As the most intensively studied initiator caspase, caspase-9 is a key player in the intrinsic or mitochondrial pathway which is involved in various stimuli, including chemotherapies, stress agents and radiation. Caspase-9 is activated on the apoptosome complex to remain catalytic status and is thought of involving homo-dimerization monomeric zymogens. Failing to activate caspase-9 has profound physiological and pathophysiological outcomes, leading to degenerative and developmental disorders even cancer. To govern the apoptotic commitment process appropriately, plenty of proteins and small molecules involved in regulating caspase-9. Therefore, this review is to summarize recent pertinent literature on the comprehensive description of the molecular events implicated in caspase-9 activation and inhibition, as well as the clinical trials in progress to give deep insight into caspase-9 for suppressing cancer. We hope that our concerns will be helpful for further clinical studies addressing the roles of caspase-9 and its regulators demanded to identify more effective solutions to overcome intrinsic apoptosis-related diseases especially cancer.

[1] This article presents a measurement of electrification generated by wind-blown sands in a field wind tunnel and a numerical methodology to simulate the effect of electrification on the sand saltation movement after the mutual couple interaction between the sand movement and the wind flow is taken into account. The measured data of electric charge on the ''uniform'' sands in the wind-tunnel tests show that the sign of electric charge, either negative or positive, is mainly dependent on the diameter size of sand particles, i.e., negative charge is gained when the diameter is smaller than 250 mm and positive charge is obtained if the diameter is larger than 500 mm, and that for both ''uniform'' and mixed sands, the average charge-to-mass ratio decreases with increasing the wind velocity, and increases with height from sand bed. Meanwhile, the measurement of electric field in wind-sand cloud related to the electric charge displays that the magnitude of electric field increases generally as the wind velocity and the height increase, and the direction of the field is always upwardly vertical to the Earth's surface, which is opposite to that of the fair-weather field. In order to exhibit the effect of electrification on sand saltation movement, a theoretical model by considering the mutual coupling interaction between wind flow and sand movement is proposed after the electric force exerted on the moving sands is considered. Through solving the nonlinear coupling dynamic equations by a proposed program, the effect of electrification on sand saltation motion, e.g., trajectory, is discussed quantitatively. After that, its effect on wind-sand transport flux, sand ejecta flux, and wind profile is also displayed. The results show that the prediction for the Bagnold's kink is good agreement with the measurement in literature.

Negative photoconductivity is observed in InAs nanowires (NWs) without a surface defective layer. The negative photoconductivity is strongly dependent on the wavelength and intensity of the light, and is also sensitive to the environmental atmosphere. Two kinds of mechanisms are discerned to work together. One is related to gas adsorption, which is photodesorption of water molecules and photo-assisted chemisorption of O2 molecules. The other one can be attributed to the photogating effect introduced by the native oxide layer outside the NWs.

Negative photoconductivity (NPC) and positive photoconductivity (PPC) are observed in the same individual InAs nanowires grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. NPC displays under weak light illumination due to photoexcitation scattering centers charged with hot carrier in the native oxide layer. PPC is observed under high light intensity. Through removing the native oxide layer and passivating the nanowire with HfO, we eliminate the NPC effect and realize intrinsic photoelectric response in InAs nanowire.

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Pretreatment with rhEPO appears to attenuate I/R-induced lung injury. This function is partly related with the capacity that rhEPO inhibits the accumulation of polymorphonuclear neutrophils in lung tissue and decreases the systematic expression of tumor necrosis factor-alpha.

This article presents an experimental test and a program to empirically fit experimental data for the horizontal flux of wind-blown sand passing through a unit area along a vertical direction per unit time. The experimental data for the sand flow flux as a function of the height for naturally mixed sands, which were chosen from a sand dune at the southeastern edge of the Tengger desert, were measured with a sand collector in a field wind tunnel. On the basis of the experimental data and a least squares method, a fitting program is proposed here and, further, an explicit form of an empirical formula varying with height and axial wind velocity or friction velocity for the flux structure of the sands is gained. After that, we obtain an explicit form of the empirical equation for the measurement of streamwise sand transport per unit width and unit time by integrating the empirical formula for sand flux along the height direction and considering the contribution of sand creep. Finally, we evaluate the effectiveness of the predictions of some equations, especially the well-known Bagnold equation and Kawamura equation, for predicting streamwise wind-sand transport using the empirical equation obtained for mixed sands. The results show that the predictions from Bagnold's equation in the region of friction velocity u(*)>0.47 m/s and Kawamura's equation in the region u(*t)