu test machine company, Jiangdu, Jiangsu, China) with tensile speed as 5 mm/min. Square with side length as 4 cm was selected from products and its four vertices were selected as hardness-measurement points. The four vertices were labeled respectively as point 1, 2, 3 and 4 according to hardness-increasing order. Shore hardness was measured with LX-A Shore A type durometer (Mingzhu test machine company, Jiangdu, Jiangsu, China). Results and Discussion The Effect of CC Ammount on the Strength of Composite Materials. A series of RSP/CC/WP composites were prepared by adding different mass of CC and hot-pressing at 130°C for 10 min. The change of tensile strengths with the increase of CC amount was drawn in Fig. 1. It can be seen that tensile strength increases with the increase of CC content. The tensile strength arrived at 4.2 MPa when CC amount was 20g and was 64% higher than that at 5 g CC. In RSP/CC/WP composites, RSP can not bind each other but is bond by CC. With the increase of CC content, more binding points resulted among RSP. RSP/CC/WP composites were easily taken out from mold and composite samples were all whole due to the application of WP. 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 1 2 3 4 Te ns ile st re ng th /M Pa CC mass /g Fig. 1 The tensile strength of composites at different CC amounts. The change of strength at tensile break with the increase of CC amount was drawn in Fig. 2. It can be seen that as tensile strength, strength at tensile break also increases with the increase of CC content. The maximum arrived at 4.1 MPa when CC amount was 20g and was 1.61 times higher than that at 5 g CC. Strength at tensile break fundamentally was less than tensile strength at all CC amounts, which indicating that the composites had a little toughness. With the increase of CC amount the difference of strength at tensile break and tensile strength decreased.

A novel environmentally friendly composite was prepared with short-chopped grass segments (SGS) and starch by hot-pressing method. The effects of ratio of raw materials and hot-pressing temperature on the performance of composites were studied. Results showed that the tensile strength increased with the increase of starch content. When starch content was 50%, the tensile strength of composite was 3.24 times higher than that at 20% starch content. The tensile stretch first increased and then decreased with increasing starch amount. Stretch at maximum tensile force of composites was very near tensile stretch. This indicated that SGS/starch composites have low toughness. The hardness of composites at any starch content showed certain fluctuation and lay between 80 and 92. The tensile strength of composites first increased and then decreased with increasing hot-pressing temperature. When hot-pressing temperature was 140°C, tensile strength arrived at 3.21 MPa. Introduction Plant straw is a kind of important renewable natural resource. It can be used as fuel, building materials, woven materials and paper-making materials etc. But now with the economical and social development, many uses of plant straw disappeared, which resulted in the relative surplus of plant straw. Under this circumstance, a lot of plant straw was burnt in the fields and brought about serious gas pollution and resource waste. So it is imperative to develop novel straw-utilizing methods. Making environmentally friendly materials is such a novel straw-utilizing method. Environmentally friendly materials prepared with plant straw as raw materials have a wide range of uses, for example, preparing packaging materials, furniture and toys. Plant straw includes many kinds and currently the most often used plant straw is crop straw . Liang et al studied the preparation and performance of novel lignocellulosic hybrid particleboard composites with low cost and high performance using the mixture of rice straws and coir fibers . The coir fibers content had a significant negative linear effect on the bending properties and thickness swelling, but a significant positive linear effect on the internal bonding strength due to the lower wax and holocellulose content of coir fiber. Except for crop straw, other plant resource also can be used as raw materials for preparing environmentally friendly composite, for example, wild grass. Grass is also a kind of abundant resource, has good strength and toughness, and can be used as an alternative raw material for crop straw. Studies on preparing composite with grass were less reported. So SGS/Starch Composite was prepared and characterized. Starch is also a renewable resource. The combination of SGS and starch can endow composite with complete degradability and high environmental friendly property. Materials and Methods Materials. Grass was obtained from Jiujiang University’s lawn and was dried in the sun before application and then was cut into about 1.5 cm long segments to prepare SGS. Water was from urban water-supplying system. Dimethicone oil was purchased from Xilong chemical company (Shantou, China) and was used as received. International Conference on Information Sciences, Machinery, Materials and Energy (ICISMME 2015) © 2015. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 91 Preparation of SGS/Starch Composite. Different amounts of SGS were weighed into beaker and then 10 mL water was added, followed by stirring for 5 min so that SGS was uniformly moistened. Thereafter, starch was weighed and added into moistened rice straw, followed by stirring for 5 min. The total mass of SGS and starch was kept as 30 g. A 125 mm×125 mm×2 mm iron mold was prepared by brushing a layer of dimethicone oil onto the top and bottom surfaces of mold. Then the mixed raw material was put in the lower mold, upper mold plate was put on the lower mold and then was hot-pressed on MZ-3012 machine at 10MPa pressure. The mold was taken from hot-pressing machine. After cooling to room temperature, the product was taken out to be tested. Measurement of Composite. Measurements of tensile performances and hardness were carried out as previously reported. Results and Discussion The Effect of Starch Content on the Strength of Composite Materials. A series of SGS/starch composites were prepared at different mass contents of starch. The change of tensile strengths with the increase of starch content was drawn in Fig. 1. It can be seen that tensile strength increases with the increase of starch content. The tensile strength at 50% starch content arrives at 3.01MPa, 3.23 times higher than that at 20% starch content. In SGS/starch composites, SGS can not bind each other but is bond by starch. With the increase of starch content, more binding points resulted among SGS. 20 30 40 50 0 1 2 3 4 Te ns ile st re ng th /M Pa Starch content /% Fig. 1 The tensile strength of composites at different starch contents. 20 30 40 50 0 5 10 15 Te ns ile fr ac tu re st re tch /% Starch content /% Fig. 2 The tensile stretch of composites at different starch contents. The Effect of starch Content on the Stretch of Composite Materials. The changes of tensile stretch and stretch at maximum tensile force with the increase of starch content were drawn

According to the hydrological data of Baiyangdian covering 1956～2000, the parameters representing characteristics, such as delay time and embedding dimension, are calculated through the phase space rebuilding technology C-C method. Chaotic performance of day water level series has been verified on the basis of the maximum Lyapunov index. The prediction of the day water level sequence get satisfying results both in the plentiful period and in the dry period within the predictable time scale by the maximum Lyapunov index model, which make the chaotic prediction become a new thinking for establishing accurate water level prediction model.