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Optical metamaterials give birth to the control and regulation of light. However, because of strong energy dissipation and fabrication difficulty in meta-atoms, low-loss isotropic three dimensional negative index metamaterials (NIMs) in the visible spectrum has long been regarded as an extremely challenging. Here, we report an ultralow loss isotropic metamaterials for visible light and its inverse Doppler effect. The ball-thorn-shaped metaclusters with symmetrical structure consisting of the dielectric and its surface dispersed super-thin silver layer was proposed, the surface plasma resonance is formed by discrete silver layer with a thickness of two or three atomic layers. We invented a unique technique for preparing ultralow loss isotropic clusters and three-dimensional large block samples. The negative refractive index and the inverse Doppler effect of green and red light is measured by the prism method for the first time. The discrete super-thin silver layer produced by the photoreduction method greatly reduces the generation of loss and break through noble metal high energy losses of traditional optical frequency metamaterial, the metaclusters unfold bottleneck of the nano-assemble visible light metamaterials, opening a door for disorder assembling ultralow loss isotropic three-dimensional large block NIMs devices of arbitrary shape.

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a type of cancer with a relatively low morbidity, but poor prognosis. Aberrant long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) expression has been observed in the pathological development of CCA. In the present study, lncRNA long intergenic non-protein coding RNA 630 (LINC00630) was found to be significantly upregulated in CCA tissues and cultured cells. LINC00630 expression was positively associated with histological differentiation, TNM stage and lymph node invasion. Short hairpin RNA (sh)-LINC00630 transfection could effectively decrease CCA cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Further investigations found that LINC00630 could interact with microRNA (miR)-199a, which specifically targeted fibroblast growth factor 7 (FGF7) for degradation. FGF7 overexpression restored the sh-LINC00630 transfection-induced decrease in CCA cell proliferation, migration and invasion. In conclusion, LINC00630 significantly promoted CCA cell proliferation, migration and invasion by upregulating FGF7 through miR-199a sponging.

Production of multicarbon (C2+ ) liquid fuels is a challenging task for electrocatalytic CO2 reduction, mainly limited by the stabilization of reaction intermediates and their subsequent C-C couplings. In this work, we report a unique catalyst, the coordinatively unsaturated Cu sites on amorphous CuTi alloy (a-CuTi@Cu) toward electrocatalytic CO2 reduction to multicarbon (C2-4 ) liquid fuels. Remarkably, the electrocatalyst yields ethanol, acetone, and n-butanol as major products with a total C2-4 faradaic efficiency of about 49 % at -0.8 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), which can be maintained for at least 3 months. Theoretical simulations and in situ characterization reveals that subsurface Ti atoms can increase the electron density of surface Cu sites and enhance the adsorption of *CO intermediate, which in turn reduces the energy barriers required for *CO dimerization and trimerization.

Amidst the development of photoelectrochemical (PEC) CO2 conversion toward practical application, the production of high-value chemicals beyond C1 compounds under mild conditions is greatly desired yet challenging. Here, through rational PEC device design by combining Au-loaded and N-doped TiO2 plate nanoarray photoanode with Zn-doped Cu2O dark cathode, efficient conversion of CO2 to CH3COOH has been achieved with an outstanding Faradaic efficiency up to 58.1% (91.5% carbon selectivity) at 0.5 V vs. Ag/AgCl. Temperature programmed desorption and in situ Raman spectra reveal that the Zn-dopant in Cu2O plays multiple roles in selective catalytic CO2 conversion, including local electronic structure manipulation and active site modification, which together promote the formation of intermediate *CH2/*CH3 for C–C coupling. Apart from that, it is also unveiled that the sufficient electron density provided by the Au-loaded and N-doped TiO2 plate nanoarray photoanode plays an equally important role by initiating multi-electron CO2 reduction. This work provides fresh insights into the PEC system design to reach the multi-electron reduction reaction and facilitate the C–C coupling reaction toward high-value multicarbon (C2+) chemical production via CO2 conversion.

