This review is focused on different subsets of T cells: CD4 and CD8, memory and effector functions, and their role in CAR-T therapy--a cellular adoptive immunotherapy with T cells expressing chimeric ...antigen receptor. The CAR-T cells recognize tumor antigens and induce cytotoxic activities against tumor cells. Recently, differences in T cell functions and the role of memory and effector T cells were shown to be important in CAR-T cell immunotherapy. The CD4⁺ subsets (Th1, Th2, Th9, Th17, Th22, Treg, and Tfh) and CD8⁺ memory and effector subsets differ in extra-cellular (CD25, CD45RO, CD45RA, CCR-7, L-Selectin CD62L, etc.); intracellular markers (FOXP3); epigenetic and genetic programs; and metabolic pathways (catabolic or anabolic); and these differences can be modulated to improve CAR-T therapy. In addition, CD4⁺ Treg cells suppress the efficacy of CAR-T cell therapy, and different approaches to overcome this suppression are discussed in this review. Thus, next-generation CAR-T immunotherapy can be improved, based on our knowledge of T cell subsets functions, differentiation, proliferation, and signaling pathways to generate more active CAR-T cells against tumors.
Increasing long‐term photostability of BiVO4 photoelectrode is an important issue for solar water splitting. The NiOOH oxygen evolution catalyst (OEC) has fast water oxidation kinetics compared to ...the FeOOH OEC. However, it generally shows a lower photoresponse and poor stability because of the more substantial interface recombination at the NiOOH/BiVO4 junction. Herein, we utilize a plasma etching approach to reduce both interface/surface recombination at NiOOH/BiVO4 and NiOOH/electrolyte junctions. Further, adding Fe2+ into the borate buffer electrolyte alleviates the active but unstable character of etched‐NiOOH/BiVO4, leading to an outstanding oxygen evolution over 200 h. The improved charge transfer and photostability can be attributed to the active defects and a mixture of NiOOH/NiO/Ni in OEC induced by plasma etching. Metallic Ni acts as the ion source for the in situ generation of the NiFe OEC over long‐term durability.
Flex your PECs: A facile plasma etching approach was utilized to reduce both interface/surface recombination at NiOOH/BiVO4 and NiOOH/electrolyte junctions for photoelectrochemical (PEC) catalysis of water splitting. Addition of Fe2+ into the borate buffer electrolyte alleviated the active but unstable character of etched‐NiOOH/BiVO4, leading to an outstanding photostability over 200 h.
Friend recommendation is an important feature of social network applications to help people make new friends and expand their social circles. However, the user-location and user-user information in ...location based social network are both too sparse which contributes to a big challenge for recommendation. In this paper, a new multi-feature SVM based friend recommendation model (MF-SVM) is proposed which regarded as a binary classification problem to tackle this challenge. We extract three features of each user by new methods respectively. The kernel density estimation and information entropy are used to smooth the check-in data and highlight the activity level of users to extract spatial-temporal feature. Then the social feature is extracted by considering the diversity of common friends. After that a new topic model improved by LDA is proposed which both considers user reviews and corresponding service description to extract textual feature. Finally, these features are used to train the SVM and whether the users have a friend link can be predicted by our model. The experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate that the proposed method in this paper outperforms the state-of-art friend recommendation methods under different types of evaluation metrics.
