Ferroptosis-associated circular RNAs: Opportunities and challenges in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer

Ferroptosis is an emerging form of non-apoptotic regulated cell death which is different from cell death mechanisms such as autophagy, apoptosis and necrosis. It is characterized by iron-dependent lipid peroxide accumulation. Circular RNA (circRNA) is a newly studied evolutionarily conserved type of non-coding RNA with a covalent closed-loop structure. It exhibits universality, conservatism, stability and particularity. At present, the functions that have been studied and found include microRNA sponge, protein scaffold, transcription regulation, translation and production of peptides, etc. CircRNA can be used as a biomarker of tumors and is a hotspot in RNA biology research. Studies have shown that ferroptosis can participate in tumor regulation through the circRNA molecular pathway and then affect cancer progression, which may become a direction of cancer diagnosis and treatment in the future. This paper reviews the molecular biological mechanism of ferroptosis and the role of circular RNA in tumors and summarizes the circRNA related to ferroptosis in tumors, which may inspire research prospects for the precise prevention and treatment of cancer in the future

CFD Applications in Ground Source Heat Pump System

In ground source heat pump (GSHP) system, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is commonly used to conduct simulation analysis of its operating characteristics. Particularly, ground heat exchanger (GHE) is the most core component of GSHP system, and the heat transfer characteristics of which with soil around will directly affect the efficiency of the entire system. Thus, CFD is always applied to predict the process of heat transfer around GHE and its influence on heat exchange process. In this chapter, a 3-D numerical model considering dynamic surface condition and initial soil temperature distribution is developed to investigate the thermal performance of helix ground heat exchanger (HGHE) on basis of CFD, and the main influencing factor (inlet water temperature) is studied with the established model. In addition, the experimental investigation is carried out to verify the accuracy of the model. The results are of great significance for exploring the application of CFD in GSHP system

An Intercomparison between ERA-Interim Reanalysis and Observed Precipitation in Northeast China

Recently, the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) released a new set of reanalysis data—ERA-Interim. We make an intercomparison between ERA-Interim precipitation and observed precipitation in Northeast China. The results show that, in general, the ERA-Interim reanalysis precipitation data can describe the spatial and temporal characteristics of seasonal precipitation in Northeast China well. In terms of spatial distribution, ERA-Interim precipitation is generally consistent with the observation data in different seasons in Northeast China. There is a larger difference in the center of Northeast China than in other areas between the two kinds of data. The ERA-Interim precipitation is larger than observed precipitation in most of Northeast China. In spring, autumn, and winter, the ERA-Interim precipitation value is close to the observation one, while in summer there is a large difference in Liaoning Peninsula and Changbai Mountain between the two kinds of precipitation data. In terms of temporal characteristics, the time series of the ERA-Interim precipitation matches well with the observed precipitation in whole. In different seasons, the annual variation of the ERA-Interim precipitation is well correlated with that of the observed precipitation

Feature of Heart Rate Variability and Metabolic Mechanism in Female College Students with Depression

Purpose. To explore the effects of depression on cardiac autonomic nerve function and related metabolic pathways, the heart rate variability (HRV) and urinary differential metabolites were detected on the college students with depression. Methods. 12 female freshmen with depression were filtered by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS). By wearing an HRV monitoring system, time domain indexes and frequency domain indexes were measured over 24 hours. Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS) was used to detect their urinary differential metabolites. Differential metabolites were identified by principal component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal projections to latent structures discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA). The metabolic pathways related to these differential metabolites were analyzed by the MetPA database. Results. Stress time was significantly increased, and recovery time was markedly decreased in the depression group compared with the control group (p<0.001). Standard deviation of the normal-to-normal R interval (SDNN), root mean square of the beat-to-beat differences (RMSSD), high frequency (HF), and low frequency (LF) were decreased significantly (p<0.01). Moreover, 15 differential metabolites (4↑, 11↓) were identified in the depression group. These differential metabolites were involved in the disruption of five metabolic pathways (coenzyme Q biosynthesis, glycine-serine-threonine metabolism, tyrosine metabolism, pyrimidine metabolism, and steroid metabolism). Conclusion. Some autonomic nervous system disruption, high stress, and poor fatigue recovery were confirmed in college students with depression. The metabolic mechanism involved the disruption of coenzyme Q biosynthesis, glycine-serine-threonine metabolism, tyrosine metabolism, pyrimidine metabolism, and steroid metabolism under daily stress

Re-Planning the Intermodal Transportation of Emergency Medical Supplies with Updated Transfer Centers

Helicopters and vehicles are often jointly used to transport key relief supplies and respond to disaster situations when supply nodes are far away from demand nodes or the key roads to affected areas are cut off. Emergency transfer centers (ETCs) are often changed due to secondary disasters and further rescue, so the extant intermodal transportation plan of helicopters and vehicles needs to be adjusted accordingly. Disruption management is used to re-plan emergency intermodal transportation with updated ETCs in this study. The basic idea of disruption management is to minimize the negative impact resulting from unexpected events. To measure the impact of updated ETCs on the extant plan, the authors consider three kinds of rescue participators, that is, supply recipients, rescue drivers, and transport schedulers, whose main concerns are supply arrival time, intermodal routes and transportation capacity, respectively. Based on the measurement, the authors develop a recovery model for minimizing the disturbance caused by the updated ETCs and design an improved genetic algorithm to generate solutions for the recovery model. Numerical experiments verify the effectiveness of this model and algorithm and discern that this disruption management method could produce recovery plans with shorter average waiting times, smaller disturbances for all the supply arrival times, intermodal routes and transportation capacity, and shorter running times. The comparison shows the advantage of this disruption management method over the rescheduling method

