Release of Bisphenol A and Other Volatile Chemicals from New Epoxy Drinking Water Pipe Liners: The Role of Manufacturing Conditions.

Cured-in-place-pipe (CIPP) technology has begun to be adopted for drinking water pipe repairs, and limited information exists about its drinking water quality impacts. CIPP involves the manufacture of a new plastic pipe inside a buried damaged pipe. In this study, the chemical composition of the raw materials and CIPP water quality impacts were examined.

Sub-ambient water wettability of hydrophilic and hydrophobic SiO2 surfaces.

The wettability of SiO2 surfaces, crucial for understanding the phase transition processes of water, remains a topic of significant controversy in the literature due to uncertainties in experiments. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations offer a promising avenue for elucidating these complexities, yet studies specifically addressing water contact angles on hydrophilic and hydrophobic SiO2 surfaces at sub-ambient temperatures are notably absent. In this study, we experimentally measured water contact angles of hydrophilic and hydrophobic SiO2 surfaces at ambient temperature and employed MD to investigate water contact angles on Q3, Q3/Q4, and Q4 SiO2 surfaces across temperatures ranging from 220 to 300 K.

Rapid Nucleation and Growth of Indoor Atmospheric Nanocluster Aerosol during the Use of Scented Volatile Chemical Products in Residential Buildings.

Scented volatile chemical products (sVCPs) are frequently used indoors. We conducted field measurements in a residential building to investigate new particle formation (NPF) from sVCP emissions. State-of-the-art instrumentation was used for real-time monitoring of indoor atmospheric nanocluster aerosol (NCA; 1-3 nm particles) size distributions and terpene mixing ratios.

Safety, tolerance, and pharmacokinetics of salvianolic acid B in healthy Chinese volunteers: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 1 clinical trial.

Salvianolic acid B (Sal B) is one of the main active ingredients of Sa Bunge. In China, many traditional Chinese medicines have been modified into injections for higher bioavailability and better efficacy. Salvianolic acid injection has been widely used in the clinic.

Drug resistance of hepatoma cells induced by ATP‑binding cassette transporter G2 by reducing intracellular drug concentration.

The side effects and drug resistance during chemotherapy seriously affect the outcome of and may lead to the failure of chemotherapy for patients with hepatoma. The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between the expression of ATP-binding cassette transporter G2 (ABCG2) in hepatoma cells and the drug resistance of hepatoma. An MTT assay was used to determine the half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC) of Adriamycin (ADM) in hepatoma HepG2 cells after treatment with ADM for 24 h.

Network Pharmacological Study of Compound Kushen Injection in Esophageal Cancer.

Aim: To provide new methods and ideas for the clinical application of integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine in the treatment of esophageal cancer.

Background: Traditional Chinese medicine compound Kushen injection (CKI) has been widely used in the clinic with adjuvant radiotherapy and chemotherapy. However, the mechanism of action of CKI as adjuvant therapy for esophageal cancer has not yet been described.

Insights into the degradation of diphenhydramine - An emerging SARS-CoV-2 medicine by UV/Sulfite.

As Diphenhydramine (DPH) has been considered as a drug to treat SARS-CoV-2, the degradation of DPH from water was investigated and evaluated in this study by adopting an advanced oxidation/advanced reduction process - the UV/sulfite process. The UV/sulfite system was able to eliminate DPH within 6 mins under UV and 1.0 mM sulfite.

Baicalein Inhibits the Progression and Promotes Radiosensitivity of Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma by Targeting HIF-1A.

Purpose: To explore the mechanism of the effect of baicalein on radioresistance of esophageal cancer, and to provide ideas for the treatment of patients with poor radiotherapy effect of esophageal cancer.

Methods: The glycolytic rate assay kit was used to detect the changes in glycolytic metabolism in esophageal cancer cells after treatment with baicalein, and mass spectrometry was used to detect whether baicalein could affect the level of glycolysis-related metabolites in esophageal cancer cells. The binding of baicalein to the target protein was simulated by molecular docking technique, the protein expression level was detected by Western Blot, and the changes in the cell cycle were detected by flow cytometry.

