The step of urbanization and modern civilization fosters different functional zones in a city, such as residential areas, business districts, and educational areas. In a metropolis, people commute ...between these functional zones every day to engage in different socioeconomic activities, e.g., working, shopping, and entertaining. In this paper, we propose a data-driven framework to discover functional zones in a city. Specifically, we introduce the concept of latent activity trajectory (LAT), which captures socioeconomic activities conducted by citizens at different locations in a chronological order. Later, we segment an urban area into disjointed regions according to major roads, such as highways and urban expressways. We have developed a topic-modeling-based approach to cluster the segmented regions into functional zones leveraging mobility and location semantics mined from LAT. Furthermore, we identify the intensity of each functional zone using Kernel Density Estimation. Extensive experiments are conducted with several urban scale datasets to show that the proposed framework offers a powerful ability to capture city dynamics and provides valuable calibrations to urban planners in terms of functional zones.
The modified Al2O3/SiO2 composite nanoparticles dispersed homogenously in mineral oil as lubricating additives can reduce the friction coefficient by ∼20% under optimized concentration. Display ...omitted
► By surface modification, Al2O3/SiO2 composite nanoparticles can dispersed in mineral oil homogenously. ► The modified Al2O3/SiO2 nanoparticles as lubricating oil additives can greatly reduce the friction coefficient. ► The oil lubricating performance using composite nanoparticles as additives was better than pure Al2O3 or SiO2 particles.
The as-prepared alumina/silica (Al2O3/SiO2) composite nanoparticles were synthesized with a hydrothermal method and modified by silane coupling agent. The tribological properties of the modified Al2O3/SiO2 composite nanoparticles as lubricating oil additives were investigated by four-ball and thrust-ring tests in terms of wear scar diameter, friction coefficient, and the morphology of thrust-ring. It is found that their anti-wear and anti-friction performances are better than those of pure Al2O3 or SiO2 nanoparticles. When the optimized concentration of nanoparticle additive is 0.5wt.%, the diameters of wear scar and friction coefficients are both smallest. Such modified composite nanoparticles can adsorb onto the friction surfaces, which results in rolling friction. Therefore, the friction coefficient is reduced.
Chronic kidney diseases have become a major issue worldwide. The spectrum of biopsy proven renal diseases differs between locations and changes over time. It is therefore essential to describe the ...local epidemiological trends and the prevalence of renal biopsy in various regions to shine new light on the pathogenesis of various renal diseases and provide a basis for further hypothesis-driven research. We retrospectively analyzed 34,630 hospitalized patients undergoing native renal biopsy between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2018. Indications for renal biopsy and histological diagnosis were analyzed to describe the prevalence of renal biopsy, and changing prevalence between period 1 (2009-2013) and period 2 (2014-2018) were further analyzed. Nephrotic syndrome (NS) was the most common indication for biopsy. Membranous nephropathy (MN, 24.96%) and IgA nephropathy (IgAN, 24.09%) were the most common primary glomerulonephritis (PGN). MN was most common in adults, with IgAN more prevalent in children. Lupus nephritis (LN) was the most common secondary glomerulonephritis (SGN) in adults, while Henöch-Schönlein purpura nephritis (HSPN) in children. The prevalence of MN increased significantly and nearly doubled from period 1 (15.98%) to period 2 (30.81%) (P = 0.0004). The same trend appeared with membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (MPGN), diabetic nephropathy (DN) and obesity-related glomerulopathy (ORG), while the frequencies of minimal change disease (MCD), focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), LN and hepatitis B associated glomerulonephritis (HBV-GN) significantly decreased between the two intervals. NS was the most common indication for biopsy across all age groups and genders. MN has overtaken IgAN to become the most common PGN in adults, while IgAN was the most common PGN in children. LN was the most common SGN in adults, and HSPN the most common in children.
Flavonoids are ubiquitous in the plant kingdom and have many diverse functions, including UV protection, auxin transport inhibition, allelopathy, flower coloring and insect resistance. Here we show ...that rutin, a proud member of the flavonoid family, could be functional as an activator to improve plant disease resistances. Three plant species pretreated with 2 mM rutin were found to enhance resistance to Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae, Ralstonia solanacearum, and Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato strain DC3000 in rice, tobacco and Arabidopsis thaliana respectively. While they were normally propagated on the cultural medium supplemented with 2 mM rutin for those pathogenic bacteria. The enhanced resistance was associated with primed expression of several pathogenesis-related genes. We also demonstrated that the rutin-mediated priming resistance was attenuated in npr1, eds1, eds5, pad4-1, ndr1 mutants, and NahG transgenic Arabidopsis plant, while not in either snc1-11, ein2-5 or jar1 mutants. We concluded that the rutin-priming defense signal was modulated by the salicylic acid (SA)-dependent pathway from an early stage upstream of NDR1 and EDS1.
