(E)-N′-(4-Methoxy­benzyl­idene)benzohydrazide

In the title mol­ecule, C15H14N2O2, the dihedral angle between the benzene rings is 5.93 (17)°. In the crystal, inter­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds link the mol­ecules into chains propagating in [010]

The changes of CD4+CD25+/CD4+ proportion in spleen of tumor-bearing BALB/c mice

CD4+CD25+ regulatory T lymphocytes (T(R)) constitute 5–10% of peripheral CD4+ T cells in naive mice and humans, and play an important role in controlling immune responses. Accumulating evidences show that T(R )cells are involved in some physiological processes and pathologic conditions such as autoimmune diseases, transplantation tolerance and cancer, and might be a promising therapeutic target for these diseases. To evaluate the change of CD4+CD25+ T(R )cells in mouse tumor models, CD4+CD25+ subset in peripheral blood and spleen lymphocytes from normal or C26 colon-carcinoma-bearing BABL/c mice were analyzed by flow cytometry using double staining with CD4 and CD25 antibodies. The proportion of CD4+CD25+/CD4+ in spleen lymphocytes was found to be higher than that in peripheral blood lymphocytes in normal mice. No difference was observed in the proportion in peripheral blood lymphocytes between tumor bearing mice and normal mice, while there was a significant increase in the proportion in spleen lymphocytes in tumor bearing mice as compared with normal mice. Moreover, the proportion increased in accordance with the increase in the tumor sizes. The increase in the proportion was due to the decrease in CD4+ in lymphocytes, which is resulted from decreased CD4+CD25- subset in lymphocytes. Our observation suggests the CD4+CD25+/CD4+ proportion in spleen lymphocytes might be a sensitive index to evaluate the T(R )in tumor mouse models, and our results provide some information on strategies of antitumor immunotherapy targeting CD4+CD25+ regulatory T lymphocytes

Learning against Non-credible Auctions

The standard framework of online bidding algorithm design assumes that the seller commits himself to faithfully implementing the rules of the adopted auction. However, the seller may attempt to cheat in execution to increase his revenue if the auction belongs to the class of non-credible auctions. For example, in a second-price auction, the seller could create a fake bid between the highest bid and the second highest bid. This paper focuses on one such case of online bidding in repeated second-price auctions. At each time $t$, the winner with bid $b_t$ is charged not the highest competing bid $d_t$ but a manipulated price $p_t = \alpha_0 d_t + (1-\alpha_0) b_t$, where the parameter $\alpha_0 \in [0, 1]$ in essence measures the seller's credibility. Unlike classic repeated-auction settings where the bidder has access to samples $(d_s)_{s=1}^{t-1}$, she can only receive mixed signals of $(b_s)_{s=1}^{t-1}$, $(d_s)_{s=1}^{t-1}$ and $\alpha_0$ in this problem. The task for the bidder is to learn not only the bid distributions of her competitors but also the seller's credibility. We establish regret lower bounds in various information models and provide corresponding online bidding algorithms that can achieve near-optimal performance. Specifically, we consider three cases of prior information based on whether the credibility $\alpha_0$ and the distribution of the highest competing bids are known. Our goal is to characterize the landscape of online bidding in non-credible auctions and understand the impact of the seller's credibility on online bidding algorithm design under different information structures

Heterogeneous N2O5 reactions on atmospheric aerosols at four Chinese sites : improving model representation of uptake parameters

Heterogeneous reactivity of N2O5 on aerosols is a critical parameter in assessing NOx fate, nitrate production, and particulate chloride activation. Accurate measurement of its uptake coefficient (gamma N2O5) and representation in air quality models are challenging, especially in the polluted environment. With an in situ aerosol flow-tube system, the gamma N2O5 was directly measured on ambient aerosols at two rural sites in northern and southern China. The results were analyzed together with the gamma N2O5 derived from previous field studies in China to obtain a holistic picture of gamma N2O5 uptake and the influencing factors under various climatic and chemical conditions. The field-derived or measured gamma N2O5 was generally promoted by the aerosol water content and suppressed by particle nitrate. Significant discrepancies were found between the measured gamma N2O5 and that estimated from laboratory-determined parameterizations. An observation-based empirical parameterization was derived in the present work, which better reproduced the mean value and variability of the observed gamma N2O5. Incorporating this new parameterization into a regional air quality model (WRF-CMAQ) has improved the simulation of N2O5, nitrogen oxides, and secondary nitrate in the polluted regions of China.Peer reviewe