Epidemiological observations have demonstrated that ambient fine particulate matter with d
< 2.5 μm (PM
) as the major factor responsible for the increasing incidence of lung cancer in ...never-smokers. However, there are very limited experimental data to support the association of PM
with lung carcinogenesis and to compare PM
with smoking carcinogens.
To study whether PM
can contribute to lung tumorigenesis in a way similar to smoking carcinogen 4-methylnitrosamino-l-3-pyridyl-butanone (NNK) via 15-lipoxygenases (15-LOXs) reduction, normal lung epithelial cells and cancer cells were treated with NNK or PM
and then epigenetically and post-translationally examined the cellular and molecular profiles of the cells. The data were verified in lung cancer samples and a mouse lung tumor model.
We found that similar to smoking carcinogen NNK, PM2.5 significantly enhanced cell proliferation, migration and invasion, but reduced the levels of 15-lipoxygenases-1 (15-LOX1) and 15-lipoxygenases-2 (15-LOX2), both of which were also obviously decreased in lung cancer tissues. 15-LOX1/15-LOX2 overexpression inhibited the oncogenic cell functions induced by PM2.5/NNK. The tumor formation and growth were significantly higher/faster in mice implanted with PM2.5- or NNK-treated NCI-H23 cells, accompanied with a reduction of 15-LOX1/15-LOX2. Moreover, 15-LOX1 expression was epigenetically regulated at methylation level by PM2.5/NNK, while both 15-LOX1 and 15-LOX2 could be significantly inhibited by a set of PM2.5/NNK-mediated microRNAs.
Collectively, PM2.5 can function as the smoking carcinogen NNK to induce lung tumorigenesis by inhibiting 15-LOX1/15-LOX2.
Turning restriction is one of the commonest traffic management techniques and an effective low cost traffic improvement strategy in urban road networks. However, the literature has not paid much ...attention to the turning restriction design problem (TRDP), which aims to determine a set of intersections where turning restrictions should be implemented. In this paper, a bi-level programming model is proposed to formulate the TRDP. The upper level problem is to minimize the total travel cost from the viewpoint of traffic managers, and the lower level problem is to depict travelers’ route choice behavior based on stochastic user equilibrium (SUE) theory. We propose a branch and bound method (BBM), based on the sensitivity analysis algorithm (SAA), to find the optimal turning restriction strategy. A branch strategy and a bound strategy are applied to accelerate the solution process of the TRDP. The computational experiments give promising results, showing that the optimal turning restriction strategy can obviously reduce system congestion and are robust to the variations of both the dispersion parameter of the SUE problem and the level of demand.
Patient satisfaction is an important outcome measure guiding quality improvement in the healthcare setting while the patient-centred care movement places increasing importance on patient engagement ...in clinical decision-making. However, the concept of patient satisfaction is not clearly defined, and beliefs of patients are not always evident in health surveys. Researchers rarely follow up on surveys to explore patient views and what they mean in greater depth. This study set out to examine perceptions of hospital care, through in-depth, qualitative data capture and as a result, to gather rich, patient-driven information on user experience and satisfaction in the Australian healthcare setting; and identify influencing factors.
Focus groups were undertaken in four St Vincent's Health Australia (SVHA) hospitals in 2017 where participants discussed responses to eight questions from the Press Ganey Patient Experience Survey. Thirty people who were inpatients at SVHA.
Good communication and high-quality information at arrival and discharge were found to be important to patients. Communication breakdown was also evident, further exacerbated by a range of environmental factors such as sharing a room with others. Overall, patients' felt that while their spiritual needs were well-supported by the hospital staff at all SVHA hospitals, it was the clinical teams prioritised their emotional needs. Good communication and environments can improve patient experience and follow-up at home is vital.
Patient-centred care needs careful planning with patients involved at entry and exit from hospital. Focused communication, environmental changes, attending to complaints, and clearer discharge strategies are recommended.
