SP1 transcriptionally upregulates the expression of APOC3 in KGN cells to promote disease progression by regulating TLR2/NF-κB signalling pathway

Introduction: Apolipoprotein C3 (APOC3) is known for its important functions in metabolism-related diseases. However, the function and molecular mechanism of APOC3 in polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) have not been reported. Material and methods: Quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blot assays were used to detect the expression of APOC3 in KGN cells. Small interference APOC3 (siAPOC3) was applied to reduce APOC3 expression, and the proliferation ability of human granulosa cell line (KGN cells) was measured by cell counting kit-8 and colony formation assays. The protein levels of key genes related to apoptosis were detected by western blot assay. The transcriptional regulator of APOC3 was predicted by the UCSC and PROMO website, and verified by dual luciferase assay. siAPOC3 and pcDNA3.1-specific protein 1 (SP1) vector were co-transfected into KGN cells to detect the function of SP1 and APOC3 in KGN cells. Results: APOC3 was overexpressed in KGN cells, and siAPOC3 transfection significantly reduced the growth ability of KGN cells and increased the apoptosis ability of KGN cells. SP1 directly bound to the promoter of APOC3 and transcriptional regulated APOC3 expression. Overexpression of SP1 increased the growth ability of KGN cells and decreased the apoptosis ability of KGN cells, which were reversed after siAPOC3 transfection. The increased levels of toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) and p65 phosphorylation (p-P65) nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) caused by SP1 overexpression were inhibited by siAPOC3 transfection. APOC3, transcriptionally regulated by SP1, promoted the growth of KGN cells, and inhibited the apoptosis by regulating TLR2/NF-κB signalling pathway

Investigation into the Influence of Physician for Treatment Based on Syndrome Differentiation

Background. The characteristics of treatment based on syndrome differentiation (TBSD) cause great challenges to evaluate the effectiveness of the clinical methods. Objectives. This paper aims to evaluate the influence of physician to personalized medicine in the process of TBSD. Methods. We performed a randomized, triple-blind trial involving patients of primary insomnia treated by 3 physicians individually and independently. The patients (n=30) were randomly assigned to receive treatments by the 3 physicians for every visit. However, they always received the treatment, respectively, prescribed by the physician at the first visit. The primary outcome was evaluated, respectively, by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the TCM symptoms measuring scale. The clinical practices of the physicians were recorded at every visit including diagnostic information, syndrome differentiation, treating principles, and prescriptions. Results. All patients in the 3 groups (30 patients) showed significant improvements (>66%) according to the PSQI and TCM symptoms measuring scale. Conclusion. The results indicate that although with comparable effectiveness, there exist significant differences in syndrome differentiation, the treating principles, and the prescriptions of the approaches used by the 3 physicians. This means that the physician should be considered as an important factor for individualized medicine and the related TCM clinical research

Reduction in the exposure risk of farmer from e-waste recycling site following environmental policy adjustment: a regional scale view of PAHs in paddy fields

Farmland contamination by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) has drawn increasing attention across China with enhanced regulations and environmental policies proposed by government to protect soil environment safety. As the informal electronic waste (e-waste) dismantling activities were forbidden under recent environmental regulation, this study compared levels, compositions, spatial distributions, human health risks of PAHs in paddy soil within the vicinity of an e-waste recycling area in southeastern China, with 129 and 150 soil samples collected in 2011 and 2016, respectively. The soil contamination was dominated with high molecular weight PAHs. The mean concentration of EPA 16 PAHs decreased from 590.4 ± 337.2 μg kg in 2011 to 407.3 ± 232.2 μg kg in 2016. Distribution maps of soil PAHs concentration displayed the temporal change in spatial. Principal component analysis together with diagnostic ratios revealed the combustion of biomass and coal in industrial and unregulated e-waste dismantling were the main sources of PAHs in the study area. Both deterministic and probabilistic assessments demonstrated reduced exposure risk for farmers from 2011 to 2016. Sensitivity analysis revealed that exposure frequency (EF) is the most influential parameter for the total variance in the risk assessment model. This study implied that the more stringent environmental policy and regulation can lead reductions in soil contamination with PAHs. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

A linear time approximation scheme for computing geometric maximum k-star

Facility dispersion seeks to locate the facilities as far away from each other as possible, which has attracted a multitude of research attention recently due to the pressing need on dispersing facilities in various scenarios. In this paper, as a facility dispersion problem, the geometric maximum k-star problem is considered. Given a set P of n points in the Euclidean plane, a k-star is defined as selecting k points from P and linking k - 1 points to the center point. The maximum k-star problem asks to compute a k-star on P with the maximum total length over its k - 1 edges. A linear time approximation scheme is proposed for this problem. It approximates the maximum k-star within a factor of (1+ ∩) O(n+1/4 log 1)time for any \u3e 0. To the best of the authors\u27 knowledge, this work presents the first linear time approximation scheme on the facility dispersion problems. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