Mesenchymal stem cell‐derived exosomes (MSC‐Ex) play important roles in tissue injury repair, however, the roles of MSC‐Ex in skin damage repair and its mechanisms are largely unknown. Herein, we ...examined the benefit of human umbilical cord MSC‐derived exosome (hucMSC‐Ex) in cutaneous wound healing using a rat skin burn model. We found that hucMSC‐Ex‐treated wounds exhibited significantly accelerated re‐epithelialization, with increased expression of CK19, PCNA, collagen I (compared to collagen III) in vivo. HucMSC‐Ex promoted proliferation and inhibited apoptosis of skin cells after heat‐stress in vitro. We also discovered that Wnt4 was contained in hucMSC‐Ex, and hucMSC‐Ex‐derived Wnt4 promoted β‐catenin nuclear translocation and activity to enhance proliferation and migration of skin cells, which could be reversed by β‐catenin inhibitor ICG001. In vivo studies confirmed that the activation of Wnt/β‐catenin by hucMSC‐Ex played a key role in wound re‐epithelialization and cell proliferation. Furthermore, knockdown of Wnt4 in hucMSC‐Ex abrogated β‐catenin activation and skin cell proliferation and migration in vitro. The in vivo therapeutic effects were also inhibited when the expression of Wnt4 in hucMSC‐Ex was interfered. In addition, the activation of AKT pathway by hucMSC‐Ex was associated with the reduction of heat stress‐induced apoptosis in rat skin burn model. Collectively, our findings indicate that exosome‐delivered Wnt4 provides new aspects for the therapeutic strategy of MSCs in cutaneous wound healing. Stem Cells 2015;33:2158–2168
Lattice oxygen can play an intriguing role in electrochemical processes, not only maintaining structural stability, but also influencing electron and ion transport properties in high-capacity oxide ...cathode materials for Li-ion batteries. Here, we report the design of a gas-solid interface reaction to achieve delicate control of oxygen activity through uniformly creating oxygen vacancies without affecting structural integrity of Li-rich layered oxides. Theoretical calculations and experimental characterizations demonstrate that oxygen vacancies provide a favourable ionic diffusion environment in the bulk and significantly suppress gas release from the surface. The target material is achievable in delivering a discharge capacity as high as 301 mAh g(-1) with initial Coulombic efficiency of 93.2%. After 100 cycles, a reversible capacity of 300 mAh g(-1) still remains without any obvious decay in voltage. This study sheds light on the comprehensive design and control of oxygen activity in transition-metal-oxide systems for next-generation Li-ion batteries.
•The lognormal function was the best-fitting function to calculate SGI based on the monitoring data from the 100 wells located in US.•There existed a significant difference of changes in SGI over ...different areas.•The SGI had a similar temporal pattern in different seasons from 1981 to 2010 in the same region.•The lag effect between SGI and SPI was obvious and the cross-correlation coefficients increased with the increasing time scales.
Groundwater drought is a drought phenomenon caused by the decrease in groundwater level or groundwater storage under natural and anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., climate variability/change and groundwater abstraction). Due to the complexity of groundwater flow systems and the difficulty in obtaining direct observational data related to groundwater resources, it remains challenging to characterize groundwater drought quantitatively. To this end, standardized groundwater level index (SGI), which was modified from the standardized precipitation index (SPI), was used to quantify groundwater drought with the long-term groundwater level data (1981–2010) obtained from the Climate Response Network wells across the conterminous United States. The best fitting function of groundwater level distributions was lognormal which was selected from various distribution functions based on the Anderson-Darling (AD) test among 100 wells. Four monitoring wells located in Georgia, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Washington were selected as the main research objects. The trend of change in groundwater level was divided into two categories: the wells in Georgia and Oklahoma showed an initial decrease followed by an increase while the wells in Massachusetts and Washington showed a continuous decline. Groundwater drought varied significantly in different areas due to the complexity of geographical location, agricultural irrigation, population and other natural environment and human activities. Start and end time of drought conditions and the severity of drought and flooding at different time scales in the same area also varied, therefore it is necessary to describe different groundwater droughts at a reasonable time scale. In this paper, the difference between SGI and SPI at different time scales was so obvious that the cross-correlation analysis was used to find the law of lag time. The cross-correlation coefficients increased with the increasing time scales, and the average correlation values between SPI and SGI of wells in Georgia, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Washington were −0.568, −0.634, −0.667 and 0.496, respectively. With the time scale increased, the lag time in Georgia and Oklahoma also increased, but the lag time in Massachusetts and Washington region was almost unchanged, and there was almost no lag time in Massachusetts region. Through the study of the hydrogeological conditions such as vadose zone, lithology, soil and the influence of human activities, the hysteresis effect can be analysed, which can provide a new alternative to the conventional method and important information for future groundwater resource management.
