Thymosins have diverse biological activities including actin-sequestering and tissue repair in vertebrates, however, there is little information about the function of thymosins in invertebrates. We ...isolated a β-thymosin gene in Helicoverpa armigera. It has two transcript variants, HaTHY1 and HaTHY2, encoding 19.0 kDa and 14.5 kDa peptides, respectively. HaTHY1 was mainly transcribed in the integument and midgut, while HaTHY2 was principally presented in the fat body and haemocytes. The transcript levels of HaTHY2 showed some fluctuation; there was an obvious increase at the metamorphic stage in the integument or fat body. HaTHY was able to be upregulated by 20-hydroxyecdysone or by bacterial and viral challenge. These data suggest that HaTHY is upregulated by the steroid hormone and by responses to microorganism infection.
Gene expression profiling (GEP) has stratified diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) into molecular subgroups that correspond to different stages of lymphocyte development-namely germinal center ...B-cell like and activated B-cell like. This classification has prognostic significance, but GEP is expensive and not readily applicable into daily practice, which has lead to immunohistochemical algorithms proposed as a surrogate for GEP analysis. We assembled tissue microarrays from 475 de novo DLBCL patients who were treated with rituximab-CHOP chemotherapy. All cases were successfully profiled by GEP on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue samples. Sections were stained with antibodies reactive with CD10, GCET1, FOXP1, MUM1 and BCL6 and cases were classified following a rationale of sequential steps of differentiation of B cells. Cutoffs for each marker were obtained using receiver-operating characteristic curves, obviating the need for any arbitrary method. An algorithm based on the expression of CD10, FOXP1 and BCL6 was developed that had a simpler structure than other recently proposed algorithms and 92.6% concordance with GEP. In multivariate analysis, both the International Prognostic Index and our proposed algorithm were significant independent predictors of progression-free and overall survival. In conclusion, this algorithm effectively predicts prognosis of DLBCL patients matching GEP subgroups in the era of rituximab therapy.
In this work, we report the in-orbit demonstration of X-ray pulsar navigation with Insight-Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT) Satellite, which was launched on 2017 June 15. The new pulsar ...navigation method "Significance Enhancement of Pulse-profile with Orbit-dynamics" is adopted to determine the orbit with observations of only one pulsar. In this test, the Crab pulsar is chosen and observed by Insight-HXMT from 2017 August 31 to September 5. Using the five-day long observation data, the orbit of Insight-HXMT is determined successfully with the three telescopes onboard: High Energy X-ray Telescope, Medium Energy X-ray Telescope, and Low Energy X-ray Telescope, respectively. By combining all the data, the position and velocity of the Insight-HXMT are pinpointed to within 10 km (3 ) and 10 m s−1 (3 ), respectively.
Abstract
Bulk Bi
0.5
Sr
0.5
Fe
0.5
Cr
0.5
O
3
(BSFCO) is a new compound comprising the
R3c
structure. The structural, magnetic property and exchange bias (EB) details are investigated. The material ...was in the super-paramagnetic (SP) state at room temperature. Exchange bias usually occurs at the boundary between different magnetic states after field cooling (
H
FC
) acts on the sample. Here the result shows that changing
H
FC
from 1 to 6 T reduces the
H
EB
value by 16% at 2 K at the same time. Meanwhile,
H
EB
diminishes as the ferromagnetic layer thickness increases. The variation of (the thickness of ferromagnetic layer)
t
FM
with the change of
H
FC
leads to the tuning of
H
EB
by
H
FC
in BSFCO bulk. These effects are obviously different from the phenomenon seen in other oxide types.
