Ying Zhang

Resistance to anoikis, or apoptosis triggered by detachment from the extracellular matrix, lengthens the survival of malignant cells, facilitating reattachment and colonization of secondary sites. To examine the molecular mechanisms underlying resistance to anoikis in human oral squamous cell carcinoma cells, we cultured human squamous carcinoma cells in suspension on plates coated with poly-2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate, which blocks access to the ECM. Cells in suspension that formed multicellular aggregates had significantly lower levels of apoptosis than single cells. Aggregates, but not single cells, had high levels of fibronectin. Preincubation with a cyclic arginine-glycine-aspartic acid peptide or fibronectin-blocking antibody significantly increased anoikis. Single cells had markedly lower expression of the integrin αv receptor than aggregates. Blocking αv function with a blocking antibody or by transfection with an antisense oligonucleotide increased apoptosis and inhibited aggregation. In single cells but not aggregates, phosphorylation of the integrin-associated focal adhesion kinase at tyrosine 397 was reduced, and p53 levels were increased. Apoptosis was increased by blocking FAK with an antisense oligonucleotide and reduced by blocking p53. These findings show that SCC cells escape suspension-induced anoikis by forming multicellular aggregates that avail themselves of fibronectin survival signals mediated by integrin αv. Single cells in suspension that do not form aggregates undergo anoikis because of decreased FAK phosphorylation and increased p53 levels. Thus, SCC cells appear to use neighboring cells and the ECM molecule FN to promote the metastatic phenotype.

Ultra-high isotropic resolution imaging of retinal structures was made possible with an adaptive optics system using dual deformable mirrors and a Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography system with correction for longitudinal chromatic aberration. This system was used to image microscopic retinal structures of healthy as well as diseased retinas in vivo. The improved resolution and contrast enhanced visualization of morphological structures in the retina can be clearly seen. The benefits of this instrument are apparent from comparison of new images with those acquired using a previous generation AO-OCT instrument. Big change in the appearance of speckle field can be observed as well. Additionally, further improvements in volumetric data acquisition and image representation will be discussed. This includes creation of large Field of View AO-OCT volume from multiple sub-volumes and its visualization. Also techniques and results of reducing speckle contrast by averaging multiple B-scans will be presented.

© 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers.Current lithium-ion batteries are predicted to be unable to provide the specific energy required to meet the ever-increasing demands of rapidly emerging technologies. Due to a high theoretical specific capacity of 1675 mAh/g, sulfur has gained much attention as a promising positive electrode material for high specific energy rechargeable batteries. Although the lithium/sulfur cell has been studied for many years and continues to receive much attention today as an alternative power source for zero-emission vehicles and advanced electronic devices, the realization of this novel cell's promise as a commercial product has yet to be successful. The major problems with sulfur electrodes involve: the dissolution of sulfur and the resulting diffusion of dissolved polysulfides and the deposition of insulating products on both the negative and the positive electrodes. These solid deposits can physically block the electrode reaction sites, thus passivating the electrode surfaces. Another important problem is the large volume change that occurs with the conversion of S to Li 2 S. It is important to understand that the performance of Li/S cells is hampered by linked chemical and mechanical degradations and both degradation mechanisms must be correctly alleviated in order to markedly improve current-technology Li/S cells. In this study, improved cycling performance via the reactive functional groups on graphene oxide to successfully immobilize sulfur and lithium polysulfides during operation has been demonstrated. The use of a new electrolyte and binder leads to improved cell performance in terms of high-rate capability and good reversibility, yielding at least 800 cycles have also been demonstrated.

Oxidative stress has been implicated in cardiac arrhythmia, although a causal relationship remains undefined. We have recently demonstrated a marked up-regulation of NADPH oxidase isoform 4 in patients with atrial fibrillation, which is accompanied by overproduction of reactive oxygen species. In this study, we investigated the impact on the cardiac phenotype of NOX4 overexpression in zebrafish. One-cell stage embryos were injected with NOX4 RNA prior to video recording of a GFP-labeled beating heart in real time at 24-31 h post-fertilization. Intriguingly, NOX4 embryos developed cardiac arrhythmia that is characterized by irregular heartbeats. When quantitatively analyzed by an established LQ-1 program, the NOX4 embryos displayed much more variable beat-to-beat intervals. Both the phenotype and the increased ROS in NOX4 embryos were attenuated by NOX4 morpholino co-injection, treatments of the embryos with polyethylene glycol-conjugated superoxide dismutase, or NOX4 inhibitors fulvene-5, 6-dimethylaminofulvene, and proton sponge blue. Injection of NOX4-P437H mutant RNA had no effect on the cardiac phenotype or ROS production. In addition, phosphorylation of calcium/cal-modulin-dependent protein kinase II was increased in NOX4 embryos but diminished by polyethylene glycol-conjugated superoxide dismutase, whereas its inhibitor KN93 or AIP abolished the arrhythmic phenotype. Taken together, our data for the first time uncover a novel pathway that underlies the development of cardiac arrhythmia, namely NOX4 activation, subsequent NOX4-specific NADPH-driven ROS production, and redox-sensitive CaMKII activation. These findings may ultimately lead to novel therapeutics targeting cardiac arrhythmia. © 2014 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