To compare the pathological results and long-term survival results of early surgery and surgery after at least one year follow-up for ground‐glass component predominant lung adenocarcinoma patients. ...From January 1, 2013 to August 31, 2017, a total of 279 patients with ground-glass nodules (GGNs) undergoing surgical resection and pathologically proved to be pulmonary adenocarcinoma were included in this study. All patients were divided into early surgery group (ES Group) (210 cases) and surgery after follow-up group (FS Group) (69 cases). Patients in FS group experienced at least one year surveillance. Clinical and imaging features were analyzed by using univariate analysis. After analysis, there was no statistical difference in pathological results and long-term prognosis between the two groups. In the follow-up group, grown GGNs have proved to have more aggressive pathological results. The one-year follow-up may be a feasible management method for patients with ground‐glass component predominant GGN.
Ni‐rich layered oxides (LiNi1–xMxO2; M = Co, Mn, …) are appealing alternatives to conventional LiCoO2 as cathodes in Li‐ion batteries for automobile and other large‐scale applications due to their ...high theoretical capacity and low cost. However, preparing stoichiometric LiNi1–xMxO2 with ordered layer structure and high reversible capacity, has proven difficult due to cation mixing in octahedral sites. Herein, in situ studies of synthesis reactions and the associated structural ordering in preparing LiNiO2 and the Co‐substituted variant, LiNi0.8Co0.2O2, are made, to gain insights into synthetic control of the structure and electrochemical properties of Ni‐rich layered oxides. Results from this study indicate a direct transformation of the intermediate from the rock salt structure into hexagonal phase, and during the process, Co substitution facilities the nucleation of a Co‐rich layered phase at low temperatures and subsequent growth and stabilization of solid solution Li(Ni, Co)O2 upon further heat treatment. Optimal conditions are identified from the in situ studies and utilized to obtain stoichiometric LiNi0.8Co0.2O2 that exhibits high capacity (up to 200 mA h g−1 ) with excellent retention. The findings shed light on designing high performance Ni‐rich layered oxide cathodes through synthetic control of the structural ordering in the materials.
Ni‐rich layered oxides (LiNi1–xMxO2; M = Co, Mn, …) are promising high‐capacity cathodes for Li‐ion batteries; however, issues related to cationic disordering prevent their practical application. Here, in situ studies of synthesis reactions in preparing LiNiO2 and the Co‐substituted variant, LiNi0.8Co0.2O2 are made. Results from this work provide insights into synthetic control of cationic ordering and electrochemical properties of Ni‐rich layered oxide cathodes.
Abstract Background Musculoskeletal diseases of the foot such as stress fractures, tendonitis and subsequent pain are commonly associated with elevated stresses/strains of abnormal plantar arch after ...plantar ligamentous structure failures. The goal of this study was to develop anatomically detailed, finite element models of the medial and lateral plantar longitudinal arch, and to investigate bone and muscle stresses resulting from plantar fasciotomy and major plantar ligament injuries. Methods Nonlinear finite element models of the second ray and the fifth ray of plantar longitudinal arches were constructed on the basis of CT and MR images of Virtual Chinese Human “female No. 1”. The models assumed a balanced standing load configuration. Three different degrees of passive intrinsic muscle tensions (weak, moderate, or severe) were used in conjunction with simulations of plantar fasciotomy and major plantar ligament injury. Findings Plantar fasciotomy caused von Mises stress increases in the bones and plantar ligaments while major plantar ligament injuries caused stress increases in the bones, flexor tendons, and plantar fascia. Increasing intrinsic muscle passive tensions decreased stress/strain levels in the medial and lateral arch, and adjusted abnormal tension/compression stress flows of both arches to close to the normal biomechanical states. Interpretation This study shows that plantar longitudinal arches are concordant combination of bony structures, intrinsic muscles, plantar fascia and ligaments. After plantar ligamentous structure failures, intrinsic muscles have to contribute to stabilize the plantar arches. This mechanism may reduce the risk of developing stress fractures, tendonitis and pain syndrome.
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