Further minimizing the defect state density in the semiconducting absorber is vital to boost the power conversion efficiency of solar cells approaching Shockley-Queisser limit. However, it lacks a ...general strategy to control the precursor chemistry for defects density reduction in the family of iodine based perovskite. Here the alkaline environment in precursor solution is carefully investigated as an effective parameter to suppress the incident iodine and affects the crystallization kinetics during film fabrication, via rationale adjustment of the alkalinity of additives. Especially, a 'residual free' weak alkaline is proposed not only to shrink the bandgap of the absorber by modulating the stoichiometry of organic cation, but also to improve the open circuit voltage in the resultant device. Consequently, the certified efficiency of 20.87% (Newport) is achieved with one of the smallest voltage deficits of 413 mV in the planar heterojunction perovskite solar cell.
Transcription factors (TFs) play critical roles in specifying many aspects of neuronal cell fate including dendritic morphology. How TFs are accurately regulated during neuronal morphogenesis is not ...fully understood. Here, we show that LIM homeodomain protein MEC-3, the key TF for C. elegans PVD dendrite morphogenesis, is regulated by both alternative splicing and an E3 ubiquitin ligase. The mec-3 gene generates several transcripts by alternative splicing. We find that mbl-1, the orthologue of the muscular dystrophy disease gene muscleblind-like (MBNL), is required for PVD dendrite arbor formation. Our data suggest mbl-1 regulates the alternative splicing of mec-3 to produce its long isoform. Deleting the long isoform of mec-3(deExon2) causes reduction of dendrite complexity. Through a genetic modifier screen, we find that mutation in the E3 ubiquitin ligase EEL-1 suppresses mbl-1 phenotype. eel-1 mutants also suppress mec-3(deExon2) mutant but not the mec-3 null phenotype. Loss of EEL-1 alone leads to excessive dendrite branches. Together, these results indicate that MEC-3 is fine-tuned by alternative splicing and the ubiquitin system to produce the optimal level of dendrite branches.
Abnormalities in the JAK2/STAT3 pathway are involved in the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer (CRC), including apoptosis. However, the exact mechanism by which dysregulated JAK2/STAT3 signalling ...contributes to the apoptosis has not been clarified. To investigate the role of both JAK2 and STAT3 in the mechanism underlying CRC apoptosis, we inhibited JAK2 with AG490 and depleted STAT3 with a small interfering RNA. Our data showed that inhibition of JAK2/STAT3 signalling induced CRC cellular apoptosis via modulating the Bcl‐2 gene family, promoting the loss of mitochondrial transmembrane potential (Δψm) and the increase of reactive oxygen species. In addition, our results demonstrated that the translocation of cytochrome c (Cyt c), caspase activation and cleavage of poly (ADP‐ribose) polymerase (PARP) were present in apoptotic CRC cells after down‐regulation of JAK2/STAT3 signalling. Moreover, inhibition of JAK2/STAT3 signalling suppressed CRC xenograft tumour growth. We found that JAK2/STAT3 target genes were decreased; meanwhile caspase cascade was activated in xenograft tumours. Our findings illustrated the biological significance of JAK2/STAT3 signalling in CRC apoptosis, and provided novel evidence that inhibition of JAK2/STAT3 induced apoptosis via the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway. Therefore, JAK2/STAT3 signalling may be a potential target for therapy of CRC.
This paper investigates the influence of temperature and moisture histories in terms of freeze-thaw (FT), wetting-drying (WD), and wetting-drying-freeze-thaw (WDFT) cycles on the hydrostructural ...characteristics of a clay that demonstrates aggregated and dispersed structures, during desiccation. Investigated hydrostructural characteristics include the soil structure, soil-shrinkage characteristic curve (SSCC, relationships between the void ratio, e and the moisture ratio, ϑ), and soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC, relationships between the ϑ and the suction, s). Experimental observations show that compaction-induced structural pores are rigid in the aggregated structure but not rigid in the dispersed structure during desiccation. They collapse during FT, WD, and WDFT cycles and are replaced by micro and visible cracks induced during WD and FT cycles. The amount and distribution of textural pores are similar in specimens with aggregated and dispersed structures. Textural pores shrink after FT, WD, and WDFT cycles. Structural changes due to temperature and moisture histories result in a significant reduction in the clay's water-retention capacity in the low suction range and the global shrinkage. However, they have little impact on the shrinkage limit and plastic limit. SWCCs in the high suction range, which are determined by textural pores, are semblable after cyclic treatments regardless of the different initial structures, indicating that FT, WD, and WDFT cycles result in similar textural pore systems. The slope of the SSCCs in the basic shrinkage stage reduces after FT cycles due to the development of FT-induced microcracks but is less affected by WD and WDFT cycles. The ϑ-s-e relationships of the clay with different temperature and moisture histories and initial structures are found to distribute on a unique surface, which is modeled using a modified SWCC equation and limited experimental measurements in this study.
•FT, WD, WDFT cycles lead to varying structural pores but similar textural pores.•Water-retention and shrinkage capacity reduces during three cyclic treatments.•SWCCs related to textural pores become similar after three types of treatments.•A unique surface is established to describe all ϑ-s-e measurements.
