Stress background and rock fractures revealed by ultrasonic borehole television in the Fankou Lead-Zinc Mine

The stress background and rock fractures are essential factors affecting the stability of mines. In order to better understand the in situ stress background and rock fractures in the Guangdong Fankou Mine, we use ultrasonic borehole television scanning to measure rock fractures. The results indicate that rock fractures are intensively distributed at depths of −360 m to −450 m below the surface, suggesting the effect of intensive mining activities. The present maximum horizontal principal stress direction is NWW, which is consistent with the regional tectonic stress field direction. Systematic measurement of rock fractures is fundamental for further three-dimensional geological modeling and is significant for mining engineering

Association between ABO blood type and type I endometrial cancer: a retrospective study

This study aimed to assess the association between ABO blood type and incident of type I endometrial cancer (EC), as well as the stage and differentiation. 213 patients with type I EC and 300 healthy controls were included. As a result, the frequencies of A, B, O, and AB blood types among patients with type I EC were 51 (23.9%), 59 (27.7%), 93 (43.7%) and 10 (4.7%), respectively. There were no significant differences in age, body mass index, and other baseline covariates between groups of ABO blood types (p > .05). Logistic regression model showed that women with blood type O was more likely to develop type I EC than those with type A (odds ratio (OR): 1.66, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.05–2.63). However, there was no significant association of ABO blood type with stage and differentiation of type I EC (p > .05). In conclusion, blood type O was the most prevalent ABO blood type among patients with type I EC and was associated with increased risk of type I EC, while ABO blood type was not significantly associated with stage or differentiation of type I EC.IMPACT STATEMENT What is already known on this subject? Previous studies have produced inconsistent findings on association of ABO blood type with EC. Those studies also did not explore the relationship between ABO blood type and stage or differentiation of type I EC. What the results of this study add? The present study showed that women with blood type O was more likely to develop type I EC than those with type A and there was no significant association of ABO blood type with stage or differentiation of type I EC. What the implications are of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? Gynaecologists should pay more attention to women with blood type O, who should undergo more active EC screening

Corn Stover Bioconversion by Green Liquor Pretreatment and a Selected Liquid Fermentation Strategy

Green liquor pretreatments and different liquid-fermentation strategies were tested to establish an effective ethanol production process from corn stover. After pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis, 329.7 g of glucose and 126.3 g of xylose were obtained from 1,000 g of dry corn stover. The primary aim of this work was to test the fermentability of the enzymatic hydrolysate of green liquor-pretreated corn stover, for no fermentation has been done on the enzymatic hydrolysate of green liquor-pretreated corn stover before. Three liquid-fermentation strategies, including sequential fermentation, co-fermentation, and co-culture, were carried out and compared to select an appropriate fermentation strategy from green liquor-pretreated corn stover. Among the different liquid-fermentation strategies, sequential fermentation yielded the highest ethanol production (210.7 g ethanol/1,000 g corn stover). Using the sequential fermentation strategy, glucose fermentation by Saccharomyces cerevisiae and ethanol distillation was completed prior to xylose fermentation by Pichia stipitis, so that the separate utilization of glucose and xylose ensured that each fermentation stage used the suitable microorganism, permitting high ethanol yields. Sequential fermentation was thus considered to be the most promising liquid-fermentation strategy for ethanol production from green liquor-pretreated corn stover

PDK4 Constitutes a Novel Prognostic Biomarker and Therapeutic Target in Gastric Cancer

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most prevalent and deadly malignancies worldwide. We aimed to assess the functional role and clinical significance of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (PDK) in GC and explored the underlying mechanisms. The bioinformatics method was used to investigate the expression of PDKs in GC, the effect on clinical outcomes, enriched pathways, interactive network, and the correlation between PDK4 and immune infiltration. Next, PDK expression in the GC cells and tissues were verified by qRT-PCR and western blotting. A Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK8), colony-formation, Flow cytometry, Transwell and wound healing assays were carried out to evaluate the influence of PDK4 on cell proliferation, invasion and migration. Among PDKs, PDK4 expression was aberrant in GC and identified as an independent prognostic factor. GO analysis, GSEA, and PPI showed that PDK4 expression may regulate cell adhesion, metal ion transport, synaptic activity, and cancer cell metabolism in GC. Analyses of immune infiltration showed that PDK4 correlated with the abundant expression of various immunocytes. Finally, we verified that upregulation of PDK4 expression enhanced the ability of GC cells to proliferate, migrate, and invade. In conclusion, PDK4 was identified as a potential candidate diagnostic biomarker and therapeutic target for GC patients

Axial Modulation of Metal–Insulator Phase Transition of VO₂ Nanowires by Graded Doping Engineering for Optically Readable Thermometers

Temperature measurement is critical for many scientific experiments and technological applications. Diverse thermometers have been developed for the thermal sensing at macroscopic length scales. However, <i>in situ</i> and quantitative temperature measurement of nanoscale objects in a convenient approach is still a challenge. Here, we demonstrate a new type of optically readable VO₂ nanowire-based thermometer, based on the unique axial gradient phase transition behavior along single-domain VO₂ nanowires, which is attributed to the hydrogen doping of single-crystalline VO₂ nanowires through hydrothermal fabrication and the hydrogen engineering via a postannealing process. Besides the appropriate microscopic size and user-friendly operation, the as-prepared optically readable VO₂ nanowire-based thermometers have ultrahigh relative sensitivity (∼17.4%/K) and temperature resolution (∼0.026 K), enabling the sensitive monitoring of the thermal environment of small spaces or the temperature of even nanoscale structures

CEPC Conceptual Design Report: Volume 2 - Physics & Detector

The Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) is a large international scientific facility proposed by the Chinese particle physics community to explore the Higgs boson and provide critical tests of the underlying fundamental physics principles of the Standard Model that might reveal new physics. The CEPC, to be hosted in China in a circular underground tunnel of approximately 100 km in circumference, is designed to operate as a Higgs factory producing electron-positron collisions with a center-of-mass energy of 240 GeV. The collider will also operate at around 91.2 GeV, as a Z factory, and at the WW production threshold (around 160 GeV). The CEPC will produce close to one trillion Z bosons, 100 million W bosons and over one million Higgs bosons. The vast amount of bottom quarks, charm quarks and tau-leptons produced in the decays of the Z bosons also makes the CEPC an effective B-factory and tau-charm factory. The CEPC will have two interaction points where two large detectors will be located. This document is the second volume of the CEPC Conceptual Design Report (CDR). It presents the physics case for the CEPC, describes conceptual designs of possible detectors and their technological options, highlights the expected detector and physics performance, and discusses future plans for detector R&D and physics investigations. The final CEPC detectors will be proposed and built by international collaborations but they are likely to be composed of the detector technologies included in the conceptual designs described in this document. A separate volume, Volume I, recently released, describes the design of the CEPC accelerator complex, its associated civil engineering, and strategic alternative scenarios