Online Learning for DNN Training: A Stochastic Block Adaptive Gradient Algorithm.

Adaptive algorithms are widely used because of their fast convergence rate for training deep neural networks (DNNs). However, the training cost becomes prohibitively expensive due to the computation of the full gradient when training complicated DNN. To reduce the computational cost, we present a stochastic block adaptive gradient online training algorithm in this study, called SBAG.

Metabolic Reprogramming of Myeloid-derived Suppressor Cells in the Tumor Microenvironment.

A large number of studies on the metabolism of immune cells in anti-tumor response have been carried out in recent years. It is proved that metabolic reprogramming can determine the differentiation and functions of immune cells. Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) are a heterogeneous population of immunosuppressive cells in the tumor microenvironment (TME).

Service Migration Policy Optimization considering User Mobility for E-Healthcare Applications.

Mobile edge computing (MEC) is an emerging technology that provides cloud services at the edge of network to enable latency-critical and resource-intensive E-healthcare applications. User mobility is common in MEC. User mobility can result in an interruption of ongoing edge services and a dramatic drop in quality of service.

MicroRNA-29b regulates the radiosensitivity of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma by regulating the BTG2-mediated cell cycle.

Background: Many patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) are inoperable due to old age or advanced stage; thus, radio- and chemotherapy are considered the standard treatments for these patients. However, due to the radiation resistance of tumor cells that may arise during radiotherapy, results are still not satisfactory. The authors' previous studies found that microRNA can affect radiosensitivity, and further microRNA research was conducted to improve the radiosensitivity of ESCC.

Inhibition of proliferation and migration and induction of apoptosis in glioma cells by silencing TLR4 expression levels via RNA interference.

The objective of the present study was to investigate the expression levels of toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) in glioma cells and the mechanisms underlying its regulatory effects on proliferation, migration and apoptosis of glioma cells. A total of three TLR4 silencing short hairpin (sh)RNA plasmids were established, and Lipofectamine was used to the transfect the human glioma cell line U-87MG. Transfection efficiency was measured via flow cytometry.

Screening potential topological insulators in half-Heusler compounds via compressed-sensing.

Ternary half-Heusler compounds with widely tunable electronic structures, present a new platform to discover topological insulators (TIs). Due to time-consuming computations and synthesis procedures, the identification of new TIs is however a rough task. Here, we adopt a compressed-sensing approach to rapidly screen potential TIs in half-Heusler family, which is realized via a two-dimensional descriptor that only depends on the fundamental properties of the constituent atoms.

Artesunate inhibits lung cancer cells via regulation of mitochondrial membrane potential and induction of apoptosis.

Lung cancer is a common malignant disease with a high incidence rate worldwide, posing a great threat to human health. To date, only a small number of studies have assessed the potential anti‑cancer effect of artesunate (Art) and the associated mechanisms in lung cancer. The present study aimed to investigate the inhibitory effects of Art in human lung cancer cells and investigated the underlying molecular mechanisms.

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) incidence and trends vary by gender, geography, age, and subcategory based on population and hospital cancer registries in Hebei, China (2008-2017).

Background: Lung cancer is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) has been determined to be the most lethal lung malignancy. Few studies have previously analyzed the epidemiological characteristics of SCLC in China.

Methylation-associated silencing of miR-193b improves the radiotherapy sensitivity of esophageal cancer cells by targeting cyclin D1 in areas with zinc deficiency.

Background: Although radiotherapy is an important treatment mode for esophageal cancer (EC), the outcome remains unsatisfactory due to radioresistance, and the key cause of radiotherapy resistance is a change in the cell cycle. Zinc deficiency (ZD) has a significant influence on the cell cycle, and this effect is a common phenomenon in areas with a high incidence of esophageal cancer.

Methods: Radioresistant sub-cell lines were established by exposing esophageal cancer cells to nine rounds of X-ray irradiation at a dose of 2 Gy.

