Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancer diseases with a relatively high mortality rate. The higher mortality rate of pancreatic cancer is normally a result of late diagnosis. Early diagnosis ...and detection are quintessential to the survival of pancreatic cancer patients. However, diagnosis of pancreatic cancer at early stages is extremely challenging and difficult by the use of available biomarkers and serological markers. Sometimes this could be due to the fact that pancreatic cancer might not be responsible for signs and symptoms and consequently, the patients could ignore and might not seek medical attention until cancer develops and spreads to other surrounding organs. This late diagnosis of cancer in advanced stages is usually the major cause of a negative prognosis. This paper seeks to critically analyze the treatment on the early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and the advancements of diagnostic tools and therapies. The conclusion of this paper is that advances in biomarkers for early diagnosis can greatly help patients with pancreatic cancer. In particular, the marker CA19-9, due to its high level of expression in human malignant, benign reactive and metaplastic pancreatic ducts, plays a very important role in the early diagnosis and monitoring of pancreatic cancer.
Green development is an effective way to achieve economic growth and social development in a harmonious, sustainable, and efficient manner. Although the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) plays an ...important strategic role in China, our understanding of its spatiotemporal characteristics, as well as the multiple factors affecting its green development level (GDL), remains limited. This study used the entropy weight method (EWM) to analyze the temporal evolution and spatial differentiation characteristics of the GDL in the YREB from 2011 to 2019. Further, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was used to analyze the influence path of GDL. The results showed that the GDL of the YREB increased from 2015 to 2019, but the overall level was still not high, with high GDL mainly concentrated in the lower reaches. The GDL model changed from being environmentally driven and government supported in 2011 to being environmentally and economically driven since 2014. The core conditions for high GDL changed from economic development level (EDL) to scientific technological innovation level (STIL) and environmental regulation (ER). The path for improving GDL is as follows: In regions with high EDL, effective ER, moderate openness level (OL), and high STIL are the basis, supplemented by a reasonable urbanization scale (US). In areas with low EDL, reasonable industrial structure (IS) and STIL are the core conditions for development; further, EDL should be improved and effective ER and OL implemented. Alternatively, without considering changes to EDL, improvement can be achieved through reasonable OL and US or effective ER. This study provides a new method for exploring the path of GDL and a reference for governments to effectively adjust green development policies.
This paper investigates the coordinated behaviour of the multiple Euler–Lagrange systems under diverse interactions with time delays. Specially, in the case of undirected interconnection, the ...proportional plus damping control strategy is proposed and the sufficient conditions of bipartite consensus are derived via energy function based approach. Subsequently, a velocity‐free controller is further developed by introducing a novel second‐order auxiliary system to each agent. In the case of directed network, by fully investigating the property of the Laplacian matrix associated with the cooperative–competitive interactions, a bipartite consensus controller is devised and the input–output property analysis of the system transfer function in frequency domain is presented. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented algorithms.
Bipartite consensus for multiple Euler–Lagrange systems under signed graphs is investigated, including undirected and directed graphs. A velocity‐free controller is developed to overcome the absence of velocity signal. The input–output property analysis of the system transfer function in frequency domain is studied to deal with the communication time delays.
Abstract Individualized treatment is a promising clinical strategy for lung cancer, and drug sensitivity testing is fundamental to this scheme. We aimed to develop an effective drug sensitivity test ...platform to support individualized treatment. We designed a microfluidic chip-based, three-dimensional (3D) co-culture drug sensitivity test platform. A mono-lung cancer cell line, a mixture of lung cancer and stromal cell lines, and cells from fresh lung cancer tissues were cultured in 3D under continuous media supplementation, mimicking the actual tumor microenvironment in vivo. The cells were treated with anti-cancer drugs according to a gradient concentration generator inside the chips to screen the appropriate chemotherapy schemes. We successfully cultured cell lines or primary cells with this device. We also smoothly assayed the sensitivities of different anti-cancer drugs in parallel and accurately screened appropriate-dose, single and combined-drug chemotherapy schemes for eight patients. Our microfluidic device is a simple, reliable, and high-throughput platform to test drug sensitivity. It would be possible for chemotherapists to screen the appropriate chemotherapy schemes to guide individualized treatment in lung cancer.
We present a coarse-grained model for the growth kinetics of amyloid fibrils from solutions of peptides and address the fundamental mechanism of nucleation and elongation by using a lattice Monte ...Carlo procedure. We reproduce the three main characteristics of nucleation of amyloid fibrils: (1) existence of lag time, (2) occurrence of a critical concentration, and (3) seeding. We find the nucleation of amyloid fibrils to require a quasi-two-dimensional configuration, where a second layer of beta sheet must be formed adjunct to a first layer, which in turn leads to a highly cooperative nucleation barrier. The elongation stage is found to involve the Ostwald ripening (evaporation-condensation) mechanism, whereby bigger fibrils grow at the expense of smaller ones. This new mechanism reconciles the debate as to whether protofibrils are precursors or monomer reservoirs. We have systematically investigated the roles of time, peptide concentration, temperature, and seed size. In general, we find that there are two kinds of lag time arising from two different mechanisms. For higher temperatures or low enough concentrations close to the disassembly boundary, the fibrillization follows the nucleation mechanism. However, for low temperatures, where the nucleation time is sufficiently short, there still exists an apparent lag time due to slow Ostwald ripening mechanism. Consequently, the lag time is nonmonotonic with temperature, with the shortest lag time occurring at intermediate temperatures, which in turn depend on the peptide concentration. While the nucleation dominated regime can be controlled by seeding, the Ostwald ripening regime is insensitive to seeding. Simulation results from our coarse-grained model on the fibril size, lag time, elongation rate, and solubility are consistent with available experimental observations on many specific amyloid systems.