Photocatalytic water splitting provides an effective way to prepare hydrogen and oxygen. However, the weak light utilization and sluggish kinetics in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) process substantially retard the photocatalytic efficiency. In this context, modification of the semiconductors to overcome these limits has been the effective strategy for obtaining highly-efficient photocatalytic water oxidation. Here, plasmonic Au has been loaded onto BiVO4 inverse opal (IO) for photocatalytic water oxidation. It is discovered that the IO structure provides higher specific surface area and favors light absorption on BiVO4. In the meantime, the plasmonic Au can simultaneously enhance the light-utilization capability and photogenerated charge carrier utilization ability of the BiVO4 IO. As a result, a high photocurrent density and long photogenerated charge carrier lifetime can be achieved on the optimized Au–BiVO4 IO, thereby obtaining a superior photocatalytic activity with an oxygen production rate of 9.56 μmol g−1 h−1.

Light utilization largely governs the performance of CO

Because the maglev guideway is a vital infrastructure of high-speed maglev train, it is of great significance for the guideway structure to analyze dynamic response and assess structural health of the guideway in research. This paper proposed a model updating method of the high-speed maglev guideway based on wavelet transform(WT) and optimization algorithm, which are used to analyze the dynamic response and assess health. Taking the 600 km/h high-speed maglev test vehicle as the excitation, the field test was carried out on the High-speed Maglev Test Line. The measured dynamic responses of the guideway were obtained, and the measured modal parameters were identified by WT. The finite element(FE) model of guideway was established, considering the elastic boundary conditions and material properties, and the initial modal parameters of the guideway were obtained. Based on the FE model, the response surface model of the guideway was constructed and the objective function of the simulated modal parameters and the measured modal parameters was established. Considering the constraint conditions, the optimal solution of the objective function was found by the optimization algorithm, and the elastic boundary conditions and material properties of the FE model were optimized and updated. The research results indicated that the dynamic response of the updated FE model was highly correlated with the measured dynamic response and proved strongly the effectiveness of the proposed method. A more accurate model updating method for the dynamic response analysis and health assessment of the high-speed maglev guideway was provided by this paper.

MYB proto-oncogene-like 1 (MYBL1) has been reported to be a strong activator of transcription and plays an important role in the development of cancer. However, the precise biological function and molecular mechanism of MYBL1 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells remain unclear. In the present study, we found that the expression of MYBL1 was markedly overexpressed in HCC cell lines and HCC samples, respectively. Moreover, MYBL1 expression positively correlated with tumor progression and inversely correlated with patient survival in 368 human HCC tissue samples. Overexpression of MYBL1 induced, whereas knockdown of MYBL1 reduced, HCC proliferation and metastasis both in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, we demonstrated that HCC patients with high MYBL1 expression had significantly shorter overall and poorer disease-free survival than those with low MYBL1 expression. MYBL1 transcriptionally upregulated TWIST1 expression by directly targeting the TWIST1 promoter. More importantly, the in vitro analysis was consistent with the significant correlation between MYBL1 and TWIST1 expression observed in a large cohort of human HCC specimens. Taken together, our results demonstrate that MYBL1 plays an important role in HCC growth and metastasis and reveal a plausible mechanism for upregulation of TWIST1 in HCC., Graphical Abstract, Corresponding authors and colleagues demonstrate that MYBL1 transcriptionally upregulated TWIST1 expression by directly targeting the TWIST1 promoter and subsequently enhances growth and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma cells, which establish MYBL1 as a potential diagnosis biomarkers and may serve as a putative target for HCC diagnosis and therapy.

Developing high-performance absorbers with a broad absorption band is a considerable challenge. Herein, carbon nanotube-modified Cu

Production of multicarbon (C

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) as new types of endogenous non-coding RNAs have been recently identified important roles in certain types of pathological responses, and in the occurrence and progression of a variety of human malignancies. In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the role of has_circ_0078710, which is back spliced by THBS2 gene in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Expression levels of has_circ_0078710 were tested in both HCC tissue samples and cells using real-time qRT-PCR. Has_circ_0078710 was significantly unregulated in HCC tissues and cells. Moreover, HCC patients with high level of has_circ_0078710 had the advance stage (TNM III-IV). Finally, we constructed an interaction network among circRNA-miRNA-mRNA and we identified miR-31 as the has_circ_0078710-associatedmiRNA. Furthermore, overexpression of has_circ_0078710 in HCC could up-regulate HDAC and CDK2 levels by sponging miR-31, simultaneously mediating the expression of cell cycle components (cyclin A, cyclin D1, CDK4) and negative cell cycle regulator p21. In vitro and in vivo functional studies showed that overexpression of has_circ_0078710 in HepG2, SMMC-7721 cell lines significantly promoted cell proliferation, migration, invasion and tumor growth by inducing the cell cycle progression. In summary, we identified Has_circ_0078710 as a potential HCC biomarker.