Transactional properties for complex web services

Web services have become a dominating technology for business integration. For operation reliability and robustness, transactional support is an important issue for Web service system design and development. Yet, most existing Web services protocols, like WS-BPEL which sticks to the compensation-based recovery strategy, only provide very limited supports for Web services in certain circumstances. As Web service systems are scaling up, more advanced transactional supports beyond traditional compensation-based solutions are required to catch up with the increasing complexity of composite Web services. This chapter looks into the problem of transactional support for composing and scheduling those Web services that may have different transactional properties. The transactional properties of workflow constructs, which are fundamental to the composition of Web services, are thoroughly investigated. The concept of connection point is introduced to derive the transactional properties of composite Web services. The scheduling issue of composite Web services is also discussed

Metathesis of Mg2FeH6 and LiNH2 leading to hydrogen production at low temperatures

Mg2FeH6 with a purity of up to 94.5 wt% was synthesized and its interaction with LiNH2 was investigated in this study. It was found that Li4FeH6, normally synthesized by hydriding a mixture of LiH and Fe at 700 degrees C and 5.5 GPa H-2 pressure, can be formed via ball-milling Mg2FeH6 and LiNH2 under ambient conditions following the reaction of Mg2FeH6 + 4LiNH(2) -&gt; Li4FeH6 + 2Mg(NH2)(2), Delta H = -92.8 kJ mol(-1). The formation of Li4FeH6 was confirmed by XRD, FTIR and Mossbauer spectroscopic characterization. Li4FeH6 further reacts with 2Mg(NH2)(2) releasing ca. 4.8 wt% H-2 at 225 degrees C and reabsorbing 3.7 wt% H-2 at 200 degrees C and 50 bar H-2 pressure. Mg(NH2)(2), LiH and Fe are the hydrogenated products

Alkali-Resistant and pH-Sensitive Water Absorbent Self-Healing Materials Suitable for Oil Well Cement

Oil well cement microcracks cause formation fluid channeling, compromising oil and gas extraction safety. Superabsorbent polymer (SAP) can absorb water and swell to prevent fluid channeling. In this study, an alkali-resistant and pH-sensitive SAP was prepared based on the properties of oil well cement slurry. The preparation of the SAP was optimized, including monomer ratio, cross-linking agent dosage, and monomer concentration. The pH sensitivity and alkali resistance of the SAP were evaluated. The results revealed that the SAP exhibited good pH sensitivity, with the absorption rate in water being 2.18 times that of cement slurry filtrate (CSF) at 95 °C. Furthermore, the FTIR spectrum showed that the SAP had a stable molecular structure. The secondary absorption rate in water of the SAP after soaking in CSF was not different from the original absorption rate. Styrene–butadiene latex (SBL) can be used to adjust the SAP’s absorption rate. The SAP’s absorption rate had a good exponential functional relationship with SBL dosage. The SBL dosage can be determined by the functional relationships to prepare a SAP with the required properties

Alkali-Resistant and pH-Sensitive Water Absorbent Self-Healing Materials Suitable for Oil Well Cement

Oil well cement microcracks cause formation fluid channeling, compromising oil and gas extraction safety. Superabsorbent polymer (SAP) can absorb water and swell to prevent fluid channeling. In this study, an alkali-resistant and pH-sensitive SAP was prepared based on the properties of oil well cement slurry. The preparation of the SAP was optimized, including monomer ratio, cross-linking agent dosage, and monomer concentration. The pH sensitivity and alkali resistance of the SAP were evaluated. The results revealed that the SAP exhibited good pH sensitivity, with the absorption rate in water being 2.18 times that of cement slurry filtrate (CSF) at 95 &deg;C. Furthermore, the FTIR spectrum showed that the SAP had a stable molecular structure. The secondary absorption rate in water of the SAP after soaking in CSF was not different from the original absorption rate. Styrene&ndash;butadiene latex (SBL) can be used to adjust the SAP&rsquo;s absorption rate. The SAP&rsquo;s absorption rate had a good exponential functional relationship with SBL dosage. The SBL dosage can be determined by the functional relationships to prepare a SAP with the required properties

Effect of tempering temperature on microstructure and mechanical properties of a low carbon bainitic steel treated by quenching-partitioning-tempering (QPT) process

The quenching-partitioning-tempering (QPT) treatment was carried out on a low carbon bainitic steel, and the effect of tempering temperature on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the QPT processed steel was investigated. The findings demonstrate that as the tempering temperature increases, the yield strength decreases gradually, while the tensile strength decreases first and then increases. However, the elongation exhibits a trend of increasing first and then decreasing with increasing the tempering temperature. When the tempering temperature is 340 °C, the best mechanical properties can be obtained with the yield strength of 1495 MPa, tensile strength of 1806 MPa, elongation of 17.7%, and product of strength and elongation up to 32.92 GPa%. Such excellent mechanical properties are related to the synergistic combination of tempered martensite, low carbon bainite, retained austenite and carbides