Abstract Renal regeneration approaches offer great potential for the treatment of chronic kidney disease, but their availability remains limited by the clinical challenges they pose. In the present ...study, we used continuous detergent perfusion to generate decellularized (DC) rat kidney scaffolds. The scaffolds retained intact vascular trees and overall architecture, along with significant concentrations of various cytokines, but lost all cellular components. To evaluate its potential in renal function recovery, DC scaffold tissue was grafted onto partially nephrectomized rat kidneys. An increase of renal size was found, and regenerated renal parenchyma cells were observed in the repair area containing the grafted scaffold. In addition, the number of nestin-positive renal progenitor cells was markedly higher in scaffold-grafted kidneys compared to controls. Moreover, radionuclide scan analysis showed significant recovery of renal functions at 6 weeks post-implantation. Our results provide further evidence to show that DC kidney scaffolds could be used to promote renal recovery in the treatment of chronic kidney disease.
Stability of active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) is analysed in the presence of unknown, nonlinear, and time-varying dynamics. In the framework of singular perturbations, the closed-loop ...error dynamics are semi-decoupled into a relatively slow subsystem (the feedback loop) and a relatively fast subsystem (the extended state observer), respectively. It is shown, analytically and geometrically, that there exists a unique exponential stable solution if the size of the initial observer error is sufficiently small, i.e. in the same order of the inverse of the observer bandwidth. The process of developing the uniformly asymptotic solution of the system reveals the condition on the stability of the ADRC and the relationship between the rate of change in the total disturbance and the size of the estimation error. The differentiability of the total disturbance is the only assumption made.
Replacing fossil fuels with energy sources and carriers that are sustainable, environmentally benign, and affordable is amongst the most pressing challenges for future socio-economic development. To ...that goal, hydrogen is presumed to be the most promising energy carrier. Electrocatalytic water splitting, if driven by green electricity, would provide hydrogen with minimal CO
footprint. The viability of water electrolysis still hinges on the availability of durable earth-abundant electrocatalyst materials and the overall process efficiency. This review spans from the fundamentals of electrocatalytically initiated water splitting to the very latest scientific findings from university and institutional research, also covering specifications and special features of the current industrial processes and those processes currently being tested in large-scale applications. Recently developed strategies are described for the optimisation and discovery of active and durable materials for electrodes that ever-increasingly harness first-principles calculations and machine learning. In addition, a technoeconomic analysis of water electrolysis is included that allows an assessment of the extent to which a large-scale implementation of water splitting can help to combat climate change. This review article is intended to cross-pollinate and strengthen efforts from fundamental understanding to technical implementation and to improve the 'junctions' between the field's physical chemists, materials scientists and engineers, as well as stimulate much-needed exchange among these groups on challenges encountered in the different domains.
Purpose
Neoadjuvant chemotherapy for advanced breast cancer may improve the radicality for a subset of patients, but others may suffer from severe adverse drug reactions without any benefit. To ...predict the responses to chemotherapy, we performed a phase II trial of neoadjuvant chemotherapy using a weekly PCb paclitaxel (Taxol) plus carboplatin regimen for stage II/III breast cancer and assessed the correlation between baseline gene expression and the tumor response to treatment.
Methods
A total of 61 patients with stage II-III breast cancer were included and administered four cycles of preoperative PCb. We performed a gene expression analysis using Affymetrix HG-U133 Plus 2.0 GeneChip arrays in 31 breast cancer tissues. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified by the significance analysis of microarrays (SAM) program using a false discovery rate of 0.05. The Functional Annotation Tool in the DAVID Bioinformatics Resources was used to perform the gene functional enrichment analysis. The other 30 patients (15 pCR and 15 non-pCR patients) were available as an independent validation set to test the selected DEGs by quantitative real-time PCR analysis (qRT-PCR).
Results
By analyzing six pathological complete response (pCR) patients and 25 patients with non-pCR, 300 probes (231 genes) were identified as differentially expressed between pCR and residual disease by the SAM program when the fold change was >2. The gene functional enrichment analysis revealed 15 prominent gene categories that were different between pCR and non-pCR patients, most notably the genes involved in the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR), DNA repair and ER signal pathways and in the immune-related gene cluster. The qRT-PCR analysis results for the genes in the PPAR pathway (LPL, SORBS1, PLTP, SCD5, MMP1 and CSTA) in independent validation set were consistent with the results from the microarray data analysis.
Conclusion
In the present study, we identified a number of gene categories pertinent to the therapeutic response. We believe that the PPAR pathway may be an important predictor of genes that are involved in the chemotherapy response.
This paper presents an experimental study on the influence of groove-textured surface on tribological behaviors and friction-induced vibration and noise properties. Groove-textured surfaces with ...different widths and pitches were manufactured on compacted graphite iron materials (brake disc material) by electromachining. The difference between the groove-textured and original smooth surfaces in friction and wear and vibration and noise properties was studied, by using a developed device which is able to synchronously measure and analyze the friction force, vibration acceleration and noise signals in a ball-on-flat reciprocating sliding configuration. It is shown that the squeal generated from the groove-textured surface was more influenced by the dimensional proportion of groove width to pitch, instead independently by groove width or pitch. Groove-textured surfaces with a specific dimensional proportion of groove width to pitch of 1/2, i.e., the width of groove equal to the width of ridge, showed good potential in reducing and suppressing squeal. The groove was the dominant surface component of contact surface topography affecting the generation of squeal compared to the microscopic irregularities of the worn surface. The wave-fluctuations of the friction force caused by counterface ball sliding across the grooves were found to play a crucial role in the squeal generation, which can effectively disturb the self-excited vibration of the friction system and consequently reduce the tendency to squeal.
The mechanical properties and tensile deformation mechanism of Ti-6.5Al-3.5Mo-1.5Zr-0.25Si alloy (TC11) with different percentages of primary α phase (αp) were studied by conventional and interrupted ...tensile tests, respectively. The results show that the strength of TC11 alloy increases with the increase of the percentage of αp. During tensile deformation, TC11 alloy with different percentages of αp exhibits similar behavior. The deformation mechanism in αp transforms from single slip to multiple slip. While, the microcracks first initiate at the interface of two phases, propagate along it, and then propagate through the transformed β phase (βt) and finally through αp. Finally, a method for predicting the strength of TC11 alloy considering the sizes of αp and βt is proposed.
We study the process e^{+}e^{-}→Λ_{c}^{+}Λover ¯_{c}^{-} at twelve center-of-mass energies from 4.6119 to 4.9509 GeV using data samples collected by the BESIII detector at the BEPCII collider. The ...Born cross sections and effective form factors (|G_{eff}|) are determined with unprecedented precision after combining the single and double-tag methods based on the decay process Λ_{c}^{+}→pK^{-}π^{+}. Flat cross sections around 4.63 GeV are obtained and no indication of the resonant structure Y(4630), as reported by Belle, is found. In addition, no oscillatory behavior is discerned in the |G_{eff}| energy dependence of Λ_{c}^{+}, in contrast to what is seen for the proton and neutron cases. Analyzing the cross section together with the polar-angle distribution of the Λ_{c}^{+} baryon at each energy point, the moduli of electric and magnetic form factors (|G_{E}| and |G_{M}|) are extracted and separated. For the first time, the energy dependence of the form factor ratio |G_{E}/G_{M}| is observed, which can be well described by an oscillatory function.
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