Influence of doctors' perception on the diagnostic status of chronic kidney disease: results from 976 409 individuals with electronic health records in China.

Background: The diagnostic status of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and its underlying reasons provide evidence that can improve CKD management. However, the situation in developing countries remains under-investigated.

Methods: Adults with electronic health records (EHRs; 2008-19) in Yinzhou, China were included.

Thermoelectric effect in a single molecular junction with a vibrational mode.

We investigate thermoelectric properties of single molecular junctions with electron-phonon interaction (EPI) based on a two-level model, and explore the possibility to obtain a thermoelectric device with high efficiency by engineering the energy level splitting in the molecular junction. We derive analytical expressions for electric conductance, thermopower and electronic thermal conductance in the linear response region within the dressed tunneling approximation of EPI. The effects of EPI and the level splitting in the molecule on thermoelectric properties are discussed.

Establishment of a hepatocellular carcinoma patient-derived xenograft platform and its application in biomarker identification.

Using a method optimized in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), we established patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models with an increased take rate (42.2%) and demonstrated that FBS +10% dimethyl sulfoxide exhibited the highest tumor take rate efficacy. Among 254 HCC patients, 103 stably transplantable xenograft lines that could be serially passaged, cryopreserved and revived were established.

On the competition between the Kondo effect and the exchange interaction in a parallel double quantum dot system.

We study the competition between the Kondo effect and the exchange interaction in the parallel double quantum dot (DQD) system within an effective action field theory. The strong on-site Coulomb interactions in DQDs are treated by using the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation and the introduction of scalar potential fields. We show that a self-consistent perturbation approach, which takes into account the statistical properties of the potential fields acting on electrons in DQDs, describes well the crossover from the Kondo regime to the spin-singlet state in this system.

Transient currents of a single molecular junction with a vibrational mode.

By using a propagation scheme for current matrices and an auxiliary mode expansion method, we investigate the transient dynamics of a single molecular junction coupled with a vibrational mode. Our approach is based on the spinless Anderson-Holstein model and the dressed tunnelling approximation for the electronic self-energy in the polaronic regime. The time-dependent currents after a sudden switching on the tunnelling to leads, an abrupt upward step bias pulse and a step potential on the quantum dot are calculated.

Charge transport and ac response under light illumination in gate-modulated DNA molecular junctions.

Using a two-strand tight-binding model and within nonequilibrium Green's function approach, we study charge transport through DNA sequences (GC)NGC and (GC)1(TA)NTA (GC)3 sandwiched between two Pt electrodes. We show that at low temperature DNA sequence (GC)NGC exhibits coherent charge carrier transport at very small bias, since the highest occupied molecular orbital in the GC base pair can be aligned with the Fermi energy of the metallic electrodes by a gate voltage. A weak distance dependent conductance is found in DNA sequence (GC)1(TA)NTA (GC)3 with large NTA.

Negative differential conductance and hysteretic current switching of benzene molecular junction in a transverse electric field.

We study charge transport through single benzene molecular junction (BMJ) directly sandwiched between two platinum electrodes by using a tight-binding model and the non-equilibrium Green's function approach. Pronounced negative differential conductance is observed at finite bias voltage, resulting from charge redistribution in BMJ and a Coulomb blockade effect at the interface of molecule-electrode contacts. In the presence of a transverse electric field, hysteretic switching behavior and large spin-polarization of current are obtained, indicating the potential application of BMJ for acting as a nanoscale current modulator or spintronic molecular device.

Phonon effects on the current noise spectra and the ac conductance of a single molecular junction.

By using nonequilibrium Green's functions and the equation of motion method, we formulate a self-consistent field theory for the electron transport through a single-molecule junction (SMJ) coupled with a vibrational mode. We show that the nonequilibrium dynamics of the phonons in a strong electron-phonon coupling regime can be taken into account appropriately in this self-consistent perturbation theory, and the self-energy of the phonons is connected with the current fluctuations in the molecular junction. We calculate the finite-frequency nonsymmetrized noise spectra and the ac conductance, which reveal a wealth of inelastic electron tunneling characteristics on the absorption and emission properties of this SMJ.