Photocatalytic water splitting provides an effective way to prepare hydrogen and oxygen. However, the weak light utilization and sluggish kinetics in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) process substantially retard the photocatalytic efficiency. In this context, modification of the semiconductors to overcome these limits has been the effective strategy for obtaining highly-efficient photocatalytic water oxidation. Here, plasmonic Au has been loaded onto BiVO

Photocatalytic reduction of CO2 into various types of fuels has attracted great interest, and serves as a potential solution to addressing current global warming and energy challenges. In this work, Ag-Cu nanoparticles are densely supported on N-doped TiO2 nanowire through a straightforward nanofabrication approach. The range of light absorption by N-doped TiO2 can be tuned to match the plasmonic band of Ag nanoparticles, which allows synergizing a resonant energy transfer process with the Schottky junction. Meanwhile, Cu nanoparticles can provide active sites for the reduction of CO2 molecules. Remarkably, the performance of photocatalytic CO2 reduction is improved to produce CH4 at a rate of 720 µmol·g−1·h−1 under full-spectrum irradiation.

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting provides a promising and sustainable method to obtain hydrogen fuels for solar energy storage. Photoanode as the core component in such a system has played a pivotal role in determining the solar conversion efficiency. Herein, we report an Au fishnet/Fe2O3/CoAl LDH sandwich structure as the photoanode with the aim of improving its PEC water splitting efficiency and stability. Generally, the optimized sample demonstrates a photocurrent density of 1.5 mA·cm–2 at 1.23 V vs. reverse hydrogen electrode (RHE) in neutral electrolyte, which is ca. 3 times higher than that of pure Fe2O3, with onset potential of 0.5 V vs. the RHE. Such an excellent performance is determined to be attributed to the lowered impedance and prolonged charge carrier lifetime endowed by the synergetic effect of Schottky junction, resonant energy transfer (RET) process and holes trapping. Our finding in this work opens up a new opportunity in photoconversion applications.

Developing high-performance absorbers with a broad absorption band is a considerable challenge. Herein, carbon nanotube-modified Cu0.48Ni0.16Co2.36O4/CuO (C–CuNiCoO) composites were prepared using the one-pot hydrothermal method. The composites show good light scattering ability and longer light path due to their urchin-like structures, and lead to perfect absorption above 90% in optical ranges. Moreover, in the infrared ranges, the composites exhibited a high average mass extinction coefficient of 2.52 m2.g-1. The unique carbon modification favored the balance between impedance and strong loss capacity. Consequently, C–CuNiCoO achieved excellent absorption performance with a reflection loss up to −40.5 dB at 17.1 GHz. This study opens a new pathway for designing and synthesizing wideband absorption materials.

microRNAs (miRNAs) dysregulation is widely involved in cancer progression and contributed to sustained cell proliferation by directly targeting multiple targets. Therefore, better understanding the underlying mechanism of miRNA in carcinogenesis may improve diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for malignancy. In our study, we found that mir-765 is upregulated in both hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell lines and tissues, compared to human normal liver cell line and adjacent non-cancerous tissues, respectively. Overexpression of mir-765 increased HCC cells proliferation and tumorigenicity, whereas inhibition of mir-765 reverses this effect. Furthermore, we demonstrated that INPP4B as a direct target of mir-765 and ectopic expression of mir-765 repressed INPP4B expression, resulting in upregulation of p-AKT, Cyclin D1, and downregulation of p-FOXO3a, p21 expression in HCC. Strikingly, we found that silencing the expression of INPP4B is the essential biological function of miR-765 during HCC cell proliferation. Collectively, our findings reveal that miR-765 is a potential onco-miR that participates in carcinogenesis of human HCC by suppressing INPP4B expression, and might represent a potential therapeutic target for HCC patients.

