Osteosarcoma (OS) is a malignancy that is becoming increasingly common in adolescents. OS stem cells (OSCs) form a dynamic subset of OS cells that are responsible for malignant progression and ...chemoradiotherapy resistance. The unique properties of OSCs, including self-renewal, multilineage differentiation and metastatic potential, 149 depend closely on their tumor microenvironment. In recent years, the likelihood of its dynamic plasticity has been extensively studied. Importantly, the tumor microenvironment appears to act as the main regulatory component of OS cell plasticity. For these reasons aforementioned, novel strategies for OS treatment focusing on modulating OS cell plasticity and the possibility of modulating the composition of the tumor microenvironment are currently being explored. In this paper, we review recent studies describing the phenomenon of OSCs and factors known to influence phenotypic plasticity. The microenvironment, which can regulate OSC plasticity, has great potential for clinical exploitation and provides different perspectives for drug and treatment design for OS.
•A “Load – Carrier” perspective evaluation method has been introduced.•Overall tourism resource carrying capacity performance in China has been raised.•The performance in Northeast China has been ...Low-Medium Interval.•The performance of Eastern China has fallen in High Risk Overload Interval mostly.•The performance of the Central and Western provinces has been improved.
Rapid development of the tourism industry has brought various challenges by causing unbalance between tourism resource load (TRL) and tourism resource carrier (TRC), such as the decline in tourist satisfaction, and the destruction of tourist attractions. The concept of tourism resources carrying capacity (TRCC) can be used to describe the relationship between TRL and TRC. Due to the vast territory, different provinces in China have different resource endowments and socio-economic environments, and their TRCC performances are different. Therefore, this paper investigates the temporal-spatial evolutionary performance of TRCC at provincial level in China. The theory of “Load-Carrier” is used to select evaluation indicators, the Entropy Weight Method and the Linear Weighted Summation Method are used to calculate the performance value, and the Quartile Method is adopted to classify the TRCC performance. Data used in this study were collected from 30 provinces in China from 2008 to 2019. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) From a temporal evolution perspective, the overall TRCC performance in China has been improved, due to the implication of various tourism development policies. (2) From a spatial differences perspective, the TRCC performance of Northeast China has changed from High Utilization Interval to Low-Medium Interval; TRCC performance of Eastern China maintained in High Utilization or High Risk Overload Interval, and TRCC performance in Central and Western China has been continuously rising. This study provides valuable references for both central and local governments to take appropriate policy measures to improve their TRCC performance.
•A scientific mechanism (DTIB) is proposed to determine the benchmark of urban indicators.•A Deviation-Degree-Based assessment tool is proposed for urban indicator performance evaluation.•A case ...study of the Urban Health Examination in China is conducted to verify the effectiveness and applicability of the DTIB and Deviation-Degree-Based assessment tool.•Critical urban problems are diagnosed and the shortages of urban development are highlighted.
The rapid process of urbanization has brought out a series of challenges in urban governance, which prompts an increasing number of studies focusing on monitoring and evaluating the status of the cities. However, the detailed illustration of the establishment of a scientific-made basis for setting cities’ indicators benchmarks is often overlooked or inadequately explained in previous studies. Therefore, this study proposes a hybrid method to determine the benchmark for assessing cities’ performance. Firstly, this study establishes a mechanism called the Decision Tree of Indicator Benchmark (DTIB) which incorporates decision tree theory and benchmark management theory for urban indicator benchmark determination. Then, a deviation-degree-based model is proposed for assessing the performance of each indicator and the AHP method is applied for attaining the comprehensive performance of the city. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid method, an empirical study is conducted, and a comparison between the proposed method with other traditional evaluation methods is made to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method. This hybrid method can facilitate decision-makers to understand the status of a city and explore the underlying problems of urban development to design more tailored policies and plans for cities.
•“Load-carrier” perspective method is introduced for assessing Urban Transportation Carrying Capacity (UTCC)•Coupling coordination degree method is adopted for assessing the balance between the ...carrying capacities offered by different travel modes.•The research scope for conducting UTCC is based on the traffic analysis zone (TAZ) within a city.•A case study of 805 TAZs in Chongqing in China is used to present the applicability and effectiveness of UTCC models.