Luteolin (LUT) is a naturally occurring compound found in a various of plants. Few recent studies have reported LUT antimicrobial activities against bacterial pathogens, however, the fundamental LUT ...mediated antimicrobial mechanism has never been elucidated. This study aimed to investigate the antimicrobial activities of LUT and its mode of action against Staphylococcus aureus and Listeria monocytogenes, either as planktonic cells or as biofilms. Here, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of LUT against S. aureus and L. monocytogenes were determined using the broth microdilution method, and the antimicrobial mode of LUT was elucidated by evaluating the variations in both cell membrane integrity and cell morphology. Moreover, the biofilm inhibition was measured by crystal violet staining assay, while its qualitative imaging was achieved by confocal laser scanning microscope and field emission scanning electron microscope. MIC and MBC values of LUT against S. aureus were 16–32 and 32–64 μg/mL, and 32–64 and 64–128 μg/mL for L. monocytogenes. LUT destroyed the cell membrane integrity, as evidenced by a significant increase in the number of non-viable cells, and well-defined variations in cell morphology. Moreover, LUT presented robust inhibitory effects on the biofilm formation, enhanced antibiotics diffusion within biofilms and killed efficiently mono- and dual-species biofilm cells. Overall, LUT demonstrates potent antimicrobial properties on planktonic and biofilm cells, and the biofilm formation, and thus has the potential use as a natural food preservative in foods.
•The antimicrobial and antibiofilm activity of luteolin against S. aureus and L. monocytogenes was investigated.•Luteolin presents impairment effect on S. aureus and L. monocytogenes cell membrane.•Luteolin restrains biofilm formation of S. aureus and L. monocytogenes.•Luteolin can kill biofilm cells of S. aureus and L. monocytogenes.
This paper presents experimental studies aimed to achieve homogeneous mixtures of halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) with epoxies and halloysite–epoxy nanocomposites through ball mill homogenisation and ...chemical treatments. It was demonstrated that ball mill homogenisation and potassium acetate (PA) treatment were effective approaches to reduce the size of halloysite particle clusters in the epoxy matrix. However, silane and cetyl trimethyl ammonium chloride (CTAC) treatments, particularly the latter, were found to increase the possibility of particle agglomeration. With the improvement in particle dispersion in epoxies, enhancements in the mechanical properties of the halloysite–epoxy nanocomposites were achieved, which were attributed to several mechanisms including interactions between the advancing crack and halloysite particle clusters, interfacial debonding, halloysite tube breakage and pull-out.
An experimental attempt was made to characterize the fracture behaviour of epoxies modified by halloysite nanotubes and to investigate toughening mechanisms with nanoparticles other than carbon ...nanotubes (CNTs) and montmorillonite particles (MMTs). Halloysite–epoxy nanocomposites were prepared by mixing epoxy resin with halloysite particles (5wt% and 10wt%, respectively). It was found that halloysite nanoparticles, mainly nanotubes, are effective additives in increasing the fracture toughness of epoxy resins without sacrificing other properties such as strength, modulus and glass transition temperature. Indeed, there were also noticeable enhancements in strength and modulus for halloysite–epoxy nanocomposites because of the reinforcing effect of the halloysite nanotubes due to their large aspect ratios. Fracture toughness of the halloysite particle modified epoxies was markedly increased with the greatest improvement up to 50% in KIC and 127% in GIC. Increases in fracture toughness are mainly due to mechanisms such as crack bridging, crack deflection and plastic deformation of the epoxy around the halloysite particle clusters. Halloysite particle clusters can interact with cracks at the crack front, resisting the advance of the crack and resulting in an increase in fracture toughness.
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Chronic stress-mediated sustained release of neurotransmitters, which ultimately leads to the activation of β2-adrenergic receptor (β2-AR) signaling, is one of the most important reasons for ...triple-negative breast cancer (TBNC) progression. Quercetin (Que) has been proven to have the advantage of ameliorating stress psychological disorder. Our present study aimed to investigate the effect of Que on tumor growth and metastasis in TNBC xenograft mice undergoing stress, and to explore its underlying mechanisms. We first evaluated the effect of Que on the progression of TNBC in nude mice in vivo. The results showed that, Que could inhibit chronic stress-induced TNBC growth and occurrence of lung metastasis. We subsequently employed epinephrine (E) as a representative of stress hormone to investigate its possible mechanism in vitro. The results showed that, Que could inhibit E-mediated proliferation and migration of TNBC cells by blocking β2-AR/ERK1/2 pathway. In conclusion, our data demonstrated that Que could inhibit chronic stress-induced ERK1/2 activity in TNBC cells, and thereby weakening the potential for TNBC growth and metastasis.
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The primary purpose of this paper is to explore the herding behavior in the Chinese stock market during COVID-19 and the asymmetry of that behavior using the daily returns of A- and B-shares from 2 ...January 2019, to 15 October 2021. The study uses the cross-sectional absolute deviation model to analyze stock market herding behavior by non-linear polynomial regression. We show that the herding behavior in the Chinese stock market is more prominent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Herding behavior has a negative effect on stock market volatility. Moreover, such a suppressing effect weakened during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is an asymmetry in herding behavior during the bull and bear markets, which is helpful in our investigation of the market's volatility during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pronounced asymmetry in the herding behavior of the Chinese stock market during COVID-19 is assessed using the E-GARCH (p, q) model. The empirical results of the present study contribute to the literature about herding asymmetry by showing the herding behavior during the health crisis and bull and bear markets. It also helps reconcile the debate about the impact of herding on market stability and provides insightful guidance for investors wishing to invest in the Chinese stock market.
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