Lithium/sulfur cells are receiving significant attention as an alternative power source for zero-emission vehicles and advanced electronic devices due to the very high theoretical specific capacity of the sulfur cathode. However, the poor cycle life and rate capability have remained a grand challenge, preventing the practical application of this attractive technology. Here, we report that a Li/S cell employing a cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide -modified sulfur-graphene oxide nanocomposite cathode can be discharged at rates as high as 6C and charged at rates as high as 3C while still maintaining high specific capacity, with a long cycle life exceeding 1500 cycles and an extremely low decay rate, perhaps the best performance demonstrated so far for a Li/S cell. The initial estimated cell-level specific energy of our cell was ∼500 W·h/kg, which is much higher than that of current Li-ion cells. Even after 1500 cycles, we demonstrate a very high specific capacity, which corresponds to ∼414 mA·h/g of electrode: still higher than state-of-the-art Li-ion cells. Moreover, these Li/S cells with lithium metal electrodes can be cycled with an excellent Coulombic efficiency of 96.3% after 1500 cycles, which was enabled by our new formulation of the ionic liquid-based electrolyte. The performance we demonstrate herein suggests that Li/S cells may already be suitable for high-power applications such as power tools. Li/S cells may now provide a substantial opportunity for the development of zero-emission vehicles with a driving range similar to that of gasoline vehicles. © 2013 American Chemical Society.

Previous research has consistently demonstrated the importance of parents' expectations and adolescents' expectations on adolescents' academic achievement. Less is known, however, about the reciprocal relationships among these constructs. To address this issue, we analyzed two waves of data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 using longitudinal cross-lagged path models. The sample consisted of 14,376 students. Results indicated that there was a reciprocal relationship between parents' expectations and adolescents' expectations. Moreover, there was a reciprocal relationship between expectations and adolescents' academic achievement. Multiple-group analyses of gender and ethnicity revealed that the effects of parents' expectations on students' expectations were stronger among males than among females. With respect to ethnic differences, the effects of adolescents' expectations were weakest on parents' expectations among African Americans as compared to the other ethnic groups. Implications of these findings are discussed. © 2010 The Author.

Frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimers disease are sometimes difficult to differentiate clinically because of overlapping symptoms. Using diffusion tensor imaging measurements of fractional anisotropy can be useful in distinguishing the different patterns of white matter degradation between the two dementias. In this study, we performed MRI scans in a 4 Tesla MRI machine including T1-weighted structural images and diffusion tensor images in 18 patients with FTD, 18 patients with Alzheimers disease and 19 cognitively normal controls. FA was measured selectively in specific fibre tracts as well as globally in a voxel-by-voxel analysis. Patients with FTD were associated with reductions of FA in frontal and temporal regions including the anterior corpus callosum, bilateral anterior, descending cingulum tracts, and uncinate tracts, compared to controls. Patients with Alzheimers disease were associated with reductions of FA in parietal, temporal and frontal regions including the left anterior and posterior cingulum tracts, bilateral descending cingulum tracts and left uncinate tracts compared to controls. When compared with Alzheimers disease, FTD was associated with greater reductions of FA in frontal brain regions, whereas no region in Alzheimers disease showed greater reductions of FA when compared to FTD. In conclusion, the regional patterns of anisotropy reduction in FTD and Alzheimers disease compared to controls suggest a characteristic distribution of white matter degradation in each disease. Moreover, the white matter degradation seems to be more prominent in FTD than in Alzheimers disease. Taken together, the results suggest that white matter degradation measured with DTI may improve the diagnostic differentiation between FTD and Alzheimers disease.

Background: Endothelins are paracrine peptides with growth-promoting and vasoactive functions for a variety of cell types. Elevated activation of the endothelin signaling pathway induces cell proliferation and/or survival and is implicated in a variety of malignancies. Increased endothelin 1 was described in solar lentigines in previous reports, raising the possibility that the endothelin pathway may be of significance in keratinocyte proliferation-related disorders. However, detailed investigation on endothelins in skin malignancies is lacking. Objectives: This study aims to survey the expression of endothelins and their receptors in keratinocyte-derived benign and malignant tumors of the skin and to test the effects of endothelin inhibitors on the growth and survival of cultured keratinocytes. Methods: Quantitative polymerase chain reaction was used to measure the level of gene transcription of three endothelins and two endothelin receptors. The genes with significant messenger ribonucleic acid expression abnormalities were confirmed with immunohistochemical analysis to examine expression differences at the protein levels. To analyze the effect of endothelin inhibitors on the keratinocyte growth and survival, keratinocytes were cultured in the presence of various concentrations of endothelin inhibitors and subjected to tetrazolium bromide assay to quantify the cell numbers over time. Results: ET-1 mRNA was found to be significantly up-regulated in seborrheic keratosis and basal cell carcinoma. However, no significant expression increase was found in actinic keratosis, Bowen's disease, or squamous cell carcinoma. Immunohistochemical analysis of ET-1 peptide confirmed increased expression. In cultured keratinocytes, peptide inhibitors of the endothelin pathway resulted in a marked reduction in cell survival. Conclusion: The endothelin signaling pathway, especially ET-1, is activated in basoloid keratinocyte neoplasms of the skin, such as basal cell carcinoma and seborrheic keratosis. Blockade of this pathway can reduce cell survival in vitro. Therefore, endothelin inhibitors potentially offer a novel method for the treatment of some keratinocyte-derived skin tumors.

