Concept for a Future Super Proton-Proton Collider

Following the discovery of the Higgs boson at LHC, new large colliders are being studied by the international high-energy community to explore Higgs physics in detail and new physics beyond the Standard Model. In China, a two-stage circular collider project CEPC-SPPC is proposed, with the first stage CEPC (Circular Electron Positron Collier, a so-called Higgs factory) focused on Higgs physics, and the second stage SPPC (Super Proton-Proton Collider) focused on new physics beyond the Standard Model. This paper discusses this second stage.Comment: 34 pages, 8 figures, 5 table

Chewing Gum for Intestinal Function Recovery after Colorectal Cancer Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background. This meta-analysis was performed to assess the efficacy and safety of chewing gum in intestinal function recovery after colorectal cancer surgery. Methods. A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, Science Direct, and Cochrane library for relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published until April 2017. Summary risk ratios or weighted mean differences with 95% confidence intervals were used for continuous and dichotomous outcomes, respectively. Results. 17 RCTs with a total number of 1845 patients were included. Gum chewing following colorectal cancer surgery significantly reduced the time to first passage of flatus (WMD −0.55; 95% CI −0.94 to −0.16; P=0.006), first bowel movement (WMD −0.60; 95% CI −0.87 to −0.33; P<0.0001), start feeding (WMD −1.32; 95% CI −2.18 to −0.46; P=0.003), and the length of postoperative hospital stay (WMD −0.88; 95% CI −1.59 to −0.17; P=0.01), but no obvious differences were found in postoperative nausea, vomiting, abdominal distention, pneumonia, and mortality, which were consistent with the findings of intention to treat analysis. Conclusions. Chewing gum could accelerate the recovery of intestinal function after colorectal cancer surgery. However, it confers no advantage in postoperative clinical complications. Further large-scale and high-quality RCTs should be conducted to confirm these results

Molecular and Celluar Mechanism Studies on Anticancer Effects of Chinese Medicines

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Evaluation of Chinese provincial ecological well-being performance based on the driving effect decomposition

The focus of this paper is three-fold. First, it recalculates the HDI and EFI, use the ratio of HDI and EF to build the EWP, then evaluate and analyze the EWP of China's provinces. Second, it develops a unique ecological well-being performance (EWP) model, which is divided into two driving effects: the well-being effect of economic growth and the ecological efficiency of economic growth. Third, using the Human Development Index (HDI), it measures the well-being effect and ecological efficiency of economic growth in 31 Chinese provinces. Based on the EWP results, it divides the Chinese provinces into five types from economic leading and upgrading to overall descending. The research results show that China's HDI has greatly improved from 2006 to 2016, displaying a trend of "Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai take the lead in upgrading, and then the uprising trend expands from east to west". However, during the same period from 2006 to 2016, the growth rate of China's people’s well-being was significantly lower than that of per capita ecological footprint (EF), and the overall EWP declined. China's growth in people’s well-being is decoupled from economic growth, which indicates that China’s rapid economic growth was not followed by a similar progress in China’s people’s well-being. The above results suggest that China's total factor productivity (TFP) and green total factor productivity (GTFP) were improving but in different degrees during the above period. Other results show that, the carbon footprint has always been the largest component of China's EF, and the GTFP has always been lower than the TFP. According to the technology progress index and scale efficiency driving of change index, China’s provinces mainly focus on provincial TFP rather than GTFP. This paper suggests that the different types of provinces should adopt different strategies to improve their EWP in order to promote high-quality economic development

Effects of biochar-based silicate fertilizer on iron reduction by bacteria and root iron plaque formation in subtropical paddy soils

Altres ajuts: Fundación Ramón Areces project ELEMENTAL-CLIMATEPurpose: Biochar and silicate-enriched steel-slag, as agricultural and industrial waste materials, are used to improve soil physicochemical properties and soil fertility; however, there are few studies on the effects of their combined application to paddy fields on the formation of root Fe plaque. Materials and methods: We tested the effects of four application rates (0, 300, 600 and 900 kg ha−1) of biochar-based silicate fertilizer (BSF) to early and late rice on root Fe plaque formation. Results and discussion: Application of BSF increased soil total carbon and total nitrogen concentrations in late rice, and total phosphorus concentrations were increased by 47.03% at the jointing stage and 27.73% at the mature growth stage of early rice following application of BSF at 600 kg ha−1. The three application treatments all significantly increased the abundance of soil iron-reducing bacteria (IRB) in late rice, and application of 600 kg of BSF ha−1 increased IRB abundance by 52.16% and 66.59% at the jointing and mature growth stage, respectively. Both IRB abundance and IP concentration were positively correlated with Fe(II) and negatively correlated with Fe(III) in late rice. Soil Fe(II) concentration was positively correlated with water content, whereas Fe(III) concentration was negatively correlated. Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that moderate inputs of BSF (600 kg ha−1) increased soil Fe reduction and subsequently promoted the formation of more soluble Fe(II) and iron plaque formation through soil fluidity and Fe(II) movement to roots. We suggest that the application of BSF to dry-wet rice paddies may contribute to reduction of agricultural pollution, improvement in soil conditions, and production of sustainable healthy food crops

