A feeding trial was conducted to determine the suitable dietary protein and lipid levels for juvenile golden pompano Trachinotus ovatus reared in net pens. Ten test diets were formulated at five levels of crude protein (330, 370, 410, 450 or 490 g kg À1 ) and two levels of crude lipid (65 or 125 g kg À1 ). Golden pompano fingerlings (initial body weight 4.7 g ind À1 ) were fed the test diets for 8 weeks. Weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR), feed conversion ratio (FCR), nitrogen retention efficiency (NRE), energy retention efficiency (ERE), condition factor (CF), hepatosomatic index (HSI), body protein content and total nitrogen waste (TNW) were dependent on both dietary protein and lipid levels. Feed intake (FI) and viscersomatic index (VSI) were dependent on dietary protein level, while body lipid content was dependent on dietary lipid level. Weight gain increased with increasing the dietary protein level (at the same lipid level) but was lower at the dietary lipid level of 65 g kg À1 than at 125 g kg À1 (at the same protein level). Fish fed at the dietary protein levels of 460-490 g kg À1 had higher WG and lower FCR than at 330-410 g kg À1 . Energy retention efficiency tended to increase with increasing the dietary protein level from 330 to 410 g kg À1 , while no significant difference was found in nitrogen retention efficiency between the dietary protein levels (at the same lipid level). Results of this study suggest increasing the dietary lipid level from 65 to 125 g kg À1 could not induce protein-sparing action in golden pompano, and the suitable dietary protein and lipid levels for juvenile golden pompano reared in net pens should be 450-490 and 65 g kg À1 .

Through silencing tumor suppressor genes, epigenetic changes can activate signaling pathways important to cancer development. In this report, we found an epigenetic contribution to the aberrant activation of wnt signaling in human gastric cancer. CXXC4 (CXXC finger protein 4) was identified as a novel target of EZH2 (enhancer of zeste homolog 2), and EZH2 promotes the activation of wnt singaling by downregulating CXXC4 expression. CXXC4 inhibits the growth of gastric cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo through inactivating wnt signaling. In contrast, depletion of CXXC4 activates wnt signaling and promotes the anchorage-independent growth of nontumor gastric epithelial cells. CXXC4 is downregulated in gastric carcinoma tissues and its downregulation is associated with poor outcome of gastric cancer patients (hazard ratio: 5.053, P<0.05). Through its binding to dishevelled (Dvl), CXXC4 stabilizes the destruction complex of β-catenin to inhibit wnt signaling. Two critical amino acid residues in CXXC4, K161 and T162 were found to be important to its binding to Dvl and the growth inhibitory effect of CXXC4. In summary, EZH2 promotes the activation of wnt signaling in gastric carcinogenesis through the downregulation of CXXC4 expression. CXXC4 is a novel potential tumor suppressor directly regulated by EZH2, and its expression is a significant prognosis factor for patients with early stages of gastric cancer.

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A nonintrusive measurement technique is presented numerically for simultaneous measurement of three-dimensional (3D) soot temperature and volume fraction fields in the axisymmetric or asymmetric flames with charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras. CCD cameras were introduced to capture the flame images for obtaining the line-of-sight radiation intensities. The distributions of local emission source under two wavelengths can be deduced through solving the reconstruction matrix equation by the least-square QR decomposition method from the knowledge of the line-of-sight radiation intensities of the flames. The two-color distributions of the local emission source were used to retrieve the soot temperature and volume fraction distributions. The effects of the discrete ray number of CCD cameras, the number of CCD cameras, and the system signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) on the measurement were investigated. The results show that for accurate measurement of soot volume fraction field, the CCD cameras number should not be less than four and the system SNR can be as low as 54 dB. The proposed technique can be capable for reconstructing the 3D soot temperature and volume fraction fields in both axisymmetric and asymmetric flames well.

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The stickiness of sludge during the drying process is an effect of its adhesion and cohesion. Furthermore, the adhesion and cohesion characteristics of sludge are comprehensive results of sludge components and their correlation with moisture. This work presents a simple method to test the adhesion and cohesion characteristics of sludge during the drying process based on the Jenike shear test. The results show that the most significant sludge adhesion and cohesion emerges at a moisture content of approximately 45 to 70% and 30 to 60%, respectively, and at a heating temperature of 120 C. An increase of the heating temperature to 200 C only brings a small movement to the sticky range location. The possible reasons for sludge adhesion and cohesion are discussed based on the results of sludge component analysis. The contributions of mineral materials with tiny particle sizes and metal salts to the adhesion and cohesion are discussed in this study because the contribution of organic matter has been widely demonstrated. The adhesion and cohesion nature of sludge exhibits a large effect on its drying characteristics. A remarkable fluctuation of both the drying rate and stirring power, located between the first and second falling rate period, is observed when the adhesion force of sludge reaches the maximum. When the sludge cohesion force decreases to approximately 3800 N/m 2 , sludge bulks are broken with the stirring of paddles.

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