Over the last two decades, intensive research efforts have been devoted to the suppressions of photoluminescence (PL) blinking and Auger recombination in metal-chalcogenide nanocrystals (NCs), with significant progresses being made only very recently in several specific heterostructures. Here we show that nonblinking PL is readily available in the newly-synthesized perovskite CsPbI 3 (cesium lead iodide) NCs, and their Auger recombination of charged excitons is greatly slowed down, as signified by a PL lifetime about twice shorter than that of neutral excitons. Moreover, spectral diffusion is completely absent in single CsPbI 3 NCs at the cryogenic temperature, leading to a resolution-limited PL linewidth of ~200 μeV.

Hybrid Vehicle fuel economy performance is highly sensitive to the energy management strategy used to regulate power flow among the various energy sources and sinks. Optimal non-causal solutions are easy to determine if the drive cycle is known a priori. It is very challenging to design causal controllers that yield good fuel economy for a range of possible driver behavior. Additional challenges come in the form of constraints on powertrain activity, such as shifting and starting the engine, which are commonly called "drivability" metrics and can adversely affect fuel economy. In this paper, drivability restrictions are included in a Shortest Path Stochastic Dynamic Programming (SP-SDP) formulation of the real-time energy management problem for a prototype vehicle, where the drive cycle is modeled as a stationary, finite-state Markov chain. When the SP-SDP controllers are evaluated with a high-fidelity vehicle simulator over standard government drive cycles, and compared to a baseline industrial controller, they are shown to improve fuel economy more than 11% for equivalent levels of drivability. In addition, the explicit tradeoff between fuel economy and drivability is quantified for the SP-SDP controllers.

Background: Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) H19 is emerging as a vital regulatory molecule in the progression of different types of cancer and miR-675 is reported to be embedded in H19's first exon. However, their function and specific mechanisms of action have not been fully elucidated. The aim of this study was to identify a novel lncRNA-microRNA-mRNA functional network in gastric cancer. Methods: Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to assess the relative expression of H19 and miR-675 in normal (GES-1) and gastric cancer cell lines (SGC-7901, SGC-7901/DDP) as well as in tumor tissues. Gain and loss of function approaches were carried out to investigate the potential roles of H19/miR-675 in cell proliferation and apoptosis. Moreover, Fas associated via death domain (FADD) was validated to be the target of miR-675 via luciferase reporter assay. Western blotting was used to evaluate the protein expression of related signaling pathway. Results: In our study H19 and miR-675 were increased in gastric cancer cell lines and tissues. Overexpression of H19 and miR-675 promoted cell proliferation and inhibited cell apoptosis, whereas knockdown of H19 and miR-675 inhibited these effects. By further examining the underlying mechanism, we showed that H19/miR-675 axis inhibited expression of FADD. FADD downregulation subsequently inhibited the caspase cleavage cascades including caspase 8 and caspase 3. Conclusion: Taken together, our results point to a novel regulatory pathway H19/miR-675/ FADD/caspase 8/caspase 3 in gastric cancer which may be potential target for cancer therapy.

Monofunctional platinum complexes restrain lung cancer through disrupting mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and glycolysis in addition to damaging nuclear and mitochondrial DNA.

Steady-state fluorescence, time-resolved fluorescence quenching, and isothermal titration microcalorimetry have been used to study the interactions of cationic gemini surfactants alkanediyl-alpha,omega-bis(dodecyldimethylammonium bromide) (C(12)C(S)C(12)Br(2), S = 3, 6, and 12) with hydrophobically modified poly(acrylamide) (HMPAM) and unmodified poly(acrylamide) (PAM). Without addition of gemini surfactant, 0.2 wt % HMPAMs except PAM have already self-aggregated into hydrophobic aggregates. Different from single-chain surfactants, C(12)C(S)C(12)Br(2) have stronger interactions with HMPAMs to form surfactant/polymer aggregates, even with PAM. Addition of C(12)C(S)C(12)Br(2) may cause the disruption of HMPAM hydrophobic aggregates and the formation of mixed micelles. It is found that HMPAMs generate lower micropolarity of mixed micelles, larger values of enthalpy of interaction (DeltaH(ps)), and nearly constant values of Gibbs free energy of interaction (DeltaG(ps)). On the other hand, C(12)C(S)C(12)Br(2) with longer spacer brings out slightly lower micropolarity of mixed micelles, owing to the lower electrostatic repulsion between surfactant headgroups. Especially for C(12)C(12)C(12)Br(2), the values of DeltaH(ps) are much more endothermic and the values of DeltaG(ps) are much less negative. The weaker interactions of C(12)C(12)C(12)Br(2) with HMPAMs arise from the marked reduction of attraction between surfactant headgroups and polymer hydrophilic groups induced by its longer spacer.