Pharmacokinetics and Bioequivalence of 2 Olanzapine Orally Disintegrating Tablet Products in Healthy Chinese Subjects Under Fed and Fasting Conditions.

To assess the bioequivalence of two 5-mg olanzapine orally disintegrating tablet (ODT) products, 2 randomized, open-label, single-dose, 2-way crossover studies were carried out under fasting or fed conditions. Blood samples were collected at scheduled times according to the study protocol. Statistical analysis of area under the concentration-time curve from time 0 to 168 hours (AUC ), area under the curve from time zero to infinity (AUC ), and peak plasma concentration (C ) was conducted.

Intensity modulation based optical proximity optimization for the maskless lithography.

The undesirable optical proximity effect (OPE) that appeared in the digital micro-mirrors device (DMD) based maskless lithography directly influences the final exposure pattern and decreases the lithography quality. In this manuscript, a convenient method of intensity modulation applied for the maskless lithography is proposed to optimize such an effect. According to the pulse width modulation based image recognition of DMD, we replaced the digital binary mask with a special digital grayscale mask to modulate the UV intensity distribution to be closer to the expectation in a way of point-by-point modification.

miR-1-3p suppresses the epithelial-mesenchymal transition property in renal cell cancer by downregulating Fibronectin 1.

Purpose: Renal cell cancer (RCC) is one of the primary causes of malignancy deaths all over the world. The most important cause of RCC-related mortality is metastasis. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays an important role in metastasis of malignant tumors including RCC.

Anatomical and Clinical Comparison of Small Free Flaps for Repairing Finger Skin Defects.

The reconstruction of finger defects requires improved functional outcomes and acceptable esthetic outcomes, and small free flaps present a good alternative technique for repairing finger skin defects. From January 2006 to December 2018, we investigated the number and diameter of proximal digital artery perforators, medial plantar artery perforators, and peroneal proper plantar digital arteries of the hallux by dissection and then transplanted free digital arterial perforator flaps, free medial plantar flaps, and free peroneal flaps from the hallux to repair small finger skin defects. The number (SD) of perforators from the medial plantar artery was approximately 2.

LPI-IBNRA: Long Non-coding RNA-Protein Interaction Prediction Based on Improved Bipartite Network Recommender Algorithm.

According to the latest research, lncRNAs (long non-coding RNAs) play a broad and important role in various biological processes by interacting with proteins. However, identifying whether proteins interact with a specific lncRNA through biological experimental methods is difficult, costly, and time-consuming. Thus, many bioinformatics computational methods have been proposed to predict lncRNA-protein interactions.

Controlled-release neurotensin-loaded silk fibroin dressings improve wound healing in diabetic rat model.

Diabetic foot ulcers (DFU), which may lead to lower extremity amputation, is one of the severe and chronic complications of diabetic mellitus. This study aims to develop, and use dressings based on Silk fibroin (SF) as the scaffold material, gelatin microspheres (GMs) as the carrier for the neurotensin (NT), a neuropeptide that acts as an inflammatory modulator in wound healing and NT as accelerate wound healing drug to treat DFU. We evaluated the wound healing processes and neo-tissue formation in rat diabetic model by macroscopic observation, histological observation (H&E staining and Masson's trichrome staining) and immunofluorescence analysis at 3, 7, 14, 21 and 28 post-operation days.

Advances in injectable self-healing biomedical hydrogels.

In recent years, implantable biomaterials have attracted significant interest owing to their potentials for use in the therapy of physical defects and traumas. Among the implantable biomaterials, hydrogels have received increasing attention for their tunable structures and good rheological behavior. However, the mechanical failures of traditional gel materials during normal operation remain a serious issue.

Modulation of cancer immunotherapy efficacy by gut microbiota.

The microbial community is present abundantly in mucosal organs including the intestine, the oral cavity, and the vagina, and is referred to as the microbiota. The microbiota is composed of commensal bacteria and other microorganisms. Intestinal colonization by commensal microorganisms is essential for host physiological functions from the maintenance of barrier homeostasis locally to the regulation of metabolism, hematopoiesis, inflammation, immune development, and other functions systemically.