We report on electric‐field‐induced irreversible structural modifications in pentacene thin films after long‐term operation of organic field‐effect transistor (OFET) devices. Micro‐Raman spectroscopy ...allows for the analysis of the microstructural modifications of pentacene in the small active channel of OFET during device operation. The results suggest that the herringbone packing of pentacene molecules in a solid film is affected by an external electric field, particularly the source‐to‐drain field that parallels the a–b lattice plane. The analysis of vibrational frequency and Davydov splitting in the Raman spectra reveals a singular behavior suggesting a reduced separation distance between pentacene molecules after long‐term operations and, thus, large intermolecular interactions. These results provide evidence for improved OFET performance after long‐term operation, related to the microstructures of organic semiconductors. It is known that the application of large electric fields alters the semiconductor properties of the material owing to the generation of defects and the trapping of charges. However, we first suggest that large electric fields may alter the molecular geometry and further induce structural phase transitions in the pentacene films. These results provide a basis for understanding the improved electronic properties in test devices after long‐term operations, including enhanced field‐effect mobility, improved on/off current ratio, sharp sub‐threshold swing, and a slower decay rate in the output drain current. In addition, the effects of source‐to‐drain electric field, gate electric field, current and charge carriers, and thermal annealing on the pentacene films during OFET operations are discussed.
Electric field‐induced microstructural modifications of pentacene films in the active channel of organic transistors during and after device operation are studied using micro‐Raman spectroscopy. After long‐term operation, we first suggest that increased intermolecular coupling enhances the charge transport between pentacene molecules and, thus, improves transistor performance.
Due to the fast dynamics and re‐equilibration of supramolecular self‐assembly, bottom‐up molecular strategies to fabricate well‐defined and controllable multiblock structures are rare. Herein, we ...propose a new concept for fabrication of fluorescent multiblock microcolumns containing 1 to 7 blocks via hierarchical supramolecular self‐assembly based on cucurbit8uril (CB8), NaBr and an AIEgen guest. Through the complexation between CB8 and different numbers of AIEgen guests (2, 1, 0), the competitive displacement caused by the binding of the sodium cation to the CB8 portal, and the reversible assembly of positively charged guests in salt solutions, one‐pot hierarchical supramolecular self‐assembly is realized. The molecular structure of each block is analyzed by single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction. The AIEgen enables the self‐assembly of multiblocks to be visualized, understood, and regulated.
Fluorescent multiblock microcolumns are fabricated relying on the cooperation between the controllable host‐guest complexation of cucurbit8uril (CB8) and AIEgen guest and the hierarchical supramolecular self‐assembly based on CB8, NaBr and AIEgen guest. The AIEgen enables the self‐assembly to be visualized, understood, and regulated.
Strong spin orbital interaction (SOI) can induce unique quantum phenomena such as topological insulators, the Rashba effect, or p-wave superconductivity. Combining these three quantum phenomena into ...a single compound has important scientific implications. Here we report experimental observations of consecutive quantum phase transitions from a Rashba type topological trivial phase to topological insulator state then further proceeding to superconductivity in a SOI compound BiTeI tuned via pressures. The electrical resistivity measurement with V shape change signals the transition from a Rashba type topological trivial to a topological insulator phase at 2 GPa, which is caused by an energy gap close then reopen with band inverse. Superconducting transition appears at 8 GPa with a critical temperature T
of 5.3 K. Structure refinements indicate that the consecutive phase transitions are correlated to the changes in the Bi-Te bond and bond angle as function of pressures. The Hall Effect measurements reveal an intimate relationship between superconductivity and the unusual change in carrier density that points to possible unconventional superconductivity.
Recent experimental and observational research has suggested that childhood allergic asthma and other conditions may be the result of prenatal exposure to environmental contaminants, such as ...di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP). In a previous epidemiological study, we found that ancestral exposure (F0 generation) to endocrine disruptors or the common plasticizer DEHP promoted allergic airway inflammation via transgenerational transmission in mice from generation F1 to F4. In the current study, we employed a MethylationEPIC Beadchip microarray to examine global DNA methylation in the human placenta as a function of maternal exposure to DEHP during pregnancy. Interestingly, global DNA hypomethylation was observed in placental DNA following exposure to DEHP at high concentrations. Bioinformatic analysis confirmed that DNA methylation affected genes related to neurological disorders, such as autism and dementia. These results suggest that maternal exposure to DEHP may predispose offspring to neurological diseases. Given the small sample size in this study, the potential role of DNA methylation as a biomarker to assess the risk of these diseases deserves further investigation.