The fast optimal voltage partitioning algorithm for peak power density minimization

Increasing transistor density in nanometer integrated circuits has resulted in large on-chip power density. As a high-level power optimization technique, voltage partitioning is effective in mitigating flower density. Previous works on voltage partitioning attempt to address t through minimizing total power consumption over all voltage partitions. Since power density significantly impacts thermal-induced reliability, it is also desired to directly mitigate peak power density during voltage partitioning. Unfortunately, none of the existing works consider this. This paper proposes an efficient optimal voltage partitioning algorithm for peak power density minimization. Based on novel algorithmic techniques such as implicit power density binary search, the algorithm runs in O(n log n + m2 log2 n) time, where n refers to the number of functional units and m refers to the number of partitions/voltage levels. Our experimental results on large testcases demonstrate that large amount of (about 9.7 ×) reduction in peak power density can be achieved compared to a natural greedy algorithm, while the algorithm still runs very fast. It needs only 14.15 seconds to optimize 1M functional units. ©2010 IEEE

Exploring the Differences of Sustainable Urban Development Levels from the Perspective of Multivariate Functional Data Analysis: A Case Study of 33 Cities in China

Sustainable urban development is a dynamic, continuous, and long-term process. However, only a few studies have considered the continuous changes in urban development levels over time. From a novel perspective of multivariate functional data, this study aims to analyze the sustainable development capability of cities through dynamic evaluation, and to explore the differences in the level of sustainable development of cities. Firstly, a sustainable urban development evaluation system with 18 indicators across the economic, social, and environmental indices is established. Secondly, based on the index system, an entropy weight method for functional data is developed to assign weights to the indicators. The time weight is used to consider the effects of missing values. Then, a new method of urban development level clustering is proposed. Thirdly, the differences in sustainable urban development levels among the 33 cities in China from 2005 to 2019 are analyzed, and the cities are separated into 5 categories. The results show that the coordinated development of the economy, society, and environment can promote the sustainable development of cities. The overall level of sustainable development in Chinese cities is not high, and significant differences are observed in sustainable urban development. Notable differences and significant imbalances are observed between the sustainable development level of the cities in the central and western regions of China and the cities in the eastern coastal areas. Finally, relevant conclusions and suggestions are proposed to improve sustainable urban development

Exploring the Differences of Sustainable Urban Development Levels from the Perspective of Multivariate Functional Data Analysis: A Case Study of 33 Cities in China

Sustainable urban development is a dynamic, continuous, and long-term process. However, only a few studies have considered the continuous changes in urban development levels over time. From a novel perspective of multivariate functional data, this study aims to analyze the sustainable development capability of cities through dynamic evaluation, and to explore the differences in the level of sustainable development of cities. Firstly, a sustainable urban development evaluation system with 18 indicators across the economic, social, and environmental indices is established. Secondly, based on the index system, an entropy weight method for functional data is developed to assign weights to the indicators. The time weight is used to consider the effects of missing values. Then, a new method of urban development level clustering is proposed. Thirdly, the differences in sustainable urban development levels among the 33 cities in China from 2005 to 2019 are analyzed, and the cities are separated into 5 categories. The results show that the coordinated development of the economy, society, and environment can promote the sustainable development of cities. The overall level of sustainable development in Chinese cities is not high, and significant differences are observed in sustainable urban development. Notable differences and significant imbalances are observed between the sustainable development level of the cities in the central and western regions of China and the cities in the eastern coastal areas. Finally, relevant conclusions and suggestions are proposed to improve sustainable urban development

The power distribution network expansion planning based on stackelberg minimum weight K-star game

The reliability of power distribution network is important. For high reliability, it is necessary for some nodes to have backup connections to other feeders in the network. The substation operator wants to expand the network such that some nodes have k redundant connection lines (i.e., k redundancy) in case the current feeder line does not work. The corporation is given this task to design the expansion planning to construct new connection lines. The substation operator will choose the minimum charged k redundant connection lines based on both of the existing network and the expansion network, which is designed by the corporation. The existing network has the cost for the redundant connection due to the operational expense. The corporation proposes the design with its own price, which may include the operational expense and the construction expense. Thus, for the corporation, how to assign the low price on the connection lines while maximizing the revenue becomes a Stackelberg minimum weight k-star game for the power distribution network expansion. A heuristic algorithm is proposed to solve this Stackelberg minimum weight k-star game for the power distribution network expansion, using three heuristic rules for price setting in a scenario by scenario fashion. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm always outperforms the greedy algorithm which is natural to k-star game in terms of corporation revenue. Compared to the greedy algorithm, the proposed algorithm improves up to 60.7% in the corporation revenue in the chosen minimum weight k-star, which is the minimum charged k connection lines. The average improvement is 7.5%. This effectively handles k redundancy in the power distribution network expansion while maximizing the corporation revenue. © 2013 World Scientific Publishing Company