Leukemia stem cells (LSCs) are capable of limitless self-renewal and are responsible for the maintenance of leukemia. Because selective eradication of LSCs could offer substantial therapeutic ...benefit, there is interest in identifying the signaling pathways that control their development. We studied LSCs in mouse models of acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) induced either by coexpression of the Hoxa9 and Meis1a oncogenes or by the fusion oncoprotein MLL-AF9. We show that the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway is required for self-renewal of LSCs that are derived from either hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) or more differentiated granulocyte-macrophage progenitors (GMP). Because the Wnt/β-catenin pathway is normally active in HSCs but not in GMP, these results suggest that reactivation of β-catenin signaling is required for the transformation of progenitor cells by certain oncogenes. β-catenin is not absolutely required for self-renewal of adult HSCs; thus, targeting the Wnt/β-catenin pathway may represent a new therapeutic opportunity in AML.
Hierarchical WO3 and W18O49 were prepared and their adsorption and photocatalytic performances were compared. The adsorption efficiency of urchin-like W18O49 (70.01%) (sample 2) is about 3.94 times ...of WO3 (17.78%), while the photodegradation efficiency of WO3 (62.45%) is 2.38 times of urchin-like W18O49 (26.20%). Overall, urchin-like W18O49 has the best total removal efficiency, which can remove 96.21% of MB (50 ml, 90 mg/L) within 120 min.
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•The adsorption and photocatalytic performances of WO3 and W18O49 were compared.•Both adsorption rates and adsorption capacities of W18O49 are better than WO3.•The maximum adsorption amount of W18O49 (375.94 mg/g) is about 3.94 times of WO3.•Photodegradation efficiency of WO3 is 2.38 times of W18O49.•Oxygen vacancies are key factors affecting photocatalysis and adsorption activities.
The adsorption experimental results show that W18O49 with oxygen vacancies not only has faster adsorption rates for MB but also has larger adsorption capacities than WO3. Besides, the maximum adsorption capacity of urchin-like W18O49 (375.94 mg/g) is about 2.76 times of WO3 (136.25 mg/g). However, photocatalytic results revealed that WO3 has better photocatalytic degradation ability than W18O49. Generally, the adsorption efficiency of urchin-like W18O49 (70.01%) is about 3.94 times of WO3 (17.78%), while the photodegradation efficiency of WO3 (62.45%) is 2.38 times of urchin-like W18O49 (26.20%). Therefore, urchin-like W18O49 has the best total removal efficiency, which can remove 96.21% of MB (50 ml, 90 mg/L) within 120 min. These studies emphasize the comprehensive effects of WO3 and W18O49 on dye removal from two aspects of adsorption and photocatalysis and provide strategies for the preparation of efficient dye removal materials.
Re-capture of the differences between tumor and normal tissues observed at the patient level in cell cultures and animal models is critical for applications of these cancer-related differences. The ...epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process is essential for tumor migratory and invasive capabilities. Although plenty of EMT markers are revealed, molecular features during the early stages of EMT are poorly understood.
A cell-based model to induce lung cell (A549) EMT using conditioned medium of in vitro cancer activated fibroblast (WI38) was established. High-throughput sequencing methods, including RNA-seq and miRNA-seq, and advanced bioinformatics methods were used to explore the transcriptome profile transitions accompanying the progression of EMT. We validated our findings with experimental techniques including transwell and immunofluorescence assay, as well as the TCGA data.
We have constructed an in vitro cell model to mimic the EMT in patients. We discovered that several new transcription factors were among the early genes (3 h) to respond to cancer micro-environmental cues which could play critical roles in triggering further EMT signals. The early EMT markers also included genes encoding membrane transporters and blood coagulation function. Three of the nine-examined early EMT hallmark genes, GALNT6, SPARC and HES7, were up-regulated specifically in the early stages of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and confirmed by TCGA patient transcriptome data. In addition, we showed that miR-3613, a regulator of EGFR pathway genes, was constantly repressed during EMT progress and indicative of an epithelial miRNA marker.