ABSTRACT
We report on the Insight-HXMT observations of the new black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070 during its 2018 outburst. Detailed spectral analysis via the continuum fitting method shows an ...evolution of the inferred spin during its high soft sate. Moreover, the hardness ratio, the non-thermal luminosity and the reflection fraction also undergo an evolution, exactly coincident to the period when the inferred spin transition takes place. The unphysical evolution of the spin is attributed to the evolution of the inner disc, which is caused by the collapse of a hot corona due to condensation mechanism or may be related to the deceleration of a jet-like corona. The studies of the inner disc radius and the relation between the disc luminosity and the inner disc radius suggest that, only at a particular epoch, did the inner edge of the disc reach the innermost stable circular orbit and the spin measurement is reliable. We then constrain the spin of MAXI J1820 + 070 to be $a_*=0.2^{+0.2}_{-0.3}$. Such a slowly spinning black hole possessing a strong jet suggests that its jet activity is driven mainly by the accretion disc rather than by the black hole spin.
This study aims to explore dynamic behaviours of fracturing and damage evolution of rock materials at the grain scale. A grain-based discrete element method (GB-DEM) is proposed to reveal microscale ...characterisation and mineral grain compositions of rock materials realistically. Micro-parameters of GB-DEM are obtained by calibrating quasi-static strengths, elastic modulus, stress–strain curves, and fracture characteristics of igneous rocks. Comprehensive numerical simulations are conducted to compare with dynamic experimental results obtained by the split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB). The reasonability of using the GB-DEM is presented to validate fundamental pre-requisites of the SHPB technique. Combined with crack strain and acoustic emissions, the rate dependency of crack initiation stress threshold and crack damage stress threshold is investigated. The dynamic damage evolution in the form of Weibull distribution is distinctively different from that in static tests and the shape/scale parameters are presented as functions of strain rate. Moreover, microcharacteristics of crack fracturing transition and fracturing patterns formation are discussed in detail. It is found that there exist two classes of mechanical behaviour (i.e., Class I and Class II) observed from stress–strain responses of dynamic tests. Main fracturing surfaces induced by intergranular fractures split the specimen along the direction of stress wave propagation in the type of Class I behaviour. Branching cracks derive the cracks’ nucleation and in turn increases the fragment degree. A shearing band formed near the fracture surface is caused by grain pulverisations, which eventually enhances the sustainability of rocks under dynamic loading. At last, we propose a generalised equation of dynamic increase factor in the range from 10
− 5
to 500/s, and also discuss the characteristic strain rate.
ABSTRACT
We investigate the absorption and emission features in observations of GX 301-2 detected with Insight-HXMT/LE in 2017–2019. At different orbital phases, we found prominent Fe Kα, Kβ, and Ni ...Kα lines, as well as Compton shoulders and Fe K-shell absorption edges. These features are due to the X-ray reprocessing caused by the interaction between the radiation from the source and surrounding accretion material. According to the ratio of iron lines (Kα and Kβ), we infer the accretion material is in a low ionization state. We find an orbital-dependent local absorption column density, which has a large value and strong variability around the periastron. We explain its variability as a result of inhomogeneities of the accretion environment and/or instabilities of accretion processes. In addition, the variable local column density is correlated with the equivalent width of the iron Kα lines throughout the orbit, which suggests that the accretion material near the neutron star is spherically distributed.
ABSTRACT
We report the phase-connected timing ephemeris, polarization pulse profiles, Faraday rotation measurements, and Rotating-Vector-Model (RVM) fitting results of 12 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) ...discovered with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) in the Commensal Radio Astronomy FAST survey (CRAFTS). The timing campaigns were carried out with FAST and Arecibo over 3 yr. 11 of the 12 pulsars are in neutron star–white dwarf binary systems, with orbital periods between 2.4 and 100 d. 10 of them have spin periods, companion masses, and orbital eccentricities that are consistent with the theoretical expectations for MSP–Helium white dwarf (He WD) systems. The last binary pulsar (PSR J1912−0952) has a significantly smaller spin frequency and a smaller companion mass, the latter could be caused by a low orbital inclination for the system. Its orbital period of 29 d is well within the range of orbital periods where some MSP–He WD systems have shown anomalous eccentricities, however, the eccentricity of PSR J1912−0952 is typical of what one finds for the remaining MSP–He WD systems.