We examine various direct and indirect constraints on the lepton-specific two-Higgs doublet model and discuss its phenomenology at colliders in the allowed parameter space. The constraints we ...consider come from the precision electroweak data, the direct search for Higgs boson, the muon anomalous magnetic moment, as well as some theoretical consistency requirements. We find that in the allowed parameter space the CP-odd Higgs boson
A
is rather light (
m
A
< 30 GeV with 95% possibility), which is composed dominantly by the leptonic Higgs and decays dominantly into
τ
+
τ
−
; while the SM-like Higgs boson
h
(responsible largely for electroweak symmetry breaking) decays dominantly in the mode
h
→
AA
→ 4
τ
with a large decay width, which will make the Higgs discovery more difficult at the LHC. Whereas, this scenario predicts rare
Z
decays
Z
→
AAA
and
Z
→
τ
+
τ
−
A
with their branching ratios ranging from 10
−8
to 10
−3
and 10
−5
to 10
−4
respectively, which may be accessible at the GigaZ option of the ILC.
Hypoxia is associated with resistance to chemotherapy in a number of human cancer types; particularly in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which is a highly vascularized tumor. To develop a potential ...combination therapy strategy that is capable of overcoming the hypoxia‑induced insensitivity to chemotherapy, the HCC cell SMMC‑7721 was employed to investigate the hypoxia‑induced chemoresistance to etoposide. Increased levels of hypoxia‑inducible factor‑1α (HIF‑1α) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) were observed when SMMC‑7721 cells were exposed to hypoxia, and exposure of tumor cells to hypoxia impaired etoposide‑induced DNA damage, as indicated by the failure of upregulation of γHA2X. Etoposide‑induced apoptosis and cell cycle arrest of SMMC‑7721 was also impaired in hypoxia. However, co‑treatment with anti‑VEGF significantly restored etoposide‑induced cell apoptosis and cell cycle arrest, as indicated by the elimination of B‑cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl‑2), procaspase 3, cyclin B1 and Cdc2. Furthermore, anti‑VEGF eliminated phosphorylation of AKT, ERK and IκB‑α resulting from hypoxia, suggesting the involvement of VEGF in the activation of the survival pathways. In conclusion, the present study suggests a significant role of VEGF in the chemoresistance of etoposide in hypoxia. A rational chemotherapy should be developed based on a combination of etoposide and anti‑VEGF.
Frequent extreme heat events are the serious threat to rice production, but the historical trend of heat stress associated with phenology shift and its impact on rice yield over a long period are ...poorly known. Based on the analysis of observed climate and phenology data from 228 stations in South China during 1981-2010, the spatio-temporal variation of post-heading heat stress was investigated among two single-season rice sub-regions in the northern Middle and Lower Reaches of Yangtze River (S-NMLYtz) and Southwest Plateau (S-SWP), and two double-season early rice sub-regions in the southern Middle and Lower Reaches of Yangtze River (DE-SMLYtz) and Southern China (DE-SC). Post-heading heat stress was more severe in DE-SMLYtz, west S-NMLYtz and east S-SWP than elsewhere, because of rice exposure to the hot season during post-heading stage. The spatial variation of post-heading heat stress was greater in single-season rice region than in double-season early rice region due to the greater spatial variation of heading and maturity dates. Post-heading heat stress increased from 1981 to 2010 in most areas, with significant increases in the east of double-season early rice region and west S-SWP. Phenology shift during 1981-2010 mitigated the increasing trends of heat stress in most areas, but not in west S-SWP. Post-heading heat stress played a dominated role in the reduction of rice yield in South China. Grain yield was more sensitive to post-heading heat stress in double-season early rice region than that in single-season rice region. Rice yield decreased by 1.5%, 6.2%, 9.7% and 4.6% in S-NMLYtz, S-SWP, DE-SMLYtz and DE-SC, respectively, because of post-heading heat stress during 1981-2010, although there were some uncertainties. Given the current level and potential increase of post-heading heat stress in South China, the specific adaptation or mitigation strategies are necessary for different sub-regions to stabilize rice production under heat stress.
Pancreatic carcinoma is one of the most aggressive malignancies and carries the most dismal prognoses of all cancers. A better understanding of the genes involving in tumor development may allow us ...to tackle this rapidly progressive disease. The Net gene belongs to the ternary complex transcription factor (TCF) family and is regulated by the Ras/mitogen-activited protein kinase-signaling pathway. Under basal conditions, Net shows strong represssing function on transcription of proto-oncogene gene c-fos. Moreover, the lower expression of Net has been noted in some carcinoma cells, such as cervical cancer. To study the effect of Net on c-fos expression and its potential role in the growth of pancreatic carcinoma, we developed a recombinant plasmid, a pEGFP-N1-Net, which codes for Net-EGFP fusion proteins, and stably transfected it into BxPC-3 human pancreatic carcinoma cells. Using stable transformants, we were able to show that overexpression of Net decreased the expression of c-fos and inhibited pancreatic cancer cell proliferation. Cell cycle analysis demonstrated that Net overexpression inhibited cell cycle progression. These findings suggested that loss of Net repression could augment c-fos expression and further trigger neoplastic cell proliferation, which was involved in the pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer. Therefore, Net might be a potential target for the treatment of c-fos-positive pancreatic cancer.
In this paper,the means of WiFi was used to access to mobile phone MAC address to get passenger flow data and existing prediction methods were compared. Then N6 of Chongqing International Expo ...Exhibition Center was taken as the object of study and 5min was taken as the time interval to count N6 hall passenger flow from 9:00 am to 17:00 pm of 5 open days to obtain time series. At last, ARMA model was established to predict passenger flow of short time. The results show that the mean we use in this paper has high accuracy of prediction, MAE is 2.8771,and the means can be used for the passenger flow prediction of exhibition well.