This paper investigates the average torque separation in permanent magnet (PM) synchronous machines. In order to accurately separate the PM and armature fields, and, hence, the torque components ...accounting for the magnetic saturation and crosscoupling, the frozen permeability (FP) method is often employed, while the torque can be calculated by different methods, such as Maxwell stress tensor and virtual work principle. Although these two methods result in identical torques in normal finite element (FE) analyses when appropriate FE meshes are used, the average torques calculated by these two methods are found to be different when the FP method is employed due to the influence of equivalent rotational magnetic saliency in the stator, which causes a part of PM torque being improperly attributed to the reluctance torque when Maxwell stress tensor method is employed. However, by using the virtual work principle, this is eliminated, and, hence, the average torque components can still be appropriately separated and analyzed.
Two pairs of positive-and negative-parity doublet bands together with eight strong electric dipole transitions linking their yrast positive- and negative-parity bands have been identified in ^{78}Br. ...They are interpreted as multiple chiral doublet bands with octupole correlations, which is supported by the microscopic multidimensionally-constrained covariant density functional theory and triaxial particle rotor model calculations. This observation reports the first example of chiral geometry in octupole soft nuclei.
Opisthorchis viverrini
and
Clonorchis sinensis
are important trematodes infecting humans and animals, belonging to the family Opisthorchiidae. In the present study, we sequenced the nearly complete ...mitochondrial (mt) DNA (mtDNA) sequences of
O. viverrini
from Laos, obtained the complete mtDNA sequences of
C. sinensis
from China and Korea, and revealed their gene annotations and genome organizations. The mtDNA sequences of
O. viverrini
,
C. sinensis
(China isolate),
C. sinensis
(Korea isolate) were 13,510, 13,879, and 13,877 bp in size, respectively. Each of the three mt genomes comprises 36 genes, consisting of 12 genes coding for proteins, two genes for rRNA, and 20 genes (
O. viverrini
) or 22 genes (
C. sinensis
) for tRNA. The gene content and arrangement are identical to that of
Fasciola hepatica
, and
Paragonimus westermani
, but distinct from
Schistosoma
spp. All genes are transcribed in the same direction and have a nucleotide composition high in T. The contents of A + T of the mt genomes were 59.39% for
O. viverrini
, 60.03% for
C. sinensis
(China isolate), and 59.99% for
C. sinensis
(Korea isolate). Phylogenetic analyses using concatenated amino acid sequences of the 12 protein-coding genes, with three different computational algorithms maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian analysis, all revealed distinct groups with high statistical support, indicating that
O. viverrini
and
C. sinensis
represent sister taxa. These data provide additional novel mtDNA markers for studying the molecular epidemiology and population genetics of the two liver flukes and should have implications for the molecular diagnosis, prevention, and control of opisthorchiasis and clonorchiasis in humans and animals.
Display omitted
Anion exchange membranes (AEMs) are a crucial constituent for alkaline fuel cells. As the core component of fuel cells, the low performance AEMs restrict the development and ...application of the fuel cells. Herein, the trade-off between the OH– conductivity and dimensional stability was solved by constructing AEMs with adequate OH– conductivity and satisfactory alkali resistance using Tröger’s base (TB) poly (crown ether)s (PCEs) as the main chain, the embedded quaternary ammonium (QA) and Na+-functionalized crown ether units as the cationic group. Crown ether is an electron donator, and can capture Na+ to form Na+-functionalized crown ether units to conveniently transfer OH– and significantly promote the alkaline stability of the AEMs. The influence of the Na+-functionalized crown ether units on the performance of AEMs was studied in detail. The PCEs based AEMs show an obvious hydrophobic-hydrophilic microphase separation. These features make them ideal platforms for the OH– conduction applications. As expected, the as-prepared PCEs-QA-100% (100% is the degree of cross-linking) AEM with an ionic exchange capacity (IEC) of 2.07 meq g−1 has a high OH– conductivity of 159 mS cm−1 at 80 °C. Furthermore, the membrane electrode assemblies fabricated using the PCEs-QA-100% AEM possess a maximum power density of 291 mW cm−2 under the current density of 500 mA cm−2.
The c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) pathway represents one subgroup of MAP kinases that are activated primarily by cytokines and exposure to environmental stress. Autophagy is a protein-degradation ...system characterized by the formation of double-membrane vacuoles termed autophagosomes. Autophagy-related gene beclin 1 plays a key role in autophagosome formation. However, the relationships between activation of JNK pathway, autophagy induction and Beclin 1 expression remain elusive. In this study, we used human cancer cell lines CNE2 and Hep3B to investigate the role of JNK-mediated Beclin 1 expression in ceramide-induced autophagic cell death. Ceramide-treated cells exhibited the characteristics of autophagy (that is, acidic vesicular organelle formation and the LC3-II generation). JNK was activated in these two cell lines exposed to ceramide and the phosphorylation of c-Jun also increased. In the meantime, we found that ceramide upregulated Beclin 1 expression in cancer cells. The upregulation of Beclin 1 expression could be blocked by SP600125 (a specific inhibitor of JNK) or a small interfering RNA (siRNA) directed against JNK1/2 or c-Jun. Chromatin immunoprecipitation and luciferase reporter analysis revealed that c-Jun was involved in the regulation of beclin 1 transcription in response to ceramide treatment. In addition, inhibition of JNK activity by SP600125 could inhibit autophagy induction by ceramide. Furthermore, Beclin 1 knockdown by siRNA also inhibited ceramide-mediated autophagic cell death. JNK-mediated Beclin 1 expression was also observed in topotecan-induced autophagy. These data suggest that activation of JNK pathway can mediate Beclin 1 expression, which plays a key role in autophagic cell death in cancer cells.
