Overexpression of metastasis-associated in colon cancer 1 predicts a poor outcome of hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma

AIM: To investigate the intratumoral expression of metastasis-associated in colon cancer 1 (MACC1) and c-Met and determine their clinical values associated with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). METHODS: A retrospective study admitted three hundred fifty-four patients with HBV-related HCC. The expression and distribution of MACC1 and c-Met were assessed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemistry staining. Prognostic factors influencing survival, metastasis and recurrence were assessed. RESULTS: Intratumoral MACC1 level was found to be associated with HCC disease progression. Both median tumor-free survival (TFS) and overall survival (OS) were significantly shorter in the postoperative HCC patients with high intratumoral MACC1 expression, as compared to those with low intratumoral MACC1 levels (TFS: 34 mo vs 48.0 mo, P < 0.001; OS: 40 mo vs 48 mo, P < 0.01). Multivariable analysis indicated that high MACC1 expression or co-expression with c-Met were independent predictors for HCC clinic outcome (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: High intratumoral MACC1 expression can be associated with enhanced tumor progression and poor outcome of HBV-related HCC. MACC1 may serve as a prognostic biomarker for postoperative HCC.

Fabrication of TiO_2(B)/anatase heterophase junctions in nanowires via a surface-preferred phase transformation process for enhanced photocatalytic activity

Heterojunction fabrication is one of the most effective strategies for enhancing the photocatalytic performance of semiconductor photocatalysts. Here, TiO2（B）/anatase nanowires with interfacial heterostructures were prepared through a three-step synthesis method, including hydrothermal treatment, H＋ exchange, and annealing. The phase structures of the nanowires in the bulk and on the surface during the annealing process were monitored by XRD and UV-Raman spectroscopy, respectively. SEM and TEM results indicate that the TiO2（B） nanowires partially collapse and transform into anatase during the annealing process and the heterophase junction structure is formed simultaneously. On the basis of the phase structure together with morphology data, a phase-transformation mechanism was proposed. Photocatalytic activity was evaluated by hydrogen production and pollutant-degradation assays. The optimized structure of the photocatalyst contains 24% TiO2（B） in the bulk and 100% anatase on the surface. The charge-carrier behavior during the photocatalytic process was investigated by photocurrent, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy（EIS）, and photoluminescence（PL） spectroscopy, which revealed that the heterophase-junction structure in the bulk was responsible for the highly efficient charge separation and transportation, etc.; the anatase on the surface took control of the high surface-reaction activity.

A Coupled Analysis of Nonlinear Sloshing and Ship Motion

Nonlinear interactions among incident wave, tank-sloshing and floating body coupling motion are investigated. The fully nonlinear sloshing and body-surface nonlinear free surface hydrodynamics is simulated using a Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline （NURBS） higher-order panel method in time domain based on the potential theory. A robust and stable improved iterative procedure （Yan and Ma, 2007） for floating bodies is used for calculating the time derivative of velocity potential and floating body motion. An energy dissipation condition based on linear theory adopted by Huang （2011） is developed to consider flow viscosity effects of sloshing flow in nonlinear model. A two-dimensional tank model test was performed to identify its validity. The present nonlinear coupling sway motion results are subsequently compared with the corresponding Rognebakke and Faltinsen （2003）＇s experimental results, showing fair agreement. Thus, the numerical approach presented in this paper is expected to be very efficient and realistic in evaluating the coupling effects of nonlinear sloshing and body motion.

COMPATIBILITY OF POLY (STYRENE-B-2-VINYL PYRIDINE)/IONOMER BLENDS BASED ON ION-LIGAND INTERACTION

In this work, DSC and SEM studies indicate that ion-ligand interaction can be utilized to enhance the interaction of poly (styrene-block-2-vinyl pyridine)[P (S-b-2VP)] and polyethylene based ionomer (Surlyn). The compatibility for this blending system can be improved by this special interaction and 20/80 wt is the optimum blending composition with good compatibility. FTIR results further certify that strong interactions exist in the blending system.

A Comparative Study of f_B within QCD Sum Rules with Two Typical Correlators up to Next-to-Leading Order

The B-meson decay constant fB is an important component for studying the B-meson decays, which can be studied through QCD sum rules. We make a detailed discussion on f B from two sum rules up to next-to- leading order, i.e. sum rules I and II, which are derived from the conventional correlator and the correlator with chiral currents respectively. It is found that these two sum rules are consistent with each other. The sum rules H involves less non-perturbative condensates as that of sum rules I, and in principle, it can be more accurate if we know the dimensionfour gluon condensate well. It is found that fB decreases with the increment of mb, and to compare with the Belle experimental data on fB, both sum rules I and H prefer smaller pole b-quark mass, mb= 4.68 ± 0.07 GeV. By varying all the input parameters within their reasonable regions and by adding all the uncertainties in quadrature, we obtain fB=172-25^＋23 MeV for sum rules I and fB =214-34^26 MeV for sum rules П.

