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Allergic asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease, which involves many cellular and cellular components. Cataract is a condition that affects the transparency of the lens, which the opacity of the lens caused by any innate or acquired factor degrades its transparency or changes in color. Both of them belong to diseases induced by immune disorders or inflammation. We want to confirm the signaling pathways involved in the regulation of asthma and cataract simultaneously, and provide reference for the later related experiments. So we conducted a scoping review of many databases and searched for studies (Academic research published in Wiley, Springer and Bentham from 2000 to 2019) about the possible relationship between asthma and cataract. It was found that during the onset of asthma and cataract, Rho/Rock signaling pathway, Notch signaling pathway, Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, PI3K/AKT signaling pathway, JAK/STAT signaling pathway, MAPK signaling pathway, TGF-β1/Smad signaling pathway and NF-κB signaling pathway are all active, so they may have a certain correlation in pathogenesis. Asthma may be associated with cataract through the eight signaling pathways, causing inflammation or immune imbalance based on allergy that can lead to cataract. According to these studies, we speculated that the three most likely signaling pathways are PI3K/AKT, MAPK and NF-κB signaling pathway.

Agglomeration is one of the main challenges for combustion and gasification of biomass in fluidized beds. Bed agglomeration is related to K species present in biomass. Understanding the role of different types of K species on formation of agglomerates at different conditions can reveal the mechanisms of biomass ash induced agglomeration. Extensive experiments are conducted in a laboratory scale fluidized bed reactor, using mixtures of quartz sand and K species, including KCl, K2SO4 and K2CO3, to study the agglomeration mechanisms. The effects of gas composition, including air, H2– and H2O– containing gas are investigated. The morphology and elemental analyses of the agglomerate samples are examined by SEM/EDS analysis. Thermodynamic equilibrium calculations are performed for verifying the proposed mechanisms. The results show that the role of various forms of potassium salts on agglomeration in fluidized beds is different. Gas composition also has strong impact on the agglomeration tendency. In the air and H2-containing gas, defluidization of KCl in a sand bed is caused by the melt of KCl. However, KCl reacts with SiO2 to form K-silicates in the H2O-containing gas, which results in a lower defluidization temperature. No defluidization is observed for K2SO4 in the presence of oxygen or water. However, K2SO4 decomposes and reacts with SiO2 to form K-silicates, causing defluidization at 850 °C in the H2-containing gas. In the air, H2– or H2O-containing gas, K2CO3 would react with SiO2 to form potassium silicates and KOH may be additionally formed in the H2– and H2O-containing gas. The possible mechanisms of agglomeration of various potassium salts at different conditions are discussed.

IgE/FceRI signal pathway plays a crucial role in triggering allergic reactions, and there is no cross-recognition between IgE and FceRI in human and rats. In order to obtain the hFceRIα/ RBL-2H3 cell line, total RNA was extracted from U937 cells, and the human FceRIα gene was obtained by RT-PCR technology. Then the amplified product was digested and inserted into the pIRES2-EGFP vector. After the plasmid was transfected into the RBL-2H3 cells using lipofectamine, and the RBL-2H3 cell lines of stable expression were screened by G418. The transfection efficiency reached 60.45% with optimizing transfection parameters. The last the expression of hFceRIα was detected by RT-PCR, western blotting and fluorescent microscopy. The present results demonstrated that the pIRES2-EGFP-hFceRIα vector was constructed and a stable cell line of hFceRIα/ RBL-2H3 cells was established successfully. This cell line is promising tools for further research on the pathogenesis and drug development of allergic diseases.

Char and soot characterizationwas performed on samples obtainedfrom pilot-scale entrained flow gasification of coal bio-oil slurry(CBS) and coal/water slurry (CWS) at different operating conditions.The compositions and gasification reactivity of char and soot havebeen investigated to reveal the difference of CBS and CWS slurries.The results show that both char and soot obtained from CBS gasificationcontain alkali and alkaline earth metals which come from the bio-oil.These CBS char and soot alkali-containing samples exhibit higher gasificationreactivity than those from CWS gasification. For CBS gasification,soot has higher gasification reactivity compared with char. The gasificationreactivity may be caused by the catalytic effect of KCl and K2SO4 existing in char and soot. The reactivity ofchar and soot is also influenced by the gasification conditions (suchas H2O/C ratio), and high CO2 gasification reactivityis observed for chars exposed to high H2O/C ratios in theentrained flow reactor.