The CAF-stimulated EMT cell model may recapture some of the molecular changes during EMT progression in clinical patients. The identified early EMT hallmark genes GALNT6, SPARC and HES7and miR-3613 provide new markers and therapeutic targets for LUAD for the further clinical diagnosis and drug screening.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to develop a radiomics model for predicting the Ki-67 proliferation index in patients with invasive ductal breast cancer through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) ...preoperatively.
Materials and methods
A total of 128 patients who were clinicopathologically diagnosed with invasive ductal breast cancer were recruited. This cohort included 32 negative Ki67 expression (Ki67 proliferation index < 14%) and 96 cases with positive Ki67 expression (Ki67 proliferation index ≥ 14%). All patients had undergone diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) MRI before surgery on a 3.0T MRI scanner. Radiomics features were extracted from apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps which were obtained by DWI-MRI from patients with invasive ductal breast cancer. 80% of the patients were divided into training set to build radiomics model, and the rest into test set to evaluate its performance. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) was used to select radiomics features, and then, the logistic regression (LR) model was established using fivefold cross-validation to predict the Ki-67 index. The performance was evaluated by receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, accuracy, sensitivity and specificity.
Results
Quantitative imaging features (
n
= 1029) were extracted from ADC maps, and 11 features were selected to construct the LR model. Good identification ability was exhibited by the ADC-based radiomics model, with areas under the ROC (AUC) values of 0.75 ± 0.08, accuracy of 0.71 in training set and 0.72, 0.70 in test set.
Conclusions
The ADC-based radiomics model is a feasible predictor for the Ki-67 index in patients with invasive ductal breast cancer. Therefore, we proposed that three-dimensional imaging features from ADC maps could be used as candidate biomarker for preoperative prediction the Ki-67 index noninvasively.
•MO onto Cu@Cu2O nanocomposite follows pseudo-first-order and IPD model.•MO adsorption onto Cu@Cu2O nanocomposite is spontaneous and exothermic process.•Activation energy of 12.4kJ/mol indicates ...physisorption nature of MO adsorption.
In this work, the adsorption behavior of methyl orange onto nanoporous core–shell Cu@Cu2O nanocomposite has been investigated using an UV–vis spectrophotometer, considering the influence of pH value, temperature, additive amount of nanocomposite and initial methyl orange (MO) concentration. The adsorption kinetics of MO on the Cu@Cu2O nanocomposite has been discussed based upon the pseudo-first-order model, intraparticle diffusion model and Langmuir adsorption model. Thermodynamic parameters such as change in Gibbs free energy (ΔG), enthalpy (ΔH) and entropy (ΔS) have also been evaluated. The negative changes in Gibbs free energy (−18.4 to −15.1kJmol−1) and enthalpy (−51.5kJmol−1) indicate the spontaneous and exothermic nature of the adsorption process of MO. The activation energy (Ea) of 12.4kJmol−1 reveals the physisorption nature of MO adsorption onto the nanoporous Cu@Cu2O nanocomposite.
Leukaemias and other cancers possess a rare population of cells capable of the limitless self-renewal necessary for cancer initiation and maintenance. Eradication of these cancer stem cells is ...probably a critical part of any successful anti-cancer therapy, and may explain why conventional cancer therapies are often effective in reducing tumour burden, but are only rarely curative. Given that both normal and cancer stem cells are capable of self-renewal, the extent to which cancer stem cells resemble normal tissue stem cells is a critical issue if targeted therapies are to be developed. However, it remains unclear whether cancer stem cells must be phenotypically similar to normal tissue stem cells or whether they can retain the identity of committed progenitors. Here we show that leukaemia stem cells (LSC) can maintain the global identity of the progenitor from which they arose while activating a limited stem-cell- or self-renewal-associated programme. We isolated LSC from leukaemias initiated in committed granulocyte macrophage progenitors through introduction of the MLL–AF9 fusion protein encoded by the t(9;11)(p22;q23). The LSC were capable of transferring leukaemia to secondary recipient mice when only four cells were transferred, and possessed an immunophenotype and global gene expression profile very similar to that of normal granulocyte macrophage progenitors. However, a subset of genes highly expressed in normal haematopoietic stem cells was re-activated in LSC. LSC can thus be generated from committed progenitors without widespread reprogramming of gene expression, and a leukaemia self-renewal-associated signature is activated in the process. Our findings define progression from normal progenitor to cancer stem cell, and suggest that targeting a self-renewal programme expressed in an abnormal context may be possible.
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