Empirical Analysis of the Digital Divide from the Perspective of Internet Usage Patterns: A Case Study of Nanjing

There is a well-known ‘‘digital divide” in the tendency to connect to the Internet, but whether there is similar differentiation among Internet usage is still worthy of further exploration. Studies on the geography of the digital divide are more concentrated on the national and regional scale, with a lack of research on the micro-scale. This paper builds up an index system, uses the factors, clustering and regression to analyse the Internet usage level on spatial distribution and attributes characteristic influence factors, based on 2012 survey questionnaires about personal information usage. The result shows that there is a weak distinction in comprehensive Internet usage among Internet users from different social-economic groups, but differences in online activities are relatively significant and individual social-economic attributes and properties of location and housing of residents have a significant impact of different usage patterns

The ITGB6 gene: its role in experimental and clinical biology.

Integrin αvβ6 is a membrane-spanning heterodimeric glycoprotein involved in wound healing and the pathogenesis of diseases including fibrosis and cancer. Therefore, it is of great clinical interest for us to understand the molecular mechanisms of its biology. As the limiting binding partner in the heterodimer, the β6 subunit controls αvβ6 expression and availability. Here we describe our understanding of the ITGB6 gene encoding the β6 subunit, including its structure, transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation, the biological effects observed in ITGB6 deficient mice and clinical cases of ITGB6 mutations

TSC1/2 Signaling Complex Is Essential for Peripheral Naïve CD8+ T Cell Survival and Homeostasis in Mice

The PI3K-Akt-mTOR pathway plays crucial roles in regulating both innate and adaptive immunity. However, the role of TSC1, a critical negative regulator of mTOR, in peripheral T cell homeostasis remains elusive. With T cell-specific Tsc1 conditional knockout (Tsc1 KO) mice, we found that peripheral naïve CD8+ T cells but not CD4+ T cells were severely reduced. Tsc1 KO naïve CD8+ T cells showed profound survival defect in an adoptive transfer model and in culture with either stimulation of IL-7 or IL-15, despite comparable CD122 and CD127 expression between control and KO CD8+ T cells. IL-7 stimulated phosphorylation of Akt(S473) was diminished in Tsc1 KO naïve CD8+T cells due to hyperactive mTOR-mediated feedback suppression on PI3K-AKT signaling. Furthermore, impaired Foxo1/Foxo3a phosphorylation and increased pro-apoptotic Bim expression in Tsc1 KO naïve CD8+T cells were observed upon stimulation of IL-7. Collectively, our study suggests that TSC1 plays an essential role in regulating peripheral naïve CD8+ T cell homeostasis, possible via an mTOR-Akt-FoxO-Bim signaling pathway

Comparison of the Electrical Properties of PERC Approach Applied to Monocrystalline and Multicrystalline Silicon Solar Cells

At present, the improvement in performance and the reduction of cost for crystalline silicon solar cells are a key for photovoltaic industry. Passivated emitter and rear cells are the most promising technology for next-generation commercial solar cells. The efficiency gains of passivated emitter and rear cells obtained on monocrystalline silicon wafer and multicrystalline silicon wafer are different. People are puzzled as to how to develop next-generation industrial cells. In this paper, both monocrystalline and multicrystalline silicon solar cells for commercial applications with passivated emitter and rear cells structure were fabricated by using cost-effective process. It was found that passivated emitter and rear cells are more effective for monocrystalline silicon solar cells than for multicrystalline silicon solar cells. This study gives some hints about the industrial-scale mass production of passivated emitter and rear cells process