Risk factors for cognitive decline in older Chinese adults: the impact of social activity on the relationship between hearing, functional mobility, and cognition

ObjectiveHearing and functional mobility impairments are recognized as risk factors for cognitive decline in older adults, yet the causal relationship underlying these associations is not well-understood. This study aims to explore whether engagement in social activities mediates the link between hearing or functional mobility impairment and cognitive decline.MethodsThis cross-sectional study was carried out in two cities in Jiangsu Province, Eastern China. Participants self-reported hearing impairment and social activity engagement, whereas functional mobility impairment was assessed using the Timed Up and Go Test (TUGT). Cognitive function was evaluated through the Modified Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Logistic regression analysis explored factors influencing cognitive function, and mediation analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between hearing or functional mobility impairment and cognitive decline.ResultsThe study included 10,217 adults aged 60 and above. Among them, 19.35% reported hearing impairment, while 40.86% failed the Timed Up and Go Test (TUGT). The Modified Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) indicated a 30.40% prevalence of cognitive decline. Logistic regression analysis identified significant associations of cognitive function with factors such as gender, age, education level, residency, living arrangement, hyperlipidemia, cerebrovascular disease, alcohol consumption, smoking, Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs), social activity, hearing, and functional mobility (p &lt; 0.01). Mediation analysis, after adjusting for confounders, showed that social activity engagement partially mediated the impact of functional mobility impairment on cognitive decline (indirect effect: −0.0947, 95% Bootstrapped CI: −0.1228, −0.0695; proportion of total effect: 11.635%, p &lt; 0.01). However, no mediation effect was observed in the relationship between self-reported hearing impairment and cognitive decline.ConclusionThis study revealed that social activity engagement plays a mediating role in the relationship between functional mobility and cognitive function, but it does not significantly influence the relationship between self-reported hearing impairment and cognitive decline. These findings suggest that social activity engagement could be a crucial factor in preventing cognitive deterioration among older adults with functional mobility impairments

Discovery of immunotherapy targets for pediatric solid and brain tumors by exon-level expression.

Immunotherapy with chimeric antigen receptor T cells for pediatric solid and brain tumors is constrained by available targetable antigens. Cancer-specific exons present a promising reservoir of targets; however, these have not been explored and validated systematically in a pan-cancer fashion. To identify cancer specific exon targets, here we analyze 1532 RNA-seq datasets from 16 types of pediatric solid and brain tumors for comparison with normal tissues using a newly developed workflow. We find 2933 exons in 157 genes encoding proteins of the surfaceome or matrisome with high cancer specificity either at the gene (n = 148) or the alternatively spliced isoform (n = 9) level. Expression of selected alternatively spliced targets, including the EDB domain of fibronectin 1, and gene targets, such as COL11A1, are validated in pediatric patient derived xenograft tumors. We generate T cells expressing chimeric antigen receptors specific for the EDB domain or COL11A1 and demonstrate that these have antitumor activity. The full target list, explorable via an interactive web portal ( https://cseminer.stjude.org/ ), provides a rich resource for developing immunotherapy of pediatric solid and brain tumors using gene or AS targets with high expression specificity in cancer

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve

Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background with JUNO

As an underground multi-purpose neutrino detector with 20 kton liquid scintillator, Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is competitive with and complementary to the water-Cherenkov detectors on the search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Typical supernova models predict 2-4 events per year within the optimal observation window in the JUNO detector. The dominant background is from the neutral-current (NC) interaction of atmospheric neutrinos with 12C nuclei, which surpasses the DSNB by more than one order of magnitude. We evaluated the systematic uncertainty of NC background from the spread of a variety of data-driven models and further developed a method to determine NC background within 15\% with {\it{in}} {\it{situ}} measurements after ten years of running. Besides, the NC-like backgrounds can be effectively suppressed by the intrinsic pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities of liquid scintillators. In this talk, I will present in detail the improvements on NC background uncertainty evaluation, PSD discriminator development, and finally, the potential of DSNB sensitivity in JUNO