Allergic asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease and involves many cells and cellular components. Cataract is a condition that affects the transparency of the lens, which the opacity of the lens caused by any innate or acquired factor degrades its transparency or changes in color. During the establishment of asthma model of rats with chicken ovalbumin nebulization, it was found that asthmatic rats were more likely to have monocular or binocular cataract symptoms than normal rats. Considering that they are all induced by immune imbalance, inflammation, etc., there may be some correlation in the mechanism, and many clues showed that both diseases are associated with activation of the PI3K-AKT-mTOR signaling pathway. Therefore, we hypothesized that the PI3K-AKT-mTOR signaling pathway produces inflammatory or immune imbalance based on allergy leading to cataract.

Coal/bio-oil slurry (CBS) is a new partial green fuel for bio-oil utilization. CBS reacts with gasification agents at high temperatures and converts into hydrogen and carbon monoxide. This paper provides a feasibility study for the gasification of CBS in an atmospheric entrained flow reactor for syngas production. Experiments have shown that CBS can be successfully processed and gasified in the entrained flow reactor to produce syngas with almost no tar content and low residual carbon formation. High reactor temperature and steam/carbon ratio is favourable for H 2 production. At 1400 °C with steam/carbon ratio of 5, the syngas components are similar with that in equilibrium. A synergistic effect exists between coal and bio-oil in coal/bio-oil slurry gasification which might be caused by the catalysis effect of alkali metals and alkaline earth metals in bio-oil.

The ash fusion characteristics are important parameters for thermochemical utilization of biomass. In this research, a method for measuring the fusion characteristics of biomass ash by Thermo-mechanical Analyzer, TMA, is described. The typical TMA shrinking ratio curve can be divided into two stages, which are closely related to ash melting behaviors. Several characteristics temperatures based on the TMA curves are used to assess the ash fusion characteristics. A new characteristics temperature, Tm, is proposed to represent the severe melting temperature of biomass ash. The fusion characteristics of six types of biomass ash have been measured by TMA. Compared with standard ash fusibility temperatures (AFT) test, TMA is more suitable for measuring the fusion characteristics of biomass ash. The glassy molten areas of the ash samples are sticky and mainly consist of K-Ca-silicates.

Fluidized beds have been widely applied to gasification and combustion of biomass. During gasification, a high temperature is preferable to increase the carbon conversion and to reduce the undesirable tar. However, the high temperature may lead to a severe agglomeration problem in a fluidized bed. Understanding of the agglomeration in various atmospheres is crucial to optimize the design and operation conditions. This study focuses on the effects of gases on agglomeration tendency with different types of biomass, including corn straw, rice straw, and wheat straw. The biomass ash samples are mixed with quartz sand and fluidized by the gas mixtures of N2/CO2, N2/H2, and N2/steam or by air. At 550 °C, the bed temperature is increased at the rate of 3 °C/min until defluidization occurs. In this way, the defluidization temperature can be determined, which represents the agglomeration tendency. The agglomerates are analyzed by scanning electron microscopy–energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (SEM–EDS) for morph...

The combustion characteristics of Huadian oil shale and its semicoke are comparatively studied using a thermobalance (TB) and a drop-tube furnace (DTF). It is found that the ignition mechanism of oil shale and semicoke is hetero-homogeneous and heterogeneous, respectively. Drop-tube furnace experiments with both oil shale and semicoke show that the carbon (C) conversion proceeds almost simultaneously with the particle burnout, while the hydrogen (H) conversion is faster and that of nitrogen (N) and sulphur (S) slower than the particle burnout. The kinetic behavior of semicoke combustion is analyzed by drop-tube furnace experiments based on the first-order reaction model, and the kinetic model with known pre-exponential factor Aa 26.3 g.cm-2 S-1.atm-1 and apparent active energy E-a (65.8 kJ/mol) is obtained.

Background: Castration-resistant Prostate Cancer (CRPC) is a fatal disease with rapid growth. The malignancy usually presents with metastasis and poor prognosis, and causes 100% mortality. Therefore, the treatment of CRPC is extremely challenging, and its pathogenesis need to be elucidated urgently. Objective: The high throughput sequencing technology was used to sequence the whole exome associated with CRPC, to explore the molecular mechanism of CRPC, and to find the potential therapeutic targets. Methods: We performed whole-exome sequencing of FFPE tissue from 11 Chinese adult male patients. Genomic DNA was fragmented and enriched for whole-exome sequencing using the QiAamp DNA FFPE Tissue KIT, sequenced on an Illumina HiSeq2000 platform, and the relevant genes were analyzed using biological information. Finally, immunohistochemistry method was used to detect the phosphorylation level of LATS1 in CRPC tissues of MST1 mutant and non-mutant patients. Results: We have screened 85 significant mutant genes with relatively high mutation rates of TP53, AR, KMT2, DMAPK1, PIK3R1, SH2B3, WHSC1, KMT2D, MST1 and MAPK1. We first found that MST1 has multiple mutations in CRPC patients, and the MST1 plays an important role in the Hippo pathway. Immunohistochemistry results showed that the phosphorylation level of LATS1 in the mutant patients was significantly lower than that in the non-mutant patients. Conclusion: We speculate that MST1 would be a new potential target for the treatment of CRPC by regulating Hippo signaling pathway. The results provided an important clue to the molecular mechanism of CRPC.