Utilization of visible and near-infrared light has always been the pursuit of photocatalysis research. In this article, an approach is developed to integrate dual plasmonic nanostructures with TiO2 semiconductor nanosheets for photocatalytic hydrogen production in visible and near-infrared spectral regions. Specifically, the Au nanocubes and nanocages used in this work can harvest visible and near-infrared light, respectively, and generate and inject hot electrons into TiO2 . Meanwhile, Pd nanocubes that can trap the energetic electrons from TiO2 and efficiently participate in the hydrogen evolution reaction are employed as co-catalysts for improved catalytic activity. Enabled by this unique integration design, the hydrogen production rate achieved is dramatically higher than those of its counterpart structures. This work represents a step toward the rational design of semiconductor-metal hybrid structures for broad-spectrum photocatalysis.

The two new 21st-century Chinese re-translations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet , one by Hongyin Wang and the other by Guobin Huang, represent continued efforts by Chinese scholars in studying and translating Shakespeare. Compared with those previous translations, these two have realized fresh achievements in such aspects as use of language with characteristics of the times, employment of new para-textual elements, visual arrangement of verse lines, and new treatment of those literary devices in the original work which usually constitute a major challenge to translators of them. And based on the latest academic research achievements with regard to Hamlet, either of them incorporates its translator’s own research findings. The two translations also show some different features. Their main differences lie in that Wang, who translates mainly for the reader, is more concerned with the overall artistic effect by giving full play to the literary and expressive force of Chinese in characterization and uses naturally used Chinese language in characterization. Also, he lifts his translation in a philosophical connotation and a literary conception. Huang’s version, far more annotated, is rendered for the stage and pays much attention to rhythm-rhyming scheme and image correspondence by concise and accurate Chinese, blending elegant and vulgar features according to the characters’ identity. The two translators have made new contribution to the international Shakespeare studies in general and Hamlet studies in particular.

Wnt signaling pathway plays important roles in the biology of stem cells in maintaining their selfrenewal property. Glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3) inhibitors, the Wnt signaling agonists, maintain the pluripotency of embryonic stem cells. We report here that a synthetic GSK-3 inhibitor, 6- bromoindirubin-30-oxime (BIO), showed opposite effects on the expansion of human primitive hematopoietic cells isolated from umbilical cord blood (UCB). In combination with human c-kit ligand (KL), BIO at low concentration (0.2 mM) enhanced the expansion of UCB CD34+ cells, which was BIO structure and exposure time dependent; however, at high concentration (2 mM) it inhibited the expansion of the cells. Furthermore, hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) were exhausted when the UCB CD34+ cells were exposed to 0.2 mM BIO and KL longer than 2 days. In conclusion, the use of BIO in expansion of UCB HSCs remains a significant challenge. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Background Several studies have found that DDR2 is up-regulated in many tumor types and facilitates tumor progression. However, the role of DDR2 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression and its downstream signaling pathways remain unclear. Methods DDR2 expression was assessed in several cell lines and 112 pairs of HCC and matched adjacent noncancerous liver tissues. Clinical significance of DDR2 in HCC was analyzed. Phosphorylated DDR2 (p-DDR2) expression was detected by immunoblotting to evaluate its correlation with DDR2. The effect of DDR2 on HCC cell migration and invasion were examined. Cycloheximide chase experiments were performed to detect the half-life of SNAIL1. Moreover, DDR2 expression was detected by immunohistochemistry to evaluate its correlation with SNAIL1. The regulatory effect of DDR2 on ERK signaling, SNAIL1, EMT, MT1-MMP and MMP2 was confirmed by immunoblotting. The effect of type I collagen on DDR2/ERK2/SNAIL1 signaling was assessed. Results DDR2 was more highly expressed in HCC than in non-HCC tissues. DDR2 overexpression was correlated with clinicopathological features of poor prognosis. Clinical analysis revealed that DDR2 is an independent prognostic marker for predicting overall survival and disease free survival of HCC patients. Overexpression of DDR2 is associated with p-DDR2 amplification. In vitro studies showed that DDR2 facilitates HCC cell invasion, migration and EMT via activating ERK2 and stabilizing SNAIL1. DDR2 can up-regulate MT1-MMP and MMP2 expression through ERK2/SNAIL1 signaling in HCC. Additionally, collagen I can induce DDR2/ERK2/SNAIL1 signaling activation in HCC cells. Conclusions Our findings suggest that DDR2 plays an important role in promoting HCC cell invasion and migration, and may serve as a novel therapeutic target in HCC.

