Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors regulate the progression and treatment of gastrointestinal cancers

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are essential nuclear hormone receptors regulating metabolic processes, and they participate in the initiation and progression processes of tumors. Gastrointestinal (GI) cancer is a prevalent malignancy worldwide that originates from the tissues of the gastrointestinal tract and is characterized by severe symptoms and poor prognosis. Numerous published studies have investigated the critical role of PPARs in esophageal, gastric, and colorectal cancers. Here, we summarize and review the current literature to understand the role of PPARs in the pathogenesis of GI cancers and to provide a systematic reference for the subsequent investigation and development of efficient therapies targeting PPARs and their pathways

Financial liberalisation and international market interdependence: evidence from China’s stock market in the post-WTO accession period

This paper studies China’s stock market with respect to financial liberalization and international market interdependence after its accession to the WTO in 2001. Using the multi-factor R-squared measure, we derive a normalized index to measure the impact of financial liberalization policies on stock market interdependence between China and the world. Some of China’s financial liberalization measures, such as QFII and exchange rate reform, are found to have played an important role in increasing market interdependence. After the US credit crunch in 2007 and the world financial crisis in the following years, some anomalies were observed as China’s stock market was more interdependent of the global market than the US stock market in some specific periods. These anomalies may have been related to the former’s overreaction and economic overheating

The use of un-composted spent mushroom residue as a replacement of peat in substrates for Gossypium herbaceum and Talinum paniculatum

In order to evaluate the effect of growing media with peat and spent mushroom residue (SMR) on medicinal plants, we cultured Gossypium herbaceum and Talinum paniculatum seedlings in the substrates with SMR in proportions of 0% (control), 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. Results showed that G. herbaceum seedlings can survive in all treatments, but T. paniculatum seedlings died out in 75% and 100% SMR substrates where higher electrical conductance was found (2.3-2.7 dS m-1). Both growth and biomass mostly declined with the increase of SMR proportion in the growing media for the two species except for root biomass in T. paniculatum seedlings between the control and the 25% SMR treatment. Shoot nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations and contents tended to be higher in low- and high-SMR-proportional substrates, respectively. N and P statuses were both diagnosed to be excessive than needed for the two species. Overall, it was not recommended to culture G. herbaceum seedlings in the substrates with SMR; instead T. paniculatum seedlings can be cultured in the growing media with SMR in volumetric proportion of 25%

A new merged dataset of global ocean chlorophyll-a concentration for better trend detection

Chlorophyll-a concentration (Chla) is recognized as an essential climate variable and is one of the primary parameters of ocean-color satellite products. Ocean-color missions have accumulated continuous Chla data for over two decades since the launch of SeaWiFS (Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor) in 1997. However, the on-orbit life of a single mission is about five to ten years. To build a dataset with a time span long enough to serve climate change related studies, it is necessary to merge the Chla data from multiple sensors. The European Space Agency has developed two sets of merged Chla products, namely GlobColour and OC-CCI (Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative), which have been widely used. Nonetheless, issues remain in the long-term trend analysis of these two datasets because the inter-mission differences in Chla have not been completely corrected. To obtain more accurate Chla trends in the global and various oceans, we produced a new dataset by merging Chla records from the SeaWiFS, MODIS (Medium-spectral Resolution Imaging Spectrometer), MERIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer), VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite), and OLCI (Ocean and Land Colour Instrument) with inter-mission differences corrected in this work. The fitness of the dataset on long-term Chla trend study was validated by using in situ Chla and comparing the trend estimates to the multi-annual variability of different satellite Chla records. The results suggest that our dataset can be used for long-term series analysis and trend detection. We also provide the global trend map in Chla over 23 years (1998–2020) and present a significant positive global trend with 0.67% ± 0.37%/yr

Metallic surface states in a correlated d-electron topological Kondo insulator candidate FeSb2

The resistance of a conventional insulator diverges as temperature approaches zero. The peculiar low temperature resistivity saturation in the 4f Kondo insulator (KI) SmB6 has spurred proposals of a correlation-driven topological Kondo insulator (TKI) with exotic ground states. However, the scarcity of model TKI material families leaves difficulties in disentangling key ingredients from irrelevant details. Here we use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) to study FeSb2, a correlated d-electron KI candidate that also exhibits a low temperature resistivity saturation. On the (010) surface, we find a rich assemblage of metallic states with two-dimensional dispersion. Measurements of the bulk band structure reveal band renormalization, a large temperature-dependent band shift, and flat spectral features along certain high symmetry directions, providing spectroscopic evidence for strong correlations. Our observations suggest that exotic insulating states resembling those in SmB6 and YbB12 may also exist in systems with d instead of f electrons

BigDataBench: a Big Data Benchmark Suite from Internet Services

As architecture, systems, and data management communities pay greater attention to innovative big data systems and architectures, the pressure of benchmarking and evaluating these systems rises. Considering the broad use of big data systems, big data benchmarks must include diversity of data and workloads. Most of the state-of-the-art big data benchmarking efforts target evaluating specific types of applications or system software stacks, and hence they are not qualified for serving the purposes mentioned above. This paper presents our joint research efforts on this issue with several industrial partners. Our big data benchmark suite BigDataBench not only covers broad application scenarios, but also includes diverse and representative data sets. BigDataBench is publicly available from http://prof.ict.ac.cn/BigDataBench . Also, we comprehensively characterize 19 big data workloads included in BigDataBench with varying data inputs. On a typical state-of-practice processor, Intel Xeon E5645, we have the following observations: First, in comparison with the traditional benchmarks: including PARSEC, HPCC, and SPECCPU, big data applications have very low operation intensity; Second, the volume of data input has non-negligible impact on micro-architecture characteristics, which may impose challenges for simulation-based big data architecture research; Last but not least, corroborating the observations in CloudSuite and DCBench (which use smaller data inputs), we find that the numbers of L1 instruction cache misses per 1000 instructions of the big data applications are higher than in the traditional benchmarks; also, we find that L3 caches are effective for the big data applications, corroborating the observation in DCBench.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, The 20th IEEE International Symposium On High Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA-2014), February 15-19, 2014, Orlando, Florida, US

Oriented Graphene Nanoribbons Embedded in Hexagonal Boron Nitride Trenches

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are ultra-narrow strips of graphene that have the potential to be used in high-performance graphene-based semiconductor electronics. However, controlled growth of GNRs on dielectric substrates remains a challenge. Here, we report the successful growth of GNRs directly on hexagonal boron nitride substrates with smooth edges and controllable widths using chemical vapour deposition. The approach is based on a type of template growth that allows for the in-plane epitaxy of mono-layered GNRs in nano-trenches on hexagonal boron nitride with edges following a zigzag direction. The embedded GNR channels show excellent electronic properties, even at room temperature. Such in-plane hetero-integration of GNRs, which is compatible with integrated circuit processing, creates a gapped channel with a width of a few benzene rings, enabling the development of digital integrated circuitry based on GNRs.Comment: 32 pages, 4 figures, Supplementary informatio