Post-chemotherapy miR-146a expression and its prognostic potential in oral cancer patients

Purpose: To determine miR-146a expression level after chemotherapy in oral cancer patients, and itsprognostic value.Methods: Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used for the determination of miR-146 expression levels. Based on the results, the analysis of the miR-146a expression in oral cancer patients was performed by drawing ROC curve to provide information on the prognostic value of miR-146a. The survival of the patients was monitored over a period of 5 years. The patients were categorized into high- and low-expression groups, and multivariate Cox regression analysis method was adopted to provide a more comprehensive analysis of individual risk factors influencing the prognosis of oral cancer.Results: The miR-146a expression level in patients after chemotherapy was lower than that in patients before they received chemotherapy (p < 0.05). The specificity of using miR-146a to predict oral cancer was 76.83 %, the sensitivity 69.44 %, and the area between the curve and x-axis 0.78. In contrast, the survival level was significantly greater in high-expression patients (p < 0.05).Conclusion: The independent risk parameters for buccal carcinoma are drinking, smoking, chronic leukoplakia, and miR-146a

Construction of a High-Quality Digital Elevation Model of the Amundsen Crater and Landing Area Selection for Future Lunar Missions

The Amundsen crater is located in the Aitken Basin of the lunar nearside. Its unique location and the possibility of water ice make it a prime landing area for lunar exploration missions. Constructing a high-quality digital elevation model (DEM) and performing a detailed landing site analysis are critical for research and practical applications. However, this region has many permanently shadowed areas, making optical remote sensing observations impractical. The lunar orbiter laser altimeter (LOLA) has provided the highest quality and largest satellite altimetry dataset, making it ideal for constructing a high-quality DEM. High-resolution DEMs derived from LOLA data contain significant noise due to the geographic uncertainty of laser altimetry data. This article utilizes an adaptive iteration method and a filtering method for slope detrending to construct a high-quality DEM of the Amundsen area. Various factors are comprehensively analyzed, including slope, illumination conditions, and temperature. The optimal landing location in the Amundsen area is identified (90.716°E, 84.727°S). The illumination conditions during the landing of the lunar exploration mission are estimated by calculating the obstruction angle of the optimal landing site and the solar altitude angle from 2023 to 2028. The optimal landing time is in October, providing favorable illumination conditions in the coming months. We calculate the maximum range of the azimuth angles (0°–59.5° and 287.5°–360°) that can receive sufficient sunlight at the designated landing site. Our study provides a novel strategy for selecting the placement of solar panels for lunar exploration instruments

High Temperature Device Characterization for Hybrid Electric Vehicle Traction Inverters

High temperature inverter involves thermal management, packaging, semiconductor device, switching circuit, and control circuitry. This paper is to focus on the drivetrain inverter design consideration for electric and hybrid electric vehicles. Basic structure and switching characteristics of different insulated-gate-bipolar-transistors (IGBTs) will be discussed. The use of silicon carbide Schottky diode in parallel with silicon IGBT will also be evaluated and compared with pure silicon IGBT modules running under both hard- and soft-switching conditions. Experimental results of conduction and switching loss at different temperature conditions are used to predict the device loss and associated junction temperature for switching cases

Oxidative Stress Induced by Metal Ions in Bioleaching of LiCoO2 by an Acidophilic Microbial Consortium

© Copyright © 2020 Liu, Liu, Wu, Zhang, Gu, Zhu and Tan. An acidophilic microbial consortium (AMC) was used to investigate the fundamental mechanism behind the adverse effects of pulp density increase in the bioleaching of waste lithium ion batteries (WLIBs). Results showed that there existed the effect of metal-ion stress on the bio-oxidative activity of AMC. The Li+ and Co2+ accumulated in the leachate were the direct cause for the decrease in lithium and cobalt recovery yields under a high pulp density. In a simulated bioleaching system with 4.0% (w ⋅v–1) LiCoO2, the intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) content in AMC increased from 0.82 to 6.02 within 24 h, which was almost three times higher than that of the control (2.04). After the supplementation of 0.30 g⋅L–1 of exogenous glutathione (GSH), the bacterial intracellular ROS content decreased by 40% within 24 h and the activities of intracellular ROS scavenging enzymes, including glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and catalase (CAT), were 1.4- and 2.0-folds higher in comparison with the control within 24 h. In the biofilms formed on pyrite in the bioleaching of WLIBs, it was found that metal-ion stress had a great influence on the 3-D structure and the amount of biomass of the biofilms. After the exogenous addition of GSH, the structure and the amount of biomass of the biofilms were restored to some extent. Eventually, through ROS regulation by the exogenous addition of GSH, very high metal recovery yields of 98.1% Li and 96.3% Co were obtained at 5.0% pulp density

Video_1_Effects of rhythmic visual cues on cortical activation and functional connectivity features during stepping: an fNIRS study.MP4

IntroductionRhythmic visual cues (RVCs) may influence gait initiation by modulating cognition resources. However, it is unknown how RVCs modulate cognitive resources allocation during gait movements. This study focused on investigating the effects of RVCs on cortical hemodynamic response features during stepping to evaluate the changes of cognitive resources.MethodsWe recorded cerebral hemoglobin concentration changes of 14 channels in 17 healthy subjects using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) during stepping tasks under exposure to RVCs and non-rhythmic visual cues (NRVCs). We reported mean oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO) concentration changes, β-values, and functional connectivity (FC) between channels.ResultsThe results showed that, the RVC conditions revealed lower HbO responses compared to the NRVC conditions during the preparation and early stepping. Correspondingly, the β-values reflected that RVCs elicited lower hemodynamic responses than NRVCs, and there was a decreasing trend in stimulus-evoked cortical activation as the task progressed. However, the FC between channels were stronger under RVCs than under NRVCs during the stepping progress, and there were more significant differences in FC during the early stepping.DiscussionIn conclusion, there were lower cognitive demand and stronger FC under RVC conditions than NRVC conditions, which indicated higher efficiency of cognitive resources allocation during stepping tasks. This study may provide a new insight for further understanding the mechanism on how RVCs alleviate freezing of gait.</p