Search

In the study, carbon fiber as porous medium, polycarbosilane-xylene solution and air as fluid, the heat and mass transfer in porous media was investigated. CT images of micro pores were obtained by applying Micro-CT technology. Based on the reconstruction model, 3D structure reconstruction was carried out. The surface tension model and contact angle model were introduced to establish the CFD model for simulation, which was verified by experiments. The effects of feed pressure P and liquid viscosity μ on the mass and heat transfer were systematically studied. It was found that under different P, the liquid holdup α, average temperature T and heat Q absorbed by liquid phase increase with time until stable. The larger the P, the smaller the stable values of T and Q. When μ was larger, the breakthrough time was longer, and the time for T and Q to reach stable values was longer.

DNA-binding with one finger (Dof) are plant-specific transcription factors involved in numerous pathways of plant development, such as abiotic stresses responses. Although genome-wide analysis of Dof genes has been performed in many species, but these genes in spinach have not been analyzed yet. We performed a genome-wide analysis and characterization of Dof gene family in spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.). Twenty-two Dof genes were identified and classified into four groups with nine subgroups, which was further corroborated by gene structure and motif analyses. Ka/Ks analysis revealed that SoDofs were subjected to purifying selection. Using cis-acting elements analysis, SoDofs were involved in plant growth and development, plant hormones, and stress responses. Expression profiling demonstrated that SoDofs expressed in leaf and inflorescence, and responded to cold, heat, and drought stresses. SoDof22 expressed the highest level in male flowers and under cold stress. These results provided a genome-wide analysis of SoDof genes, their gender- and tissue-specific expression, and response to abiotic stresses. The knowledge and resources gained from these analyses will benefit spinach improvement.

Aims: Rectification of a slanted continuous concrete box-girder bridge is presented in this paper. Background: Several bridge piers slanted due to uneven ground settlement, inducing excessive width of some expansion joints and oversize sliding displacement of some bridge bearings. The uneven ground settlement occured due to the unbalanced soil load on the ground. Methods: In this project, reverse ground loading was first applied to produce opposite-direction deformation of the bending bridge piles, thereby rectifying the slanted bridge piers rigidly connected to the piles. The procedure was accelerated by constructing several stress release holes on the opposite side of the reverse ground loading. Results: To stabilize foundation and prevent landsides of riverbank, combimationn of jet grouting piles and deep mixed piles was apliied to reinforce foundation soil, providing lateral restraint on the bridge piles as well. Finally, a hydraulic power system was used to reset the bridge piers, girders, and expansion joints. A similar system and additional equipment were used to replace the damaged bridge bearings. Conclusion: The recommended rectification techniques are suitable for rectifying bridges with similar geotechnical conditions and structure types and for replacing damaged bridge bearings.

Medical image has always been a long-term topic in social life, through questionnaires and personal interviews to investigate the role of news reports on the reconstruction of medical image before and after the epidemic. Through the investigation, it can be found that the media has played a certain intermediary role and positive guiding role in the alleviation of doctor-patient relationship and the shaping of medical portrayals; some metaphorical discourse descriptions in news reports can achieve better communication effect; through a variety of reporting forms and attribute agenda settings, the media enriches the foreground image of doctors and indirectly shapes the social image of doctors.

Statins are inhibitors of 3-hydroxy-3-methyl glutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase, which is involved in cholesterol synthesis. The major side effects of statins include muscle- and liver-related toxicity. Muscle toxicity is highly associated with polymorphisms in cytochrome P450 proteins (CYPs), as predicted by pharmacogenomics. However, the mechanisms of hepatotoxicity are not well understood. Due to differences in cholesterol metabolism, statins are well tolerated in mice. In contrast, hamsters exhibit metabolic traits similar to humans and are suitable for studying the hepatotoxicity of statins. We investigated the effect of rosuvastatin (RSV) on liver damage in wild-type (WT) hamsters fed a high-cholesterol diet (HCD) and LDLR knockout (LDLR−/−) hamsters that developed spontaneous hypercholesterolemia. Two cohorts of clinical subjects (clinical registry number: 2017001) taking atorvastatin (ATV) were recruited for direct (assessment of cholesterol intake individually, n = 44) and indirect (celebratory meals/holiday season, n = 1993) examination of dietary cholesterol intake and liver damage, as indicated by elevation of alanine aminotransferase (ALT). RSV at a dose of 10 mg/kg caused fatal liver damage only in HCD-fed WT hamsters, while LDLR−/− hamsters with the same cholesterol levels were resistant to this toxic effect. In the human studies, we observed that the incidence of hepatic toxicity in patients receiving long-term ATV treatment was higher in patients with greater dietary cholesterol intake and in patients who consumed more food during Chinese holidays. Our results propose, for the first time, that dietary cholesterol significantly contributes to statin-related hepatotoxicity, providing valuable insight into the clinical use of statins.