The dynamic behavior of a macroscopic adhered hydrogel stabilized through controllable dynamic covalent interactions is reported. These interactions, involving the cross‐linked formation of a ...hydrogel through reaction of a diacylhydrazine precursor with a tetraformyl partner, increase as a function of time. By using a contact time of 24 h and different compounds with recognized aggregation‐induced emission features (AIEgens), it proves possible to create six laminated acylhydrazone hydrogels displaying different fluorescent colors. Blocks of these hydrogels are then adhered into a structure resembling a Rubik's Cube, a trademark of Rubik's Brand Limited, (RC) and allowed to anneal for 1 h. This produces a 3 × 3 × 3 block (RC) wherein the individual fluorescent gel blocks are loosely adhered to one another. As a consequence, the 1 × 3 × 3 layers making up the RC can be rotated either horizontally or vertically to produce new patterns. Ex situ modification of the RC or application of a chemical stimulus can be used to produce new color arrangements. The present RC structure highlights how the temporal features, strong versus weak adhesion, may be exploited to create smart macroscopic structures.
A hydrogel resembling a Rubik's Cube, a trademark of Rubik's Brand Limited, is made via controllable dynamic covalent interactions. Its layers can be rotated either horizontally or vertically to produce new patterns. Ex situ modification or a chemical stimulus can also produce new color arrangements. The creation of multiple patterns may allow for potential applications in patterns‐related material research.
•Provide intersection-movement-based formulations for dynamic system optimum simultaneous route and departure time choice problems and analyze their mathematical properties.•Propose ...intersection-movement-based and path-based non-vehicle holding constraints.•Prove the equivalency of different formulations for the studied problems.•Illustrate that cyclic flows can exist in optimal solutions to the studied problems.•Illustrate the computational efficiency of solving different proposed models.
In this paper, we propose intersection-movement-based models to formulate dynamic system optimum simultaneous route and departure time choice (DSO-SRDTC) problems over general networks and compare the models with the link-based and path-based counterparts. Each of these three types of models has four variants, which are formed by whether to consider first-in-first-out (FIFO) constraints and non-vehicle holding (NVH) constraints. In all three types of DSO-SRDTC models and their variants, the link transmission model (LTM) is incorporated as their traffic flow model. The DSO-SRDTC problems without FIFO constraints are formulated as linear programming (LP) problems, while the DSO-SRDTC problems with FIFO constraints are formulated as non-convex non-linear programming problems. We find that existing link-based NVH constraints cannot completely eliminate vehicle holding (VH) solutions, and propose both intersection-movement-based and path-based NVH constraints, which can completely eliminate VH solutions. We also prove that the link-based, intersection-movement-based, and path-based models of DSO-SRDTC problems without FIFO constraints are equivalent in terms of obtaining the same optimal total system travel cost (TSTC). However, the three types of models for DSO-SRDTC problems with FIFO constraints can obtain different optimal TSTCs. Based on the solution properties of the DSO-SRDTC problems with FIFO constraints, branch-and-bound algorithms are modified to solve the DSO-SRDTC problems with FIFO constraints for global optima. Numerical examples are set up to demonstrate the properties and performance of the proposed models. To the best of our knowledge, we are the pioneers to provide intersection-movement-based formulations for DSO-SRDTC problems and analyze their mathematical properties.
•We introduce a novel bike network design model for planning segregated bike paths.•A mixed integer nonlinear nonconvex model is proposed for the design problem.•The model captures cyclists’ route ...choice behavior with a path size logit constraint.•The model is reformulated and linearized to an MILP to obtain a global optimum.•A new matheuristic is proposed by incorporating a surrogate-model-based algorithm.
This study focuses on the optimal network design problem of bike paths, which are on or adjacent to roadways but are physically separated from motorized traffic within the existing urban network. The problem seeks to maximize the total route utilities of cyclists and capture their actual route choice behavior using a path-size logit model. A mixed-integer nonlinear nonconvex model is developed for the problem and is reformulated and linearized into a mixed-integer linear program. The program is solved with a global optimization method and a matheuristic. Results are provided to illustrate the performance of these methods and the model properties.
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