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Research into river processes in different climatic and geomorphic areas is vital for a clearer understanding of the non-linear responses of rivers to climate change. The Huaihe River (HHR) Basin, located in China’s North–South Transition Zone (NSTZ), provides an ideal environment in which to explore river responses to climate change within a humid/semi-humid transitional area. Based on optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and 14C dating, combined with sedimentary stratigraphic analyses, we reconstructed the river processes of three sedimentary sequences in the upper HHR since the Late Quaternary. Our results showed that the upper HHR was characterized by aggrading meandering channels from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to 0.5 ka, and an aggrading wandering channel from 0.2 ka to the present. Two periods of downcutting occurred during 5.8–3.0 and 0.5–0.2 ka, respectively. The river incision is potentially linked to changes in the climate during the Mid–Late Holocene transition and the Little Ice Age (LIA). However, there have been no marked changes in channel patterns in the upper HHR since the LGM. This phenomenon reflects the influence of vegetation on channel patterns during climate change. Our results showed that the fluvial processes in different climatic and geomorphic areas are controlled by the local hydroclimatic regime.

In an increasingly digital age, studying how the digital economy affects carbon emissions is important for China’s dual carbon goals. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces and regions in China from 2012 to 2020, the impact of the digital economy on carbon emissions in China and the mechanism of its effect are empirically analyzed. This study reveals that the digital economy has an inverted U-shaped impact on China’s carbon emissions. Initially, it promotes carbon emissions but later inhibits them. The carbon emission reduction effect is more significant after the digital economy reaches the inflection point of the inverted U-shape in the more economically developed regions. Energy structure and energy use efficiency are the two key factors through which the digital economy affects China’s carbon emissions. Among them, the digital economy shows an inverted U-shaped effect on energy structure, which is first positive and then negative, and a positive U-shaped effect on energy use efficiency, which is first negative and then positive. Based on the above findings, this paper suggests that: First, to achieve peak carbon and carbon neutrality, the digital economy needs to be strengthened and the foundations of the digital economy need to be consolidated. Second, the digital transformation of the energy sector should be accelerated, and digitalization should lead to the low-carbon energy transformation. Finally, in the process of developing the digital economy, attention should be paid to the rebound in energy consumption caused by a large number of basic digital facilities, and the low-carbon integration of the digital economy and traditional industries is of great significance in reducing carbon emissions.

Background: Burkitt lymphoma/leukemia (BL/BAL) is the most common lymphoma in children, and the sporadic subtype is dominant in Chinese populations. MYC gene translocations are essential for sporadic BL/BAL (sBL/BAL), but other gene mutations also play important roles in the development of sBL/BAL. Methods: The clinical data of ten Chinese children with sBL/BAL were collected, and next generation sequencing of their tumor tissues was conducted. Cases of BL and diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) were also collected from a database, and bioinformatics analysis was conducted.Results: Nine boys and one girl were enrolled in the study, including six BL patients (stage III) and four BAL patients (stage IV). The average age at diagnosis was 100.10±13.39m; overexpression of CD20 was detectable, and MYC rearrangements were confirmed. The patients received combination treatment of chemotherapy and rituximab. All patients achieved complete remission and survived. Germline causal gene mutations were detected in four (40%) patients by whole-exome sequencing (WES); ID3, BRCA2, ARID1A and SMARCA4 mutations, in addition to MYC mutations, were the most common somatic mutations. The gene functions in etiology were different between the BL and DLBCL datasets. The identified mutated genes were enriched and connected by GO or KEGG pathways, and it seemed that the PI3K-Akt signaling pathway or the EGFR-TKI resistance pathway played important roles in the etiology of sBL/BAL. Conclusion: sBL/BAL is a highly aggressive but curable lymphoma; its etiology and pathology require additional research. The molecular hallmark of sBL/BAL is MYC translocation, whereas additional chromosomal abnormalities and gene mutations also occur and play roles in the progression of the disease. The PI3K-Akt signaling pathway seems to play important roles in the development of sBL/BAL, and sBL/BAL may be inhibited by this signaling pathway. The EGFR-TKI resistance pathway was also analyzed in sBL/BAL patients, revealing that EGFR-TKI treatment is invalid in this disease. Further research is needed for hypothesis development and possible mechanism discovery.