Urban transportation is a complex system typically composed of car, bus, non-motorized, and metro travel modes, which connects various residential traveling and transport facilities. It is important to have a proper method to facilitate understanding on urban transportation carrying capacity (UTCC) of individual types of travel modes and the balance performance between the carrying capacities offered by different travel modes. This study introduces an alternative model named “load-carrier” perspective method for assessing the four types of UTCC. A measurement of coordination degree is used to measure if the carrying capacities between different types of travel modes are developed and utilized in balance. An application of the proposed method is conducted by using empirical data collected from 805 traffic analysis zones (TAZs) in Chongqing City in China in 2020. The research findings suggest that: 1) the UTCC performance can be divided into five grades, namely, low, mild, moderate, high, and extremely high level of utilization intensity. 2) most of the TAZs in Chongqing were in low and mild level of utilization intensity of UTCC. 3) the balance performance between four types of transportation carrying capacities was poor in Chongqing City, with 97.1% of the sample TAZs are in imbalanced and slight imbalanced status. The demonstration conducted proves that the introduced method provides an important tool for examining the UTCC performance by different travel modes.
•An improved approach for measuring coupling between NTU and LCD is proposed.•Carbon life cycle theory is applied to establish an LCD evaluation indicator system.•Grey correlation coefficient method ...is used to show coupling performance.•The case study demonstrates the validity of the proposed method.
New Type Urbanization (NTU) and Low Carbon Development (LCD) are the two major issues for Chinese cities to achieve their sustainable development goals. It is crucial to recognize the coupling relationship between NTU and LCD. Existing studies on this coupling mainly focus on measuring LCD performance through carbon emissions, while neglecting the coordination between different dimensions of NTU and LCD. To address these gaps, an enhanced method is proposed in this study to measure the dimensional coupling performance between NTU and LCD. A comprehensive indicator evaluation system is constructed to assess the performance of both NTU and LCD. The Entropy and TOPSIS methods are employed to obtain scores for NTU and LCD performance, while the grey correlation analysis method is applied to determine the degree of coupling coordination. To validate the proposed approach, a case study using data from 35 large cities spanning from 2008 to 2020 has been conducted. The main findings of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) The proposed method consists of three steps: calculating NTU and LCD performance scores, determining the degree of coupling, and estimating the level of coupling coordination. (2) Four major trends in the development of coupling degrees among these 35 large cities have been identified: increase, decrease, “V” type and inverted “V” type. (3) Empirical evidence demonstrates that our proposed model is valid. This study provides valuable insights for addressing imbalances between NTU and LCD issues faced by Chinese government.
To delve into the expression and functions of FGF2 in patient with thyroid cancer (THCA), we conducted a systematic analysis of the association of FGF2 with immune cell infiltration, and prognosis in ...THCA patients. The transcription and protein levels, methylation, and biological properties of FGF2 were examined, along with its correlation with prognosis and immune cell infiltration in THCA patients using online databases UALCAN, Human Protein Atlas, Kaplan-Meier Plotter, DNMIVD, cBioPortal, GEPIA, Metascape, Linkedomics and TIMER. Clinical samples were collected for Western blot analyses. FGF2 was substantially overexpressed in the tumor group and shown correlations with age, tumor histology, nodal metastasis, and cancer stages. Moreover, higher expression of FGF2 (HR = 3.42, 95 % CI:1.57-7.44, p = 0.00099) was greatly correlated with poorer relapse-free survival in THCA patients, particularly in female patients. FGF2 methylation level was increased in the tumor group (p = 1.29E-6), and higher methylation levels of FGF2 were positively correlated with the poorer progression-free interval in THCA patients (p = 0.015). FGF2 mutations were markedly associated with shorter disease-free survival, with a mutation rate of 6 % among the total 498 THCA patients. FGF2 functions were potentially related to cell adhesion, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction and angiogenesis. FGF2 expression showed positive correlations with the infiltration of B cells (Cor = 0.569, p = 1.04e-42), CD4+ T cells (Cor = 0.555, p = 9.43e-41), macrophages (Cor = 0.438, p = 2.94e-42), neutrophils (Cor = 0.578, p = 9.354e-45), and dendritic cells (Cor = 0.591, p = 5.00e-47). FGF2 is a potential prognostic marker in THCA patients, with its functions possibly related to cell adhesion, interaction of the cytokine-cytokine receptor, angiogenesis, and the promotion of multiple immune cell infiltration.
•Different cities should apply tailor-made indicators for promoting LCC practice.•MBO method can help cities set tailor-made indicators to enable their LCC objectives.•Cities must consider their ...local conditions when setting specific LCC objective.•The application of proposed method needs the proper understanding of LCC objectives.
