ZTE Opens North African Manufacturing Center as Part of Expansion Program

ZTE Corporation, China’s largest supplier of telecommunications e-quipment, is to strengthen its position as a market leader in NorthAfrica and the Middle East by opening a manufacturing facility inAlgeria.In an agreement with well-established local company INATEL,ZTE will look to manufacture wireless fixed teiminal and other e-quipment in Algeria. The signing ceremony was held at the Tele-comp exhibition in Algeria and was witnessed by the country’stelecommunications minister, Mr. Amar Tou, and Government offi-

Lenzing Decides on Capacity Expansion Program

The Lenzing Group, world market leader in cellulose fibers, will continue to expand production capacity in 2010 by investing a scheduled EUR 120 million in its European and Asian sites.The projects will be realized over the next two years. The key elements are the

Static response analysis of structures with interval parameters using the second-order Taylor series expansion and the DCA for QB

In this paper, based on the second-order Taylor series expansion and the difference of convex functions algo- rithm for quadratic problems with box constraints （the DCA for QB）, a new method is proposed to solve the static response problem of structures with fairly large uncertainties in interval parameters. Although current methods are effective for solving the static response problem of structures with interval parameters with small uncertainties, these methods may fail to estimate the region of the static response of uncertain structures if the uncertainties in the parameters are fairly large. To resolve this problem, first, the general expression of the static response of structures in terms of structural parameters is derived based on the second-order Taylor series expansion. Then the problem of determining the bounds of the static response of uncertain structures is transformed into a series of quadratic problems with box constraints. These quadratic problems with box constraints can be solved using the DCA approach effectively. The numerical examples are given to illustrate the accuracy and the efficiency of the proposed method when comparing with other existing methods.

DNA-based artificial dendritic cells for in situ cytotoxic T cell stimulation and immunotherapy

In immunotherapy,ex vivo stimulation of T cells requires significant resources and effort.Here,we report artificial dendritic cell-mimicking DNA microflowers(DM)for programming T cell stimulation in situ.To mimic dendritic cells,DNA-based artificial dendritic microflowers were constructed,surface-coated with polydopamine,and further modified with anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 antibodies to yield antibody-modified DM(DM-A).The porous structure of DM-A allowed entrapment of the T cell-stimulating cytokine,ineterleukin-2,yielding interleukin-2-loaded DM-A(DM-AI).For comparison,polystyrene microparticles coated with polydopamine and modified with anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 antibodies(PS-A)were used.Compared to PS-A,DM-AI showed significantly greater contact with T cell surfaces.DM-AI provided the highest ex vivo expansion of cytotoxic T cells.Local injection of DM-AI to tumor tissues induced the recruitment of T cells and expansion of cytotoxic T cells in tumor microenvironments.Unlike the other groups,model animals injected with DM-AI did not exhibit growth of primary tumors.Treatment of mice with DM-AI also protected against growth of a rechallenged distant tumor,and thus prevented tumor recurrence in this model.DM-AI has great potential for programmed stimulation of CD8+T cells.This concept could be broadly extended for the programming of specific T cell stimulation profiles.