As the nation and various states engage in funding transportation infrastructure improvements to meet future long-distance passenger travel demand, it is imperative to develop effective and practical modeling methods for analysis of long-distance passenger travel. Evaluating national-level infrastructure improvements requires a reliable analysis tool to model the demand for long-distance travel. The national travel demand model presented in this paper implements a person-level tour-based micro-simulation approach for modeling individuals’ long-distance or national activities in the U.S.A. This paper reviews the model framework, explains the model calibration, and presents applications of the model for policy evaluation and demand prediction. The model was estimated using the latest long-distance travel survey in the U.S.A., which is the 1995 American Travel Survey. As the estimation data is old, and no new long-distance travel survey with appropriate sample size is available to re-estimate the model, model calibration is the solution used to update the model and make it capable of capturing up-to-date travel patterns. Calibrating such a large-scale model can be challenging, because each calibration iteration is very costly. This paper describes the calibration effort conducted on the national long-distance micro-simulation model to showcase how a large-scale travel demand model can be calibrated efficiently. A fuel price scenario is analyzed to show how the national travel demand will change under a national fuel price increase scenario in the future year 2040. Another scenario analysis corresponding to construction of high-speed rail (HSR) is conducted to observe the effects of adding a HSR system to the northeast corridor on travel demand from a national perspective.

Individuals who have undergone treatment for oral cancer oftentimes exhibit compensatory behavior in consonant production. This pilot study investigates whether compensatory mechanisms utilized in the production of speech sounds with a given target constriction location vary systematically depending on target manner of articulation. The data reveal that compensatory strategies used to produce target alveolar segments vary systematically as a function of target manner of articulation in subtle yet meaningful ways. When target constriction degree at a particular constriction location cannot be preserved, individuals may leverage their ability to finely modulate constriction degree at multiple constriction locations along the vocal tract.

Background Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have therapeutic potential for multiple ischemic diseases. However, in vitro expansion of MSCs before clinical application leads to metabolic reprogramming from glycolysis to oxidative phosphorylation, drastically impairing their proliferative and therapeutic capacities. This study aimed to define the regulatory effects of Sirtuin 5 (SIRT5) on the proliferative and therapeutic functions of adipose‐derived MSCs (ADMSCs) during in vitro expansion. Methods ADMSCs were isolated from wild‐type (WT) and Sirt5‐knockout (Sirt5−/−) mice. Cell counting assay was used to investigate the proliferative capacities of the ADMSCs. Dihydroethidium and senescence‐associated β‐galactosidase stainings were used to measure intracellular ROS and senescence levels. Mass spectrometry was used to analyze protein succinylation. Oxygen consumption rates and extra cellular acidification rates were measured as indicators of mitochondrial respiration and glycolysis. Metabolic‐related genes expression were verified by quantitative PCR and western blot. Hind limb ischemia mouse model was used to evaluate the therapeutic potentials of WT and Sirt5−/− ADSMCs. Results SIRT5 protein levels were upregulated in ADMCs during in vitro expansion. Sirt5−/− ADMSCs exhibited a higher proliferation rate, delayed senescence, and reduced ROS accumulation. Furthermore, elevated protein succinylation levels were observed in Sirt5−/− ADMSCs, leading to the reduced activity of tricarboxylic acid cycle‐related enzymes and attenuated mitochondrial respiration. Glucose uptake, glycolysis, and pentose phosphate pathway were elevated in Sirt5−/− ADMSCs. Inhibition of succinylation by glycine or re‐expression of Sirt5 reversed the metabolic alterations in Sirt5−/‐ ADMSCs, thus abolishing their enhanced proliferative capacities. In the hind limb ischemia mouse model, SIRT5−/− ADMSCs transplantation enhanced blood flow recovery and angiogenesis compared with WT ADMSCs. Conclusions Our results indicate that SIRT5 deficiency during ADMSC culture expansion leads to reversed metabolic pattern, enhanced proliferative capacities, and improved therapeutic outcomes. These data suggest SIRT5 as a potential target to enhance the functional properties of MSCs for clinical application.