A 41-gene signature derived from breast cancer stem cells as a predictor of survival.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the ability of a 41-gene signature derived from breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs) to estimate the risk of metastasis and survival in breast cancer patients.

Methods: The centroid expression of the 41-gene signature derived from BCSCs was applied as the threshold to classify patients into two separate groups--patients with high expression (high-EL) of the prognostic signature and patients with low expression (low-EL). The predictive ability of the 41-gene signature was evaluated by Cox regression model and was compared against other popular tests, such as Oncotype and MammaPrint.

The optical conductivity of bilayer zigzag-edge graphene nanoribbons with external transverse electric fields.

The optical absorption properties of bilayer zigzag-edge graphene nanoribbons (BL-ZGNRs) with external transverse electric fields are investigated by taking into account the Coulomb interaction effect in the Hartree-Fock approximation. We study the phase transitions of BL-ZGNRs induced by external electric fields and also the optical selection rules for the incident light polarized along the longitudinal and transverse directions. We find that the excitations from the edge states are crucial for the optical properties of BL-ZGNRs in the antiferromagnetic phase.

MicroRNA mediated network and DNA methylation in colorectal cancer.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most malignant cancers. A growing number of studies have shown that both genetic and epigenetic play important roles in the etiology of CRC. Both microRNA (miRNA) and DNA methylation belong to the scope of epigenetic and there are complex regulatory mechanisms within miRNA and DNA methylation.

Spin-polarized electron transport through graphene nanoribbon with zigzag edges.

We investigate the electron transport through a graphene nanoribbon (GNR) junction with zigzag edges. It is shown that the edge state and the magnetization properties of a GNR greatly influence its electron transport properties. By applying sufficient back-gate voltages to the lead parts of a zigzag GNR, the magnetization of the edges is quenched in the leadings parts, but is preserved in the center part of the junction.

Spin interference and the Fano effect in electron transport through a mesoscopic ring side-coupled with a quantum dot.

We investigate the electron transport through a mesoscopic ring side-coupled with a quantum dot (QD) in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit (SO) interaction. It is shown that both the Fano resonance and the spin interference effects play important roles in the electron transport properties. As the QD level is around the Fermi energy, the total conductance shows a typical Fano resonance line shape.

Quantum phase transition and underscreened Kondo effect in electron transport through parallel double quantum dots.

We investigate electronic transport through a parallel double quantum dot (DQD) system with strong on-site Coulomb interaction and capacitive interdot coupling. By applying the numerical renormalization group (NRG) method, the ground state of the system and the transmission probability at zero temperature have been obtained. For a system of quantum dots with degenerate energy levels and small interdot tunnel coupling, the spin correlations between the DQDs is ferromagnetic and the ground state of the system is a spin-1 triplet state.

Gene expression profiling-based in silico approach to identify potential vaccine candidates and drug targets against B. pertussis and B. parapertussis.

Whooping cough (pertussis) caused by B. pertussis (B.p) is still serious public health threat.

hBolA, novel non-classical secreted proteins, belonging to different BolA family with functional divergence.

This study reported that all three human BolA proteins (hBolA1, hBolA2, and hBolA3) are novel non-classical secreted proteins identified with bioinformatics and molecular biology experiments. The three BolA fusion proteins with c-Myc tag could be secreted into the culture medium of the transfected Cos-7 cells, although they could not be colocalized with Golgi apparatus. And the secretion of three BolA proteins could not be inhibited after BFA treatment.

Modular co-evolution of metabolic networks.

Background: The architecture of biological networks has been reported to exhibit high level of modularity, and to some extent, topological modules of networks overlap with known functional modules. However, how the modular topology of the molecular network affects the evolution of its member proteins remains unclear.

Results: In this work, the functional and evolutionary modularity of Homo sapiens (H.

Conserved genes in a path from commensalism to pathogenicity: comparative phylogenetic profiles of Staphylococcus epidermidis RP62A and ATCC12228.

Background: Staphylococcus epidermidis, long regarded as an innocuous commensal bacterium of the human skin, is the most frequent cause of nosocomial infections associated with implanted medical devices. This conditional pathogen provides a model of choice to study genome landmarks correlated with the transition between commensalism and pathogenicity. Traditional investigations stress differences in gene content.