Several studies have revealed that ACK1 is upregulated in various cancers and promotes tumor progression. However, the role and mechanism of ACK1 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unknown. In this study, the expression of ACK1 was assessed in several cell lines and 150 pairs of HCC and adjacent noncancerous liver tissues. The protein expression of p-ACK1 and WWOX were detected by immunohistochemistry to evaluate their correlation with ACK1. Flow cytometry, caspase 3/7 activity assay, BrdU cell proliferation assay, MTT assay and Transwell assay were used to detect apoptosis, proliferation, invasion and migration of HCC cells. The regulatory effect of ACK1 on WWOX, AKT, p-AKT, MMP2 and MMP9 in HCC cells was confirmed by immuno-blotting. We found that ACK1 was more highly expressed in HCC tissues than in non-HCC tissues, and over-expression of ACK1 was correlated with clinicopathological features of poor prognosis. Clinical analysis demonstrated that ACK1 is an independent prognostic marker for predicting overall survival and disease-free survival of HCC patients. Pearson's correlation coefficient analysis indicated that ACK1 was positively associated with p-ACK1 and was negatively associated with WWOX expression. In vitro studies showed that knockdown of ACK1 promoted HCC cell apoptosis and repressed HCC cells invasion, migration and proliferation. Furthermore, knockdown of ACK1 resulted in upregulation of WWOX and inactivation of AKT signaling. In this study, we also found that knockdown of ACK1 resulted in the downregulation of MMP2 and MMP9 in HCC. Our results indicate that ACK1 is an independent prognostic marker and promotes HCC progression via downregulating WWOX and activating AKT signaling.

A visible negative-index metamaterial was fabricated by adopting a template-assisted and self-assembled electrochemical deposition method. Originating from the inherent characteristic of bottom-up fabrication, it has been demonstrated by the effective medium theory that the metamaterial resonance could realize a negative index at visible wavelengths if the degree of asymmetry is kept in a moderate range. This was experimentally substantiated by fabricating an asymmetric Ag–polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)–Ag multilayer nanostructure with two apertured silver films on the opposite sides of PVA film. The extraction of constitutive parameters shows negative index in the wavelength range from 535 to 565 nm, with a minimum value close to −0.5. Simultaneously, an optically active medium Rhodamine B was incorporated into the PVA layer, which readily changed the transmission peak through control experiments. Finally, the enhanced transmission was realized through a flat sample.

Efficient translation teaching is important to nourishment of translation talents. It is imperative to explore ways of applying Internet resources to translation teaching in order to enhance the performance of teaching the C-E translation course to Chinese EFL majors, and translation experiments can be considered as a way which will probably bring about remarkable teaching results. Through designing and making translation experiment, the teacher-learner interactive relationship will be strengthened, and the learners’ learning initiative on an autonomous basis can be more aroused in developing their C-E translation ability, thus enhancing translation teaching efficiency. The design of the C-E translation experiments should be governed by some principles and oriented to developing the translation competence of the learners by imitating real conditions where professional translators work.

The student-translator’s construal of the original informs his expression in translation, and their construal construction depends partly on various translation aids. Applying the four-dimension construal analysis framework of Cognitive Linguistics to analyzing the relevant experiment results, the study finds that compared with paper dictionaries, internet resources are more helpful in some ways to undergraduate Chinese EFL majors as C-E student-translators in construal of the Chinese original, thus more significant to them. As far as these learner-translators are concerned, the former can be more instrumental for their construal of the original in scope and specificity, reflected particularly in that the former can help them obtain their needed encyclopedic and specialized information to a greater extent. The two different aids do not produce noticeable difference in their prominence choice and their translation of the original expressions which require much creativity. In perspective, though there exists remarkable difference between the two groups of translators, this difference seems to have little to do with the different translation aids. It is also suggested thereby that more pedagogic efforts should be made to develop the learner-translators’ ability to apply translation technology in using internet resources as translation aids for better performance in C-E translation.

An optical refractive index sensor that can be detected by the naked eye is presented in this paper. The sensor is developed based on the theory that metamaterials can completely absorb incident electric and magnetic field near its resonant frequencies. By inserting different mediums in the sensor or by dropping the mediums on the surface of the sensor, we detect the medium with a different refractive index through qualitative and quantitative analysis. The sensor is convenient for the detection of the liquid refractive index.