Background: Statins are the inhibitors of HMG-CoA reductase in cholesterol synthesis as widely used lipid-lowering drugs. The major side-effects of statins include muscle- and liver- related toxicity. Muscle-toxicity is highly associated with the polymorphism of CYP predictable by pharmacogenomics. However, the mechanisms of hepatotoxicity is not well understood. Due to the differences in cholesterol metabolism, statins are well tolerated in mice. In contrast, hamsters exhibit metabolic traits close to humans and would be suitable to study hepatotoxicity of statins. Methods: We investigated the effect of statins on liver damage in high cholesterol diet (HCD)-fed wild-type (WT) hamsters, LDLR knockout (LDLR -/- ) hamsters with spontaneous hypercholesterolemia. Two cohorts of clinical subjects (Clinical registry number: 2017001) on statins were recruited for direct (assessment of cholesterol intake individually, n=44) and indirect (party meal times/holiday season, n=1,993) examination of dietary cholesterol intake and liver damage indicated by elevation of ALT. Results: Statins at a dose of 10mg/kg caused fatal liver damage only in HCD-fed WT hamsters, while LDLR -/- hamsters with the same cholesterol levels were resistant to this toxic effect. In human studies, we observed that the incidence of hepatic toxicity in patients with a long-term statin treatment was higher in those who had more dietary cholesterol intake and in those who ate more during a Chinese holiday. Conclusions: Our results for the first time propose a hypothesis that dietary or exogenous, but not endogenous cholesterol, significantly contributes to the statin-related hepatotoxicity, then providing a valuable insight into the clinical use of statins. Funding: This project was supported by NSFC 31520103909 and 91739105 to G.L.; National KeyResearch and Development Program of China (2016YFE0126000), NSFC 81570787 and 81770449 to Y.W. G.L. is a fellow at the Collaborative Innovation Center for Cardiovascular Disease Translational Medicine, Nanjing Medical University. Declaration of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. Ethical Approval: The study protocol was approved by the ethics committee of Shanxi Cardiovascular Hospital (Clinical registry number: 2017001), and the written informed consent was provided by each patient at the time of registration. All experimental procedures were conducted under the guide of Care and Use of Laboratory Animals published by the US National Institutes of Health (No.85Y23, revised 1996) and were approved by the Animal Care Committee of Peking University Health Science Center (LA2010-059)

A rod-shaped, yellow-pigmented, Gram-stain-negative, non-motile and aerobic bacterium, designated 7-3AT, was isolated from soil from King George Island, maritime Antarctica, and subjected to a polyphasic taxonomic study. Growth occurred at 4–37 °C (optimum, 20°C) and at pH 5.0–9.0 (optimum, pH 7.0–8.0). Tolerance to NaCl was up to 4 % (w/v) with optimum growth in the absence of NaCl. The results of phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain 7-3AT represented a member of the family Flavobacteriaceae . Strain 7-3AT showed the highest sequence similarities with Kaistella yonginensis HMD 1043T (96.65 %), Kaistella carnis NCTC 13525T (96.53 %), Kaistella chaponensis DSM 23145T (96.27 %), Kaistella antarctica LMG 24720T (96.13 %) and Kaistella jeonii DSM 17048T (96.06 %). A whole genome-level comparison of 7-3AT with K. jeonii DSM 17048T, K. antarctica LMG 24720T, K. chaponensis DSM 23145T, and Kaistella palustris DSM 21579T revealed average nucleotide identity (ANI) values of 79.03, 82.25, 78.12, and 74.42 %, respectively. The major respiratory isoprenoid quinone was identified as MK-6 and a few ubiquinones Q-10 were identified. In addition, flexirubin-type pigments were absent. The polar lipid profile of 7-3AT was found to contain one phosphatidylethanolamine, six unidentified aminolipids (AL) and two unidentified lipids (L). The G+C content of the genomic DNA was determined to be 34.54 mol%. The main fatty acids were iso-C15 : 0, summed feature 9 (comprising iso-C17 : 1ω9c and/or C16 : 0 10-methyl), anteiso-C15 : 0, iso-C13 : 0 and summed feature 3 (comprising C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c). On the basis of the evidence presented in this study, a novel species of the genus Kaistella , Kaistella flava sp. nov., is proposed, with the type strain 7-3AT (=CCTCC AB 2016141T= KCTC 52492T). Emended descriptions of Kaistella yonginensis , Kaistella jeonii , Kaistella antarctica and Kaistella chaponensis are also given.