Human peripheral blood monocytes are a heterogeneous population, including CD14⁺CD16-‘classical' monocytes and CD14⁺CD16⁺‘proinflammatory' monocytes. CD16⁺ monocytes are expanded in various ...inflammatory conditions. However, little is known about the CD14⁺CD16⁺ monocytes in patients with breast cancer. We detected CD14⁺CD16⁺ monocytes in 96 patients with breast cancer and 54 control subjects using flow cytometry. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to determine the feasibility of CD14⁺CD16⁺ monocytes as an indicator for diagnosis of breast cancer. We found that the frequency of CD14⁺CD16⁺ monocytes showed a significantly greater increase in breast cancer patients than in controls (16·96% versus 10·84%, P < 0·0001). The area under the ROC curve for CD14⁺CD16⁺ monocytes was 0·805 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 0·714-0·877, P = 0·0001. Furthermore, the levels of CD16⁺ monocytes were significantly negatively associated with the tumour size and pathological staging. In vitro, we showed that CD14⁺CD16⁺ monocytes were expanded significantly when the purified CD14⁺ monocytes were exposed to Michigan Cancer Foundation (MCF)-7 cells-conditioned medium (MCF-CM) or, separately, to monocyte chemotactic protein 1 (MCP-1). Neutralizing antibodies against MCP-1 inhibited the expansion of CD14⁺CD16⁺ monocytes by MCF-CM. Collectively, our findings indicated that MCP-1 can expand CD14⁺CD16⁺ monocytes in patients with breast cancer. Furthermore, the CD14⁺CD16⁺ monocyte may be a useful indicator in early diagnosis of breast cancer.
This paper reports on the observation of the sidereal large-scale anisotropy of cosmic rays using data collected by the ARGO-YBJ experiment over 5 years (2008-2012). This analysis extends previous ...work limited to the period from 2008 January to 2009 December, near the minimum of solar activity between cycles 23 and 24. With the new data sample, the period of solar cycle 24 from near minimum to maximum is investigated. A new method is used to improve the energy reconstruction, allowing us to cover a much wider energy range, from 4 to 520 TeV. Below 100 TeV, the anisotropy is dominated by two wide regions, the so-called "tail-in" and "loss-cone" features. At higher energies, a dramatic change of the morphology is confirmed. The yearly time dependence of the anisotropy is investigated. Finally, no noticeable variation of cosmic-ray anisotropy with solar activity is observed for a median energy of 7 TeV.
We report a study of the processes of e^{+}e^{-}→K^{+}D_{s}^{-}D^{*0} and K^{+}D_{s}^{*-}D^{0} based on e^{+}e^{-} annihilation samples collected with the BESIII detector operating at BEPCII at five ...center-of-mass energies ranging from 4.628 to 4.698 GeV with a total integrated luminosity of 3.7 fb^{-1}. An excess of events over the known contributions of the conventional charmed mesons is observed near the D_{s}^{-}D^{*0} and D_{s}^{*-}D^{0} mass thresholds in the K^{+} recoil-mass spectrum for events collected at sqrts=4.681 GeV. The structure matches a mass-dependent-width Breit-Wigner line shape, whose pole mass and width are determined as (3982.5_{-2.6}^{+1.8}±2.1) MeV/c^{2} and (12.8_{-4.4}^{+5.3}±3.0) MeV, respectively. The first uncertainties are statistical and the second are systematic. The significance of the resonance hypothesis is estimated to be 5.3 σ over the contributions only from the conventional charmed mesons. This is the first candidate for a charged hidden-charm tetraquark with strangeness, decaying into D_{s}^{-}D^{*0} and D_{s}^{*-}D^{0}. However, the properties of the excess need further exploration with more statistics.
Aims
Apelin is a specific endogenous ligand of orphan G protein‐coupled receptor APJ. This study was designed to determine the roles and mechanisms of apelin‐13 and APJ in paraventricular nucleus ...(PVN) in renal sympathetic nerve activity (RSNA), arginine vasopressin (AVP) release and mean arterial pressure (MAP) in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR).
Method
Acute experiment was carried out in 13‐week‐old male SHR and Wistar‐Kyoto rats (WKY) under anaesthesia. RSNA and MAP responses to the PVN microinjection were determined. Apelin and APJ expressions were examined with quantitative real‐time PCR and Western blot. AVP and noradrenaline were determined with ELISA. Osmotic minipumps were used for chronic PVN infusion in conscious WKY.
Results
Apelin and APJ in the PVN were up‐regulated in SHR. The PVN microinjection of apelin‐13 increased, but APJ antagonist F13A decreased the RSNA, MAP, plasma noradrenaline and AVP levels in SHR. N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist plus non‐NMDAR antagonist abolished the apelin‐13‐induced sympathetic activation rather than AVP release. NMDAR antagonist or non‐NMDAR antagonist alone attenuated the apelin‐13‐induced sympathetic activation. Chronic infusion of apelin‐13 into the PVN in normotensive rats induced hypertension, increased plasma noradrenaline and AVP levels and promoted myocardial atrial natriuretic peptide and beta‐myosin heavy chain mRNA expressions, two indicative markers of cardiac hypertrophy.
Conclusion
Apelin‐13 and APJ in the PVN contribute to hypertension via sympathetic activation and AVP release in SHR. The sympatho‐excitatory effect of apeline‐13 is mediated by both NMDAR and non‐NMDAR in the PVN. Persistent activation of APJ in the PVN induces hypertension.
PDF