To enhance the invisibility and the robustness of the watermarking algorithm, a robust and imperceptible watermarking scheme is presented by combining Canny edge detection, contourlet transform with ...singular value decomposition. The host image is firstly decomposed by the contourlet transform. Then the low frequency sub-band obtained by contourlet transform is partitioned into 4×4 non-overlapping blocks and the singular value decomposition is carried out for the specific blocks selected by the Canny edge detection. Finally, the watermark is embedded into the coefficient of matrix U. The embedded watermark could be recovered blindly in the watermark extraction stage. And the robustness and the imperceptibility are efficiently guaranteed with an optimal threshold
k
selected by the least-square curve fitting. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed watermarking scheme is superior in terms of imperceptibility and robustness against common attacks.
Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge (S. miltiorrhiza), a traditional Chinese medicine, has demonstrated antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antibacterial activities. However, its effects against asthma that ...shows chronic inflammation and oxidative damage remain unknown.
To assess the effects of S. miltiorrhiza extracts on airway responsiveness, inflammation, and remodeling in ovalbumin (OVA)-induced asthmatic mice.
Mice with ovalbumin (OVA)-induced allergic asthma were treated with S. miltiorrhiza extracts, and airway resistance (RL) to methacholine, inflammatory cell infiltration, Th1/Th2 cytokine levels, and airway remodeling were assessed. TGF-β1-induced BEAS-2B and MRC-5 cells were used to evaluate the effects of five S. miltiorrhiza compounds on epithelial-mesenchymal transition and fibrosis.
OVA-challenge resulted in remarkably increased RL, inflammatory cell infiltration, Th1/Th2 cytokine levels in BALF, goblet cell hyperplasia, collagen deposition, and airway wall thickening. Daily treatment with S. miltiorrhiza ethanolic (EE, 246 mg/kg) or water (WE, 156 mg/kg) extract significantly reduced OVA-induced airway inflammatory cell infiltration, Th1/Th2 cytokine amounts, and goblet cells hyperplasia. However, only WE remarkably decreased RL, collagen deposition, and airway wall thickening. Moreover, Chromatography showed that salvianic acid A and caffeic acid levels were much higher in WE than EE, while rosmarinic acid was slightly lower; salvianolic acid B and tanshinone IIA levels were much higher in EE than WE. Interestingly, caffeic acid and rosmarinic acid were more potent in reducing E-cadherin and vimentin levels in TGF-β1-induced BEAS-2B cells, and α-SMA and COL1A1 amounts in TGF-β1-induced MRC-5 cells.
Both S. miltiorrhiza WE and EE alleviate airway inflammation in mice with OVA-sensitized allergic asthma. S. miltiorrhiza WE is more potent in reducing responsiveness and airway remodeling.
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Fluorescence molecular tomographic (FMT) reconstruction is commonly solved based on the Jacobian matrix, which is a first-order sensitivity matrix. Basically, using the second-order derivatives for ...iterative reconstruction can help improve the performance of convergence. In this paper, a reconstruction method of FMT based on the reduction of the second-order sensitivity matrix is proposed. In addition, the strategy of detectors rotation is combined into the inverse reconstruction to further improve the reconstruction quality. The reconstructed results demonstrate that the proposed method accelerates the reconstruction with high precision of inverse solutions.
To protect the ownership of the digital products, a novel adaptive and blind watermarking scheme is designed. Firstly, the underlying reason of image quality degradation in singular value ...decomposition (SVD)-based watermarking scheme is analyzed and the potential scenario causing visible destroy is pointed out. Then the optimal SVD blocks selection strategy is proposed to improve the imperceptibility. Different from other block selection rules devised by subjective evaluation means, our selection rule aims to retain the image quality as much as possible from the source. Furthermore, information entropy is utilized to achieve the purpose of adaptive embedding. In the experiment, the proposed watermarking scheme is tested under several attacks, such as noise attack, JPEG compression, blurring, sharping, and etc. Finally, the proposed watermarking scheme is compared with other existing schemes, and the experimental results demonstrate the robustness, imperceptibility and superior of the proposed watermarking scheme.
Retinoblastoma is reported as a rare cancer that occurs during childhood. Although several treatments are available for retinoblastoma, there is a need for alternative new treatment modalities for ...retinoblastoma with better safety and efficacy profile. Galangin (3,5,7-trihydroxyflavone), is a flavonoid compound, which is found in high concentration in lesser galangal. Galangin has been reported to have various bioactivities, including anti-inflammation, anti-oxidative stress and anti-cancer through various pathways. The objective of our study was to explore the effects of galangin on the suppression of retinoblastoma in vitro and in vivo. Using MTT analysis, transwell-chamber migration analysis, colony-forming analysis, wound healing analysis, immunofluorescent assay of KI-67, we found that galangin exhibited a suppressive effect on human retinoblastoma cell proliferation and migration. Moreover, PTEN, a tumor-suppressor, was increased by galangin in cancer cells and in tumor tissues isolated from retinoblastoma xenograft models. Additionally, galangin reduced protein kinase B (Akt) phosphorylation, which was associated with PTEN up-regulation. Galangin-reduced Akt activation and cell proliferation was abolished by PTEN knockdown, which might be associated with the over-expression of phosphatidylinositol-3,4,5-triphosphate (PIP3)/diphosphate product (PIP2). Furthermore, flow cytometry, Hoechst 33258 staining and western blot assays indicated that galangin could induce apoptosis through promoting Caspase-3 pathway, which was, at least partly, dependent on PTEN expression. Our data illustrated that galangin treatment suppressed the growth of retinoblastoma tumor in vivo by anti-proliferative and apoptogenic mechanisms. Thus, galangin might be a safe and promising non-chemotherapeutic drug, which could be useful as an adjuvant against retinoblastoma.
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