The present investigation was conducted to assess the culturable concentration and distribution characteristics of airborne bacteria in 31 homes with children aged from 1 to 10 years in Beijing, China. The results showed that the concentration of culturable airborne bacteria in these homes ranged from 47 colony forming units (CFU)/m 3 to 12341 CFU/m 3 , with a mean and a median of 1821 and 877 CFU/m 3 , respectively. A total of 632 bacterial isolates from the air in homes in different regions and different seasons were identified and distributed across 43 genera and 136 species of bacteria. Micrococcus (26.74%), Bacillus (14.56%), Kocuria (12.66%), and Staphylococcus (12.03%) were determined as the most common culturable airborne bacteria, and the dominant bacterial species were Micrococcus luteus (14.56%), Kocuria roseus (8.39%), Bacillus megaterium (4.75%), Staphylococcus cohnii (3.63%), and Micrococcus lylae (3.01%). Data analysis revealed that bacterial concentrations in homes with a male child were significantly higher than those with a female child (**P < 0.01), and a negative correlation was found between bacterial concentration and living area per person in the homes (**P < 0.01). Additionally, the mean bacterial concentration was highest in Spring, followed by Summer and Autumn, and lowest in Winter (**P < 0.01) in homes with child. The results provide an exposure database of airborne bacteria in family homes in Beijing, and suggest that the sex of children and living area per person in homes have a significant influence on the bacterial concentration in the air.

Chronic exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation (UV) induces photoaging, and ultimately photocarcinogenesis. Senescent human skin fibroblasts (HSFs) in UVB stressinduced premature senescence (UVB-SIPS) share a similar extracellular matrix (ECM) phenotype with other types of senescent fibroblast. ECM from senescent fibroblasts induced by a variety of stresses has been shown to promote preneoplastic and neoplastic epithelial cell growth, a potential mechanism in carcinogenesis. We undertook this study to explore whether the extracellular matrices from UVB-induced senescent fibroblasts have any effect on the proliferation of HaCaT cells. The results showed that ECM secreted from HSFs in UVB-SIPS has 13.15 and 29.27% more stimulatory effect on proliferation than ECM secreted from presenescent HSFs and non-ECM, respectively. ECM from fibroblasts in UVB-SIPS activates FAK, ERK, and AKT in HaCaT cells. ERK and PI3K/AKT inhibitors inhibit ECM-induced ERK, AKT activation and cell proliferation. Cytochalasin D, a destructive agent of the cytoskeleton, inhibits ECM-induced FAK activation and cell proliferation in HaCaT cells. Collectively, we conclude that ECM secreted from HSFs in UVB-SIPS promotes cell proliferation via ERK and PI3K/AKT pathways and modulation of FAK and cytoskeletal proteins in HaCaT cells. Pharmacological manipulation of those signaling components may lead to the prevention and treatment of skin cancer induced by chronic solar exposure.

Abstract-Hybrid Vehicle fuel economy and drivability performance are very sensitive to the "Energy Management" controller that regulates power flow among the various energy sources and sinks. Many methods have been proposed for designing such controllers. Most analytical studies evaluate closed-loop performance on government test cycles. Moreover, there are few results that compare stochastic optimal control algorithms to the controllers employed in today's production hybrids. This paper studies controllers designed using Shortest Path Stochastic Dynamic Programming (SPSDP). The controllers are evaluated on Ford Motor Company's highly accurate proprietary vehicle model over large numbers of realworld drive cycles, and compared to a controller developed by Ford for a prototype vehicle. Results show the SPSDPbased controllers yield 2-3% better performance than the Ford controller on real-world driving data, with even more improvement on a government test cycle. In addition, the SPSDP-based controllers can directly quantify tradeoffs between fuel economy and drivability.