Nucleic acid aptamers have shown a broad application prospect in basic research, clinical diagnosis and treatment, new drug development and various other fields. We have screened the DNA aptamer A1 and A2 target at Ce3-Ce4 with high affinity and specificity, another aptamer A8, no affinity with Ce3-Ce4 protein, was as a negative control in this study. The structures of aptamer A1 and A2 were optimized using the deletion method, complementary sequence method, and point mutation method, to make them perform biological functions better, improve the pertinence of the subsequent modification and study the mechanism of action of aptamers coupled Ce3-Ce4. Additionally, the affinity was detected using competitive ELISA, then the most optimal and minimalist aptamer G39-A1-29C was obtained. The results indicated that the G39-A1-29C can significantly inhibit the IgE-dependent cell degranulation, but no effect in IgE-independent manner, and have a notable therapeutic effect with dose-dependent on PCA experiments in vivo. Moreover, it is found that the aptamer maintains the secondary structure through the fixed sequence, consecutive four GC pairings can significantly increase the binding affinity, and the G base on the loop region of A1 may be the key sites for binding to the domain of the target protein Ce3-Ce4. Therefore, the stem-loop structure of A1 is the structural basis of its binding, too short sequence cannot maintain the secondary structure, so that its affinity is significantly reduced. The results facilitated the modification and chemical synthesis of aptamers in next work, which provided the foundation for the development of new drugs for the treatment of allergy diseases.

Coal bio-oil slurries (CBSs) were prepared by blending coal with bio-oil from the fast pyrolysis, and their apparent viscosities were measured by a rotary viscometer. The influences of coal rank, solid concentration, particle size distribution and temperature on the apparent viscosity and rheological properties of slurries were investigated. Additionally, the grey relational analysis was employed to determine the order of importance of factors affecting the apparent viscosity for different rank coals. Results show that, the CBS exhibits non-Newtonian fluid behavior and can be described by Herschel-Bulkley equation. The main factors for different rank coals affecting apparent viscosity of CBS are inherent moisture and carboxyl groups. The maximum solid concentration of CBS can reach 45-47 wt. % for Shenmu bituminous coal. Appropriate solid particle size distribution and preparation temperature can provide satisfied slurries with low viscosity. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Modification performance of Hypercoal (HPC) extracted from brown coal as an additive on the structure of carbonization products through co-carbonization with two different coals was examined. The dimension and texture changes of products were observed using polarization microscope and scanning electron microscope. The results show that the pore structure of carbonization products from caking coal is improved by adding additive with larger size, however smaller particles and more additive amount are favorable for weakly caking coal. As a good candidate of binding substance with high thermoplasticity, HPC particles were found to have a tendency to be well dispersed and further excellent adhesion between coal particles. Excessive expansion of product from caking coal can be inhibited in appropriate conditions. The number and diameter of pore are reduced and pore walls are thickened by adding HPC. Fluidity and fusibility of weakly caking coal are accelerated by the colloid in additive, which would lead to mechanical properties of products improved. Moreover, more factors affecting the product structure via single-carbonization and co-carbonization were taken into account, including moisture in coal and molding pressure of artifact. Special pore structure is formed in the products owing to moisture, and the influence of molding pressure on products is different with coal properties.