Cities with different development backgrounds and characteristics will set different objectives for promoting low carbon city practice, including overall, dimensional, and executable objectives. Therefore, a method is needed to ensure that the selected indicators are tailor-made and can correspond to objectives. The existing methods for selecting LCC indicators are not objective-based. This paper introduces an innovative method for setting LCC indicators by using the Management by Objectives (MBO) method to enable the achievement of LCC objectives. Two case cities are used to demonstrate the application of the MBO-based indicator setting method. The main conclusion can be drawn from this study as follows. Firstly, different cities should apply different indicators to guide their LCC practice as they have different backgrounds. Secondly, the MBO method can help different cities to set tailor-made indicators to guide their LCC practice towards their LCC objectives. It is emphasized that indicators applicable to different cities should not be selected discriminately. Thirdly, there are three basic procedures in applying the MBO based indicator setting method, namely, identification of the overall LCC objectives, decomposition of the overall LCC objectives into the dimensional and executable LCC objectives, and selection of indicators for evaluating executable LCC objectives. The application of the MBO based indicator setting method can help the cities choose a set of indicators most suitable to local conditions to guide the LCC practice towards achieving their LCC objective defined locally.
The red flesh coloration of apples is a result of a biochemical pathway involved in the biosynthesis of anthocyanins and anthocyanidins. Based on apple genome analysis, a high number of regulatory ...genes, mainly transcription factors such as MYB, which are components of regulatory complex MYB-bHLH-WD40, and several structural genes (
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
) involved in anthocyanin biosynthesis, have been identified. In this study, we investigated novel genes related to the red-flesh apple phenotype. These genes could be deemed molecular markers for the early selection of new apple cultivars. Based on a comparative transcriptome analysis of apples with different fruit-flesh coloration, we successfully identified and characterized ten potential genes from the plant hormone transduction pathway of auxin (
); cytokinins (
); gibberellins (
); abscisic acid (
and
); brassinosteroids (
,
and
); jasmonic acid (
); and salicylic acid (
). An analysis of expression profiles was performed in immature and ripe fruits of red-fleshed cultivars. We have uncovered genes mediating the regulation of abscisic acid, salicylic acid, cytokinin, and jasmonic acid signaling and described their role in anthocyanin biosynthesis, accumulation, and degradation. The presented results underline the relationship between genes from the hormone signal transduction pathway and
genes, which are directly responsible for anthocyanin color transformation as well as anthocyanin accumulation during apple-fruit ripening.
The 'Fuji' line includes many varieties with a similar genetic background and consistent inducement factors with epigenetic occurrence, thus it may be considered an ideal candidate for epigenetic ...research. In this study, 91 bud mutations of 'Fuji' apple were used as the test materials. Using the genetic variation within 'Fuji' as the control, the characteristics of epigenetic variation at different levels in both varieties and mutant groups were examined. The results showed that: (1) the global genomic DNA methylation level of the 91 bud mutants of 'Fuji' ranged from 29.120%-45.084%, with an average of 35.910%. Internal cytosine methylation was the main DNA methylation pattern. Regarding the variation of methylation patterns of 'Fuji' mutants, the vast majority of loci maintained the original methylation pattern existed in 'Fuji'. CHG methylation variation was the main type of variation; (2) the variation in methylation patterns between the mutant groups was greater than that of methylation levels. Among these patterns, the variation in CHG methylation patterns (including CHG hypermethylation and CHG demethylation) was expected to be dominant. The observed variation in methylation levels was more important in the Color mutant group; however, the variation in methylation patterns was more obvious in both the early maturation and Spur mutant groups. Moreover, the range of variation in the Early-maturation group was much wider than that in the Spur mutant group; (3) epigenetic diversity and genetic diversity were both low between the mutant groups. In the 'Fuji' mutant groups, there was few correlation between genetic and epigenetic variation, and epigenetic differentiation resulted in more loci with moderate or greater differentiation; (4) the purifying selection seemed to play a major role in the differentiation of different groups of 'Fuji' mutants (65.618%), but epigenetic diversity selection still occurred at nearly 35% of loci. Sixteen epigenetic outlier loci were detected.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Display omitted
Meta-aramid paper exhibits some unique properties, including high temperature resistance, electrical insulation. However, due to the inherent chemical inertness of aramid fibers, the ...interfacial bonding between fibers is weak, which negatively affect the properties of aramid paper. Herein, we report a simple, effective and scalable process for substantially improving the interfacial bonding between aramid fibers, thus, mechanical and insulating properties of the meta-aramid composite paper, and it was achieved by surface coating of aramid paper with meta-aramid stock solution that contains N, N dimethylacetamide (DMAc)-CaCl2 and high molecular weight poly (m-phenylene isophthalamide) polymers. Results show that the tensile strength, modulus, internal bond strength and tearing index of the resultant all-PMIA paper increased by 83 %, 58 %, 173 % and 89 %, respectively, in comparison with those of the control. The breakdown strength of the improved aramid paper is 190 % higher than that of the control paper, attaining 26.46 KV/mm. This work provides a simple, economical, efficient, and scalable method to improve the overall performance of meta-aramid paper, which has great potential to be implemented at the industrial scale.
PDF