Statistics and Correlation Properties of Diamagnetic High Rydberg Hydrogen Atom

The spectra of Rydberg hydrogen atom in magnetic fields have been calculated using linear variational method with B-splines basis functions [Acta Phys. Sin. 55 （2006） 3380]. Based on these calculations we have done some statistics analysis about the high Rydberg energy levels. The nearest-neighbor energy spacing distribution and the 3-statistics have been shown about diamagnetic Rydberg hydrogen atom with the magnetic field being 0.6 T and 6 T. The phenomena of multiply crossing, multiply anti-crossing, and the mixed of crossing and anti-crossing of energy levels have appeared in this paper. For both cases, in range of lower energy, the energy 1evel statistics properties close to Poisson distribution. With the increasing of the energy, the energy level statistics properties are away to Poisson distribution and tend to Wigner distribution step by step.

汽车用新型Al-0.93Mg-0.78Si-0.20Cu-3.00Zn合金的制备及其时效析出行为研究

通过DSC,OM,SEM,TEM观察及拉伸测试等手段对新开发的汽车用新型Al-0.93Mg-0.78Si-0.20Cu-0.30Mn-0.40Fe-3.00Zn(质量分数,%)合金的时效析出行为进行了系统研究.结果表明,固溶淬火态合金的DSC曲线出现5个放热峰,分别对应GP区聚集长大及沉淀相析出,运用Avrami-Johnson-Mehl方法对合金时效析出动力学进行了计算分析,创建的沉淀相析出动力学方程Y=1-exp[-2.03×10^(19)exp(-23573/T)t^2]可以比较准确地预测合金时效析出规律.185℃人工时效90 min即可达到峰值硬度133 HV,对应的拉伸性能可达σ_(0.2)=346 MPa,σ_b=383 MPa,δ=13%,拉伸断口仍以塑性断裂为主.虽然该合金含有一定量的Zn,但在185℃时效时仍以Mg-Si相的析出为主,峰时效态分布有结构稳定的b′′相及其前驱体pre-b′′相,后者的出现主要是由于Zn参与了沉淀相的析出所致.此外,根据合金时效过程的组织演化规律,提出了该新型合金沉淀相形核和析出模型示意图.

Porcine placental peptides improve neuroblast proliferation and differentiation via enhancement of TrkB and BDNF levels in D-glatacose-induced mouse aging model

Aging affects the nervous system as well as other organs.In our study,we aimed to study the pharmacological effects and mechanism of porcine placental peptides(PPP)in aging process,and to observe the changes of neuroblast proliferation and differentiation as well as partial gene expression in hippocampus of D-galactose-induced aged mouse.Based on the analysis of experimental results,it was confirmed that PPP significantly improved neurobalst proliferation and differentiation in the mouse hippocampal DG by ki-67 and DCX immunohistochemistry.This result showed that PPP had anti-aging effects on D-galactoseinduced aging mouse model.Moreover,we observed up-regulated expressions of BDNF and TrkB proteins and down-regulated expressions of Caspase 3,8,and 9 proteins in the PPP-treated mouse hippocampus.Therefore,our results showed that PPP obviously improved neuroblast proliferation and differentiation,and its anti-aging effect might berelated to down-regulation of apoptosis-related proteins,including Caspase 3,8,and 9,via BDNF/TrkB pathway.Our findings provided valuable evidence for its applications in the health and medicine sectors.

Long-term prediction for hierarchical-B-picture-based coding of video with repeated shots

The latest video coding standard High Efficiency Video Coding （HEVC） can achieve much higher coding efficiency than previous video coding standards. Particularly, by exploiting the hierarchical B-picture prediction structure, temporal redundancy among neighbor frarnes is eliminated remarkably well. In practice, videos available to consumers usually contain many repeated shots, such as TV series, movies, and talk shows. According to our observations, when these videos are encoded by HEVC with the hierarchical B-picture structure, the temporal correlation in each shot is well exploited. However, the long-term correlation between repeated shots has not been used. We propose a long-term prediction （LTP） scheme to use the long-term temporal correlation between correlated shots in a video. The long-term reference （LTR） frames of a source video are chosen by clustering similar shots and extracting the representative frames, and a modified hierarchical B-picture coding structure based on an LTR frame is introduced to support long-term temporal prediction. An adaptive quantization method is further designed for LTR frames to improve the overall video coding efficiency. Experimental results show that up to 22.86% coding gain can be achieved using the new coding scheme.