Magnetic Oscillation of Optical Phonon in ABA- and ABC-Stacked Trilayer Graphene

We present a comparative measurement of the G-peak oscillations of phonon frequency, Raman intensity and linewidth in the Magneto-Raman scattering of optical E2g phonons in mechanically exfoliated ABA- and ABC-stacked trilayer graphene (TLG). Whereas in ABA-stacked TLG, we observe magnetophonon oscillations consistent with single-bilayer chiral band doublets, the features are flat for ABC-stacked TLG up to magnetic fields of 9 T. This suppression can be attributed to the enhancement of band chirality that compactifies the spectrum of Landau levels and modifies the magnetophonon resonance properties. The drastically different coupling behaviour between the electronic excitations and the E2g phonons in ABA- and ABC-stacked TLG reflects their different electronic band structures and the electronic Landau level transitions and thus can be another way to determine the stacking orders and to probe the stacking-order-dependent electronic structures. In addition, the sensitivity of the magneto-Raman scattering to the particular stacking order in few layers graphene highlights the important role of interlayer coupling in modifying the optical response properties in van der Waals layered materials.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figure

BEDRF: Bidirectional Edge Diffraction Response Function for Interactive Sound Propagation

We introduce bidirectional edge diffraction response function (BEDRF), a new approach to model wave diffraction around edges with path tracing. The diffraction part of the wave is expressed as an integration on path space, and the wave-edge interaction is expressed using only the localized information around points on the edge similar to a bidirectional scattering distribution function (BSDF) for visual rendering. For an infinite single wedge, our model generates the same result as the analytic solution. Our approach can be easily integrated into interactive geometric sound propagation algorithms that use path tracing to compute specular and diffuse reflections. Our resulting propagation algorithm can approximate complex wave propagation phenomena involving high-order diffraction, and is able to handle dynamic, deformable objects and moving sources and listeners. We highlight the performance of our approach in different scenarios to generate smooth auralization

Urinary and Serum Metabolomics Analyses Uncover That Total Glucosides of Paeony Protect Liver against Acute Injury Potentially via Reprogramming of Multiple Metabolic Pathways

Total glucosides of paeony (TGP) have been confirmed to be hepatoprotective. However, the underlying mechanism is largely unclear. In this study, we investigated the metabolic profiles of urine and serum in rats with carbon tetrachloride- (CCl4-) induced experimental liver injury and TGP administration by using ultra-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS). The vehicle or a single dose of TGP was intragastrically administered to Wistar rats once a day for 14 consecutive days. To induce ALI, 50% CCl4 was injected intraperitoneally into these rats 2 hours after the last time administration of saline of TGP at the 14th day. The results indicated that TGP administration could protect rats from CCl4-induced ALI and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) elevation, as well as hepatocyte apoptosis and inflammation. Furthermore, metabolomics analysis showed that TGP treatment significantly attenuated CCl4-triggered deregulation of multiple metabolites in both urine and serum, including glycine, alanine, proline, and glutamine. Metabolite set enrichment and pathway analyses demonstrated that amino acid cycling and glutathione metabolism were two main pathways involved in CCl4-induced experimental liver injury and TGP administration. Taken together, these findings revealed that regulation of metabolites potentially plays a pivotal role in the protective effect of TGP on ALI

MicroRNA-322 inhibits inflammatory cytokine expression and promotes cell proliferation in LPS-stimulated murine macrophages by targeting NF-κB1 (p50)

Correspondence : Hanchuan Dai ([email protected]) Inflammation is the body's normal self-protection mechanism to eliminate pathogens and resist pathogen invasion. The excessive inflammatory response may lead to inflammatory lesions. The mechanisms accounting for inflammation remain hazy. miRNAs have been proposed to have crucial effects on inflammation. In the present study, we reported that lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulation increased the expression levels of inflammatory cytokines and the cell-cycle progression was suppressed in RAW264.7 cells. Meanwhile, the expression of miR-322 was significantly down-regulated after LPS treatment. Bioinformatics predictions revealed a potential binding site of miR-322 in 3 -UTR of NF-κB1 (p50) and it was further confirmed by luciferase assay. Moreover, both the mRNA and protein levels of NF-κB1 (p50) were down-regulated by miR-322 in RAW264.7 cells. Subsequently, we demonstrated that miR-322 mimics decrease in the expression levels of inflammatory cytokines and cell-cycle repression can be rescued following LPS treatment in RAW264.7 cells. The anti-inflammatory cytokines expression including IL-4 and IL-10 were significantly up-regulated. Furthermore, miR-322 could also promote RAW264.7 cells proliferation. These results demonstrate that miR-322 is a negative regulator of inflammatory response by targeting NF-κB1 (p50)

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Experimental Technique of Titanium Fire in Aero-engine

Titanium fire is the typical catastrophic fault in the aero-engine. Aiming at the urgent demand for experimental technique of titanium fire from advanced high thrust-weight ratio aero-engine, the combustion technology and theory of titanium alloy based on friction oxygen concentration method (FOC) were systematically studied. The evaluation method of fireproof property and the friction ignition model were built, and the fireproof mechanism was illustrated. By generalizing recent progress in experimental technique of titanium fire from three levels, including evolutionary rule, mechanism and prevention and control technology, the ideas and directions of experimental technique associated with the application research of titanium fire in the future were proposed, namely overall evaluation of fireproof property close to air flow environment of the aero-engine, prediction model of fireproof property and experimental verification of fireproof technique under the air flow environment of aero-engine. It is necessary to establish the prevention system of titanium fire in aero-engine, which contributes to the realization of "full titanium" in compressor and to the increase of high thrust-weight ratio

Consumer Preference for End-of-Life Scenarios and Recycled Products in Circular Economy

The way consumers dispose of end-of-life products (EoL products) and their acceptance of recycled products largely determine the final direction of resource flow. Therefore, clarifying consumers&rsquo; preferences for end-of-life scenarios (EoL scenarios) and recycled products and guiding consumers to participate in a circular economy is of great significance for enterprises and society to transition to a circular economy. However, as far as the existing research is concerned, there is a lack of comparison and summary of consumer preferences based on multi-category EoL products and recycled products. Therefore, this study took four categories of common consumer durables as the object to study consumers&rsquo; preferences for EoL solutions and recycled products and, based on the survey results, user segmentation in the market and consumer type segmentation in the CE were performed. The research results show that users generally support product reuse, and they generally have the highest acceptance of second-hand products and the lowest acceptance of refurbished products; meanwhile, consumers&rsquo; acceptance of recycled products varies by product type; according to the differences in preferences, consumers are divided into groups with different consumption characteristics; based on the differences in support for product recycling and recycled products, consumers are divided into the high perception group, the general perception group, and the low perception group in CE. The results of this study can provide reference for related research on sustainable waste management and sustainable consumption