The androgen receptor (AR) has a crucial role in prostate cancer. RNA‑binding protein‑mediated post‑transcriptional regulation is important in the initiation and development of cancer. The present study attempted to elucidate the mutual association of AR and RNA‑binding protein quaking (QKI) in the development of prostate cancer. Dual‑luciferase reporter demonstrated that AR can positively regulate the expression of QKI in prostate cancer cell lines due to its effective transcription regulating function. In addition, QKI may increase expression of AR by heat shock protein 90, which is a coactivator of AR, and silencing QKI can increase the sensitive of Casodex, which is an antagonist of AR in castration‑resistant prostate cancer. This may be a new strategy for advanced prostate cancer.

In this paper, we discuss building an information dissemination model based on individual behavior. We analyze the individual behavior related to information dissemination and the factors that affect the sharing behavior of individuals, and we define and quantify these factors. We consider these factors as characteristic attributes and use a Bayesian classifier to classify individuals. Considering the forwarding delay characteristics of information dissemination, we present a random time generation method that simulates the delay of information dissemination. Given time and other constraints, a user might not look at all the information that his/her friends published. Therefore, this paper proposes an algorithm to predict information visibility, i.e., it estimates the probability that an individual will see the information. Based on the classification of individual behavior and combined with our random time generation and information visibility prediction method, we propose an information dissemination model based on individual behavior. The model can be used to predict the scale and speed of information propagation. We use data sets from Sina Weibo to validate and analyze the prediction methods of the individual behavior and information dissemination model based on individual behavior. A previously proposed information dissemination model provides the foundation for a subsequent study on the evolution of the network and social network analysis. Predicting the scale and speed of information dissemination can also be used for public opinion monitoring.

IEEE 802.11ah is a new wireless LAN technology proposed mainly for IoT (Internet of Things). Operating at frequency band under 1 GHz, 802.11ah WLAN can provide much extended coverage range and support around 8,000 nodes to be associated with a single AP. Such a dense environment may cause hidden terminal problems which can severely degrade the performance of the network. Thus, the 802.11ah standard adopts a group based MAC protocol such that the nodes are divided randomly into several groups and members of a group contend to access channel within their allocated RAWs (Restricted Access Windows). However, the random grouping method cannot solve the hidden terminal problem sufficiently. In this paper, we propose a novel grouping mechanism that groups the nodes by their hidden-terminal relationship: i.e., any two nodes hidden to each other are assigned to different groups, and thus access the channel using different RAWs. Mathematic analysis and simulations show that our proposed scheme remarkably improve the performance of Sub-1 GHz WLAN.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a critical incentive for chronic hepatitis B (CHB), liver cirrhosis (LC), and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Different genotypes and genome mutations of HBV have been found to be related to the progression of these liver diseases. However, their clinical significance is still under debate. The objective of this study was to determine the association of HBV genotypes and hot spot mutations in the reverse transcriptase (RT) and basal core promoter-precore (BCP-PreC) region with HBV-infected diseases in a northwest Chinese population. HBV genotyping and DNA sequencing were performed in samples of 980 patients. Appropriate statistical methods were adopted to assess HBV genetic features and its clinical association. It was found that the prevalent HBV genotype in northwestern Chinese patients was HBV/C (61.33%), followed by HBV/B (36.63%). In RT region, in addition to the reported nucleoside analogue- (NA-) resistance missense mutations, new silent mutations at rt169 and rt180 were found to raise the risk of HCC in patients with HBV/C. And the heterozygous mutation status of rt169/rt180 was associated with the increased risk of both HCC and NA resistance (OR > 1, P<0.01) regardless of HBV genotypes. In BCP-PreC region, multiple mutations and combinations, especially at nt 1762/1764 and nt 1896/1899, were characterized to be the causes of spurious HBeAg negativity and liver function injury, as well as the risk factors for HCC progression (P<0.01). Additionally, a novel mutation at nt1799G>C was likely found to increase the risk of HCC in patients with HBV/B. These findings revealed an association between HBV genotypes and HBV genetic mutations in RT and BCP-PreC region and progression of hepatitis B. It would be helpful for risk evaluation and diagnostic improvement based on these genetic features.