Planning and policy analysis at the national, state and inter-regional corridor levels depends on reliable information and forecasts about long-distance travel. Emerging passive data collection technologies such as GPS, smartphones, and social media provide the opportunity for researchers and practitioners to potentially supplement or replace traditional long-distance travel surveys. However, certain important trip information, such as trip purpose, travel mode, and travelers’ socio-demographic characteristics, is missing from passively collected travel data. One promising solution to this data issue is to impute the missing information based on supplementary data (e.g., land use) and advanced statistical or data mining algorithms. This paper develops machine learning methods, including decision tree and meta-learning, to estimate trip purposes for long-distance passenger travel. A passively collected long-distance trip dataset is simulated from the 1995 American Travel Survey for the development and validation of the machine learning methods. The predictive accuracy of the proposed methods is evaluated for several scenarios varying with trip purposes and the extent of data availability as inputs. This research design will provide not only a practically useful approach for long-distance trip purpose imputation, but also generate valuable insights for future long-distance travel surveys. Results show that the accuracy of the trip purpose imputation methods based on all available data decreases from 95 % with two purposes (business and non-business) to 77 % with four purposes (business, personal business, social visit, and leisure). Based on a two-purpose scheme, the predictive accuracy of the imputation algorithms decreases from 95 % when all input data is used (a full-information model), to 72 % with a minimum information model that only utilizes the passively collected data. If traveler’s socio-demographic characteristics are available (possibly through other imputation models), the predictive accuracy only decreases from 95 to 91 %.

An important planning and policy question in the transportation, energy, and environment areas is whether or not air quality control and the associated funding preference and mitigation efforts to attain air quality conformity have indeed led to traveler behavior changes such as reduction in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) or VMT growth rates. In this research, we develop statistical models to analyze the relationship between air quality nonattainment designation and VMT between 1966 and 2004 based on observed data. These models employ different statistical methods, including hypothesis testing and simultaneous equations. Findings from these statistical models and datasets are consistent, and suggest there is a statistically significant negative correlation between nonattainment designation and VMT/VMT growth. For instance, the simultaneous equation model in this research, suggests that if a nonattainment area and an attainment area that are similar in all other aspects (population composition, socio-economics, urbanization, fuel price, vehicle stock, etc.) are compared, the VMT in the nonattainment area will be 1.80% less than that in the attainment area in the short run, and 7.61% less in the long run. While these results show strong statistical evidence that efforts in reducing VMT in nonattainment areas have been successful, future research should be conducted to attribute the VMT reduction effects to specific policy instruments for decision-making (e.g. the Congestion Management and Air Quality Improvement program, the conformity regulation in the transportation planning process, etc.).

