Research on ideological and political teaching reform of civil engineering major curriculum

The core of curriculum ideological and political education is the whole process and all-round education. The ideological and political education is integrated into all kinds of curriculum teaching, so that ideological and political education and curriculum teaching move in the same direction, build a new mode of collaborative education, and further improve students’ moral sentiment. Civil engineering teachers in colleges and universities should actively promote curriculum ideological and political construction, use the Internet to explain Chinese traditional ancient architecture culture, and enhance students’ national pride and cultural self-confi dence; Collect related laws and regulations of construction industry to enhance students’ awareness of rule of law; Integrate the concept of green building into the experiment of building materials to cultivate students’ awareness of green environmental protection; Ideological and political education is integrated into teaching to cultivate students’ craftsman spirit and comprehensively improve the quality of ideological and political teaching in civil engineering courses

Comparison of efficacy and safety of general anesthesia alone with those of combined epidural/general anesthesia in Chinese patients with gastric cancer undergoing laparoscopy-assisted tumor resection

Purpose: To compare postoperative opioid consumption, inflammatory response, survival/clinical outcomes and safety profile of epidural combined with general anesthesia (GA) versus GA in stage 1 gastric cancer patients undergoing surgical intervention by laparoscopy.Method: Chinese patients with early-stage gastric cancer undergoing laparoscopic-assisted tumor resection were enrolled and received either epidural combined with general anesthesia (group EA + GA) or general anesthesia only (group GA) in allocation ratio of 1:1. The following efficacy variables were assessed: 1) Pain score was measured on VAS scale; 2) post-operative consumption; 3) Quality of recovery; 4) inflammatory response; and 5) survival outcome. Safety was assessed throughout the study period.Results: Data for 200 subjects were analyzed. Compared to GA alone, combination of EA + GA demonstrate significantly greater reduction in post-operative pain with decrease postoperative opioid consumption. Also, the combination of GA and EA inhibited inflammatory response when compared to patients who received GA only. Moreover, the combination of GA and EA did not demonstrate any clinical benefit in survival outcome, when compared to patients who received GA alone, indicating that GA + EA has no role in improving survival outcome among patients undergoing gastric cancer surgery. Additionally, EA + GA was also associated with a shorter length of hospital stay, compared to GA.Conclusion: Overall, the results favor the use of GA + EA in Chinese patients with early-stage gastric cancer undergoing laparoscopic-assisted tumor resection. GA + EA combination improves immune response by inhibiting the inflammatory response but has no significant effect on survival outcome

Physical and virtual water transfers for regional water stress alleviation in China

Water can be redistributed through, in physical terms, water transfer projects and virtually, embodied water for the production of traded products. Here, we explore whether such water redistributions can help mitigate water stress in China. This study, for the first time to our knowledge, both compiles a full inventory for physical water transfers at a provincial level and maps virtual water flows between Chinese provinces in 2007 and 2030. Our results show that, at the national level, physical water flows because of the major water transfer projects amounted to 4.5% of national water supply, whereas virtual water flows accounted for 35% (varies between 11% and 65%at the provincial level) in 2007. Furthermore, our analysis shows that both physical and virtualwater flows do not play a major role in mitigating water stress in the water-receiving regions but exacerbate water stress for the water-exporting regions of China. Future water stress in the main water-exporting provinces is likely to increase further based on our analysis of the historical trajectory of the major governing socioeconomic and technical factors and the full implementation of policy initiatives relating to water use and economic development. Improving water use efficiency is key to mitigating water stress, but the efficiency gains will be largely offset by the water demand increase caused by continued economic development. We conclude that much greater attention needs to be paid to water demand management rather than the current focus on supply-oriented management

MicroRNA-140-5p inhibits cellular proliferation, migration and invasion by downregulating AKT/STAT3/NF-κB pathway in breast carcinoma cells

MicroRNA-140-5p (miR-140-5p) plays a pivotal role in human cancers. However, its role and molecular mechanisms in breast carcinoma are not fully explored. Using miR-140-5p transfected breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231, several in vitro experiments were performed and described in this paper. They consist of the cell proliferation assay, wound healing assay, transwell assay, colony formation assays and qRTPCR. Expression levels of target proteins were determined using western blotting. In addition, experiments on animal models were performed to study the possible role of miR-140-5p in tumorigenesis of breast carcinoma cells. The induction of experimental breast tumor in mice model was achieved through the incorporation of MDA-MB-231 tumor cells subcutaneously into the middle left side of the mice. The results showed that miR-140-5p up-regulation significantly suppresses proliferation, cellular invasion and migration of breast carcinoma cells. Furthermore, miR-140-5p up-regulation stops breast cancer cells at G0/G1 phase. The results of the animal model indicated that up-regulation of miR-140-5p suppresses its tumorigenic ability. Moreover, we also found that miR-140-5p up-regulation reduces the phosphorylation level of STAT3, p65, and AKT. In addition, miR-140-5p overexpression significantly decreases CDK2 expression while increasing E-cadherin expression level. These data revealed that miR-140-5p suppressed tumor progression of breast carcinoma cells through inhibition of the AKT/STAT3/NF-κB pathway. Taken the present study results together, we can conclude that miR-140-5p may act as a novel target in microRNA-targeting anticancer strategy for the treatment of breast cancer