The reported risk susceptibility between phospholipase C epsilon 1 (PLCE1) polymorphisms and esophageal cancer (EC) and gastric cancer (GC) remained inconsistent and controversial, especially on variants other than rs2274223. The relationship between PLCE1 polymorphisms and gene expression is also unclear. Here we conducted a case-control study from northwest China, genotyped seven tag single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in PLCE1 with multiplexed SNP MassARRAY assay. Stratified analysis was carried out and PLCE1 expression was evaluated in specified groups with the method of qRT-PCR and immunohistochemistry. Results showed that the minor alleles of rs3765524, rs2274223, and rs10509670 were associated with increased risk of EC and GC. Linkage disequilibrium analysis revealed protective haplotypes of CCAAGTC and CCAA. By stratification, a more significant association was found in subgroups of male, age ≥ 54, tumor stages of I-II and tumor size ≤ 5 cm, EC and cardia cancer (CC) of stomach, and moderate to well differentiated squamous carcinoma. In addition, a significant association for rs3765524 with noncardia cancer (NCC) and adenocarcinoma which is predominant in China was also observed. Further expression analysis identified that PLCE1 was downregulated in NCC tissues comparing to their adjacent noncancerous tissues, and its protein expression was higher in genotype rs3765524 CT/TT than in rs3765524 CC. In summary, our study suggests that PLCE1 polymorphisms may affect its gene expression and are associated with not only EC and CC, but also, to some extent, NCC risk in this study population.

Ensuring the security of a communication system is the key step of information hiding. With the rapid development of Internet technology and the increasingly complex network environment, more and more secret information needs to be transmitted over the network. Voice over IP (VoIP) is based on the IP network of digital transmission technology, taking voice services in VoIP as a steganographic carrier is one of the important methods for secure transmission of secret information. In this paper, we will start with the communication principle of VoIP streaming media information hiding, and gives the definition of imperceptibility, undetectability, irreducibility, unattackable, and insensitivity of VoIP streaming information hiding, and then analyze the covert communication process of steganography for VoIP. Finally, a security evaluation method based on information hiding of VoIP streaming media is proposed.

Information hiding technology based on IP covert channel is a research hotspot. Although the existing packet ordering IP covert channel can realize data transmission, it is unable to judge the correctness of data transmission due to the lack of data verification. In this paper, a data verification method based on packet ordering IP covert channel is proposed. Two different covert data transmission methods are used for data transmission, and data verification is carried out after the transmission of data is completed. Experiments show that the method proposed in this paper can realize data verification and can use retransmission mechanism to retransmit data after data is different.

We previously reported that hepatitis B virus core protein (HBc) can bind to the Enhancer I (Enh I) domain and can accumulate with transcription coactivator cAMP response element (CRE). This raises the possibility that HBc may interact with CRE/CREB and regulate CRE transcription activation. In this study, we investigated the function and mechanisms of HBc in regulating CRE transcriptional activation using the HepG2 cell line. Our results showed the following: (1) HBc expression significantly increases HBV CRE transcriptional activation; (2) phosphorylation of the serine residues in the arginine-rich domain (ARD) of HBc protein impacts the function of transcriptional activation by the CRE; (3) HBc protein significantly increases HBV CRE transcriptional activation following forskolin treatment; (4) HBc nonspecifically binds to CRE and enhances the binding of the cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) to CRE; and (5) HBc increases the concurrent accumulation of CREB and CBP at the CRE region. HBc activates Enh I through its binding to CRE, increasing the concurrent accumulation of CREB/CBP on CRE, and thus increases CRE transcriptional activation.