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), through its Leadership Initiative for Transportation Solvency, in 2011 released Road to Recovery: Transforming America's Transportation, a report that proposed a new revenue mechanism to fund a reformed transportation program fully. The report recommends that Congress couple a per barrel oil fee with a variable, countercyclical gas tax. This paper discusses the dynamic impacts of CEIP's revenue policy on household travel behavior, revenue generation for the federal trust fund, energy consumption, equity, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and air pollution at the national level from 2008 to 2010. The analysis developed econometric models: a multiple vehicle miles traveled (VMT) regression model and a discrete vehicle ownership model. Model results showed that the CEIP revenue proposal could fill the revenue shortfall regardless of the world oil price. During the historic study period of 2008 to 2010, the CEIP policy would have collected up to more than double the federal revenue. At the same time, households would have increased their VMT by as much as 1.8% when oil prices peaked, and reduced their VMT by up to 8.6% when the crude oil price dropped to the lowest point. It is estimated that, without any investments or revenue recycling, lower-income households would have experienced a 0.45% to 0.5% reduction in consumer surplus changes measured as a percentage of income and higher-income households would have experienced a 0.06% to 0.1% reduction. Finally, it is estimated that the CEIP policy would have reduced air pollution and GHG emissions by an average 4% to 4.35% for different pollutant types.

Properly structured vehicle mileage fee systems may help transportation professionals and officials at all levels address prominent issues such as funding gaps, traffic congestion, and emissions. In theory, vehicles should be assessed a user fee equivalent to the full marginal cost not borne by users. The full marginal cost of auto and truck travel in different time periods on all roadways in Maryland was estimated. The study evaluated the impacts of such marginal-cost vehicle miles traveled (VMT) fees on travel behavior, revenue generation, equity, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions in Maryland and the surrounding states of Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Results showed that with consideration of all driving externalities, the marginal-cost VMT fee for travel in Maryland during peak periods ranged from 0.20 to about 12.16 cents/mi and from 3.91 to about 45.33 cents/mi for cars and trucks, respectively. Compared with existing revenue policy, the marginal-cost VMT fee could reduce overall VMT by 7.65% in the multistate region covered by the quantitative model and by 7.81% just in Maryland. Also, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in Maryland could be reduced by 7.62% to 9.42% by pollutant type. Total revenue generation would increase by about 168% (including fuel taxes and bridge and roadway tolls). In regard to income equity, the middle-income group would be hurt most (largest consumer surplus decrease), while the highest-income group would be hurt least. Results also indicated that the proposed marginal-cost VMT fee in Maryland could affect neighboring states to varying degrees.

With the number of services growing explosively, it has been a serious problem selecting appropriate services for mashup development. In this paper, we come up with a Multi-level Relational Network (MRN) based approach for service recommendation in mashup development, which captures deep relationships among services on top of latent topic, tag and service network. Specifically, by modeling the correlation among services, representing it as a Quadratic Knapsack Problem and solving it using Branch and Bound algorithm, we are able to recommend a package of services, which are complementary and possible to be used together in a mashup. Experiments on a realistic mashup data set have shown its effectiveness.

The vehicle mileage fee is a strong candidate to mitigate the funding gap in surface transportation caused by the declining purchasing power of fuel tax revenue, the emergence of hybrid and electric vehicles, and more restrictive corporate average fuel economy standards. This study computes the vehicle mileage fee on the basis of the marginal cost of travel and internalizes various externalities such as congestion, infrastructure deterioration, pollution emissions, and greenhouse gas emissions. Multiple regression models and discrete choice models are developed on the basis of the 2009 National Household Travel Survey data to analyze the impacts of the proposed marginal-cost vehicle mileage fee on vehicle ownership, fuel efficiency, vehicle miles traveled, energy consumption, emissions, and equity. In addition, the sensitivity of these impacts to exogenous fuel price volatility is estimated quantitatively. Results show that with consideration of all aforementioned externalities, the marginal-cost vehicle mileage fee by vehicle make and model would range from 7.7 to 9.1 cents/mi, which is much higher than the per mile equivalent of the current fuel taxes (about 1.2 cents/mi). Household vehicle use behavior is much more sensitive to the marginal-cost vehicle mileage fee than vehicle ownership decisions, with a significant (27.1%) reduction in vehicle miles traveled, but a minor increase in vehicle fuel efficiency (up to 4.2%). Nevertheless, the marginal-cost vehicle mileage fee can reduce energy consumption and pollution or greenhouse gas emissions by about a fourth. These sustainability benefits are even more significant if fuel prices continue to increase. Without consideration of the benefits from revenue redistribution, lower-income households, as expected, would be hurt more than higher-income households (1.3%).