Stock Market Prediction via Deep Learning Techniques: A Survey

The stock market prediction has been a traditional yet complex problem researched within diverse research areas and application domains due to its non-linear, highly volatile and complex nature. Existing surveys on stock market prediction often focus on traditional machine learning methods instead of deep learning methods. Deep learning has dominated many domains, gained much success and popularity in recent years in stock market prediction. This motivates us to provide a structured and comprehensive overview of the research on stock market prediction focusing on deep learning techniques. We present four elaborated subtasks of stock market prediction and propose a novel taxonomy to summarize the state-of-the-art models based on deep neural networks from 2011 to 2022. In addition, we also provide detailed statistics on the datasets and evaluation metrics commonly used in the stock market. Finally, we highlight some open issues and point out several future directions by sharing some new perspectives on stock market prediction

Hypoxia-inducible transcription factor-1α promotes hypoxia-induced A549 apoptosis via a mechanism that involves the glycolysis pathway

BACKGROUND: Hypoxia-inducible transcription factor-1α (HIF-1α), which plays an important role in controlling the hypoxia-induced glycolysis pathway, is a "master" gene in the tissue hypoxia response during tumor development. However, its role in the apoptosis of non-small cell lung cancer remains unknown. Here, we have studied the effects of HIF-1α on apoptosis by modulating HIF-1α gene expression in A549 cells through both siRNA knock-down and over-expression. METHODS: A549 cells were transfected with a HIF-1α siRNA plasmid or a HIF-1α expression vector. Transfected cells were exposed to a normoxic or hypoxic environment in the presence or absence of 25 mM HEPES and 2-deoxyglucose (2-DG) (5 mM). The expression of three key genes of the glycolysis pathway, glucose transporter type 1(GLUT1), phosphoglycerate kinase 1(PGK1), and hexokinase 1(HK1), were measured using real-time RT-PCR. Glycolysis was monitored by measuring changes of pH and lactate concentration in the culture medium. Apoptosis was detected by TUNEL assay and flow cytometry. RESULTS: Knocking down expression of HIF-1α inhibited the glycolysis pathway, increased the pH of the culture medium, and protected the cells from hypoxia-induced apoptosis. In contrast, over-expression of HIF-1α accelerated glycolysis in A549 cells, decreased the pH of the culture medium, and enhanced hypoxia-induced apoptosis. These effects of HIF-1α on glycolysis, pH of the medium, and apoptosis were reversed by treatment with the glycolytic inhibitor, 2-DG. Apoptosis induced by HIF-1α over-expression was partially inhibited by increasing the buffering capacity of the culture medium by adding HEPES. CONCLUSION: During hypoxia in A549 cells, HIF-1α promotes activity of the glycolysis pathway and decreases the pH of the culture medium, resulting in increased cellular apoptosis

Decreased phase information transfer from the mPFC to the BLA: During exploratory behavior in CUMS rats

IntroductionDepression is a mental disorder characterized by aberrant exploratory behavior. Environmental factors, such as chronic stress, are commonly used to induce depression-like behavior in rodent models. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the basolateral amygdala (BLA) are crucial sites in subjects with chronic stress-induced depression. The transmission of amplitude information from the mPFC to the BLA was abated during exploratory behavior in depressive rats; however, the nature of the phase interaction between these two sites remains unknown.MethodsWe used chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) to model depression in rats and acquired local field potentials (LFPs) via multiple electrodes implanted in the mPFC and the BLA while rats (both the control and CUMS groups, respectively) were allowed to explore freely in an open field. The weighted phase lag index (WPLI) within the mPFC and the BLA and phase transfer entropy (PTE) from the mPFC to BLA were computed for two groups of rats (control and CUMS rats) to quantify the phase information transmission.ResultsRats subjected to CUMS showed a decrease in exploratory behavior. The WPLI within the mPFC and the BLA showed strikingly higher phase synchrony at theta frequencies (4–12 Hz) than other frequency bands during exploratory behavior in both the control and CUMS groups. The results of theta PTE from the mPFC to BLA showed that PTE was significantly decreased in the CUMS group compared with the control group.DiscussionsThese findings demonstrated that attenuated phase information transfer might restrain exploratory behavior in CUMS rats