Binding Mode Prediction of Azoramide and figure legend of additional file 2. (DOCX 31Â kb)

In order to cope with the rapid development of the Internet of things, IEEE working group has proposed a new wireless network technology, 802.11ah. IEEE 802.11ah operates at sub 1GHz band, and can provide long transmission range, wide coverage, while supporting more than 6,000 of station to be connected. In order to alleviate the high collision probability, 802.11ah MAC protocol involves in the RAW (restricted access window) mechanism combined with grouping mechanism. However, in 802.11ah WLAN (wireless local area network), most of the stations operate at sleep mode, and it is expected that at the start of a BI, the network suffers much higher collision probability than at the latter period of the BI. In order to improve these drawbacks, we propose an adaptive contention window scheme based on which an optimum contention window size is adapted at the start of the BI, and then gradually halved when the transmission completes successfully. Through conducting simulations, we prove that our proposed protocol can enhance the performance of 802.11ah WLAN.

Xiaoying Lei,1,* Ke Li,2,3,* Yan Liu,4,* Zhen Yu Wang,1 Ban Jun Ruan,1 Li Wang,1 An Xiang,1 Daocheng Wu,3 Zifan Lu1 1State Key Laboratory of Cancer Biology, Department of Pharmacogenomics, School of Pharmacy, The Fourth Military Medical University, 2Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Ischemic Cardiovascular Disease, Institute of Basic and Translational Medicine, Xi’an Medical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 3Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Education Ministry, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 4Genetic Engineering Laboratory of PLA, The Eleventh Institute of Academy of Military Medical Sciences of PLA, Changchun, Jilin, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: A combination administration of chemical agents was highlighted to treat tumors. Recently, tumor cell has been found to be different from normal cell in metabolic manner. Most of cancer cells prefer aerobic glycolysis to mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) to satisfy energy and biomass synthesis requirement to survive, grow and proliferate, which provides novel and potential therapeutic targets for chemotherapy. Here, 2-deoxy-d-glucose (2-DG), a potent inhibitor of glucose metabolism, was used to inhibit glycolysis of tumor cells; α-tocopheryl succinate (α-TOS), a water-insoluble vitamin E derivative, was chosen to suppress OXPHOS. Our data demonstrated that the combination treatment of 2-DG and α-TOS could significantly promote the anti-tumor efficiency in vitro compared with administration of the single drug. In order to maximize therapeutic activity and minimize negative side effects, a co-delivery nanocarrier targeting folate receptor (FR) was developed to encapsulate 2-DG and α-TOS simultaneously based on our previous work. Transmission electron microscope, dynamic light scattering method and UV-visible spectrophotometers were used to investigate morphology, size distribution and loading efficiency of the α-TOS-2-DG-loaded and FR-targeted nanoparticles (TDF NPs). The TDF NPs were found to possess a layer-by-layer shape, and the dynamic size was

Sepsis is a life-threatening disease characterized by uncontrolled inflammatory responses upon pathogen infections, especially for the antibiotic-resistant strains, such as Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). Here we demonstrated that a Mitochondria-derived peptide (MOTS-c) could significantly improve the survival rate and decrease bacteria loads in MRSA-challenged mice, accompanied with declined levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-1β, but with increased level of anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10. Moreover this peptide enhanced bactericidal capacity of macrophages. Meanwhile, MOTS-c inhibited the phosphorylation mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK), and enhanced the expression of aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) and signal transducer and activator of transcriptional 3 (STAT3) in macrophages. Overall, MOTS-c plays a beneficial role in curbing the overwhelming inflammatory bursts in the fight against MRSA infection. It may serve as a potential therapeutic agent in sepsis treatment. Highlight.