High activity catalyst system of K2CO3 supported on perovskite and its reaction mechanism for carbon materials were studied. It showed higher catalytic activity at lower temperature region than the case using gamma-alumina supporter or K2CO3 alone. And also, the catalyst supported perovskites showed one third smaller of catalyst loss after the reaction than that with the alumina supporter or K2CO3 alone. Catalytic activation of K2CO3 supported LaMn(1-x)CuxO(3) system was considered to be progress by two factors. First, K2CO3 has to be decomposed into K+ and CO32- ions. Second, decomposed K+ ions are activated with oxygen at the lower temperature than K2CO3 activation temperature. On oxide surface of support, K2CO3 was found to exist in partially dissociated form. In addition, perovskites had the active oxygen at the surface. K+ ions were able to be activated with the active oxygen on the surface of perovskites at the low temperature. The releasing temperature of the active oxygen could be controlled by Cu substitution in LaMn(1-x)CuxO(3) system. Using these properties, we synthesized a high activity K2CO3 supported on perovskite catalyst for carbon combustion. Oxygen contents of perovskite could be reduced easily. And also, the reduced state could be re-oxidized to the original oxygen level. This reversible property of oxygen contents of perovskites was considered to be the reason of high recovery of catalyst (K+). (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In order to utilize the LCoS, this paper advances a new patten liquid material which is ferroelectric liquid crystal. It has the characteristics, such as time division-style full-color display, high resolution, low voltage and high speed response. If it is used in the microdisplay, we can attain large area visual display, high open rate and high responding time. The alignment of ferroelectric liquid crystal is very complicated, so we use photo-alignment, rubbing or hybrid-alignment to determine the direction of liquid. Once the liquid layer has been fabricated, we use space parameter method to analyse the liquid layer, and we make sure the detailed optical thickness and pretilted angle.

Based on solution of diffusion equation using finite element numerical method, the excitation light intensity field inside the teeth tissue and the auto-fluorescence distribution on the surface of simplified 3D teeth model excited by uniform light are both presented. The influence of optical parameters such as scattering coefficient, anisotropy coefficient etc. on the fluorescence distribution of teeth surface is analyzed quantitatively. The results indicate that the fluorescence intensity increases with the increment of scattering coefficient of dental enamel and dentine, while decreases with the increment of anisotropy coefficient. Based on the definition of optical parameters, the possible reason is given. The results provide a possible method using fluorescence intensity to detect the early dental caries. Finally, the solution of diffusion equation based on finite element method is verified by Monte Carlo random simulation.

Nitric oxide (NO) is an important signaling molecule with diverse physiological functions in both animal and plant cells. In this work, we isolated the full-length cDNA and genomic DNA sequences of TaNOA-B1 encoding a putative NO associated (NOA) factor in common wheat. Bioinformatic analysis showed that TaNOA-B1 possessed a similar intron/exon structure as its orthologous genes in Arabidopsis and rice. The amino acid sequence deduced from TaNOA-B1 was more than 60% identitical to those of Arabidopsis and rice NOA1 proteins. The primary structure of TaNOA-B1 contained the zinc finger and P-loop GTPase motifs conserved in Arabidopsis and rice NOA1 proteins. There existed at least three NOA gene members in common wheat, which were mapped to homoeologous group six chromosomes 6A, 6B and 6D, respectively. TaNOA-B1 investigated in this work was located on chromosome 6B. The transcripts of TaNOA members were found mainly in leaves. TaNOA-B1-GFP fusion protein may be located in mitochondria. TaNOA transcript level was up-regulated by abscisic acid (ABA) or NaC1 treatments, indicating that TaNOA might be involved in wheat responses to abiotic stresses.

Background Phosphomannomutase (PMM) is an essential enzyme in eukaryotes. However, little is known about PMM gene and function in crop plants. Here, we report molecular evolutionary and biochemical analysis of PMM genes in bread wheat and related Triticeae species. Results Two sets of homoeologous PMM genes (TaPMM-1 and 2) were found in bread wheat, and two corresponding PMM genes were identified in the diploid progenitors of bread wheat and many other diploid Triticeae species. The duplication event yielding PMM-1 and 2 occurred before the radiation of diploid Triticeae genomes. The PMM gene family in wheat and relatives may evolve largely under purifying selection. Among the six TaPMM genes, the transcript levels of PMM-1 members were comparatively high and their recombinant proteins were all enzymatically active. However, PMM-2 homoeologs exhibited lower transcript levels, two of which were also inactive. TaPMM-A1, B1 and D1 were probably the main active isozymes in bread wheat tissues. The three isozymes differed from their counterparts in barley and Brachypodium distachyon in being more tolerant to elevated test temperatures. Conclusion Our work identified the genes encoding PMM isozymes in bread wheat and relatives, uncovered a unique PMM duplication event in diverse Triticeae species, and revealed the main active PMM isozymes in bread wheat tissues. The knowledge obtained here improves the understanding of PMM evolution in eukaryotic organisms, and may facilitate further investigations of PMM function in the temperature adaptability of bread wheat.