Many previous studies have documented the detrimental effects of social loafing on others (_inter_personal impacts) at the between-person level. However, social loafing may carry underappreciated _intra_personal functional effects at the within-person level. Our research develops a novel theoretical framework to investigate _when_ and _how_ engaging in social loafing enhances one’s job performance. Drawing on the effort-recovery model and moral cleansing theory, we propose that social loafing may improve subsequent job performance by enhancing recovery and guilt. Specifically, we argue that among employees who experience higher job demands or have higher moral identity, social loafing in the morning enhances their job performance in the afternoon by facilitating recovery or guilt in the morning. Two-wave daily data collected across ten consecutive workdays using the experience sampling method (ESM) supports this model. We discuss how this research identifies a functional basis for social loafing and provides implications for research and practice.

This study investigated the status quo of article retractions by Chinese researchers. The bibliometric information of 834 retractions from the Web of Science SCI-expanded database were downloaded and analysed. The results showed that the number of retractions increased in the past two decades, and misconduct such as plagiarism, fraud, and faked peer review explained approximately three quarters of the retractions. Meanwhile, a large proportion of the retractions seemed typical of deliberate fraud, which might be evidenced by retractions authored by repeat offenders of data fraud and those due to faked peer review. In addition, a majority of Chinese fraudulent authors seemed to aim their articles which contained a possible misconduct at low-impact journals, regardless of the types of misconduct. The system of scientific evaluation, the “publish or perish” pressure Chinese researchers are facing, and the relatively low costs of scientific integrity may be responsible for the scientific integrity. We suggested more integrity education and severe sanctions for the policy-makers, as well as change in the peer review system and transparent retraction notices for journal administrators.

The California Verbal Learning Test-Second Edition, is a commonly used tool to assess episodic memory. This study analyzed learning and memory characteristics in a cognitively healthy Chinese population, as well as the effects of age, sex and education on CVLT-II factors. In total, 246 healthy people aged 20–80 years and 29 persons with multiple sclerosis were included in this study and completed the CVLT-II. Factors including total learning, learning strategy, serial position effects, short-delay free and cued recall, long-delay free and cued recall, repetitions and intrusions during recall, hits and false positives of recognition, and total recognition discriminability were calculated. The effects of age, sex and education on these factors were analyzed using ANCOVA or independent two-sample t-tests and further confirmed by multiple regression analysis. The regression-based normative data were then computed by the equivalent scores method. Moreover, differences in learning and memory were compared between persons with MS and age-, sex- and education-matched healthy individuals. Most CVLT-II factors significantly differed between different age and education groups; in particular, better performance in total learning, recall, semantic clustering and recognition was observed in the younger and more educated groups than in the older and less educated groups. Male participants showed higher recency effect scores, more repetitions and fewer hits than female participants. Compared with healthy individuals, persons with MS showed extensive impairments in memory processes, such as learning, recall, learning strategy and recognition. These findings indicated that verbal learning and memory were highly dependent on age and educational level but not strongly affected by sex. The CVLT-II effectively assesses episodic memory impairment in the Chinese-speaking population.

Individuals' knowledge hiding behavior may lead to massive economic losses to organizations, and exploring the antecedents of it has crucial relevance for mitigating its negative influences. This research aims to investigate the impact of perceived overqualification on knowledge hiding by testing the mediating effect of psychological capital and the moderating effect of person-organization fit. Empirical analyses were conducted on 249 employee dataset using versions SPSS 26 and AMOS 26. Results illustrate an inverse correlation between perceived overqualification and knowledge hiding behavior which is partly mediated by psychological capital and moderated by person-organization fit, implying that good organizational atmosphere that builds up individual psychological capital with better person-organization fit will allow employees to work positively to reduce knowledge hiding behavior when perceived overqualified. This study complements a small quantity of discussions on the positive impact of perceived overqualification on knowledge management and fills omissions in previous studies on the negative effect of perceived overqualification on knowledge hiding behavior in changing surroundings.

This paper aimed at investigating the related studies on educational technology and its effect on English as a Foreign Language learner self-efficacy. Earlier studies have proved the positive and significant relationship between learner self-efficacy and educational technology use. Investigations have revealed that improving learners’ dynamic mindsets, online interaction, self-assessment, academic knowledge, and positive affectivity can increase learner self-efficacy. Moreover, the provision of the encouraging context can help develop learners’ self-efficacy in technology-supported education. Furthermore, the study presented the implications and future directions of this line of research for different people, such as EFL teachers, teacher educators, and foreign language scholars. The ideas can improve their awareness of learner self-efficacy in technology-supported educational contexts and its role in L2 education.

Rapid and precise air operation mission planning is a key technology in unmanned aerial vehicles autonomous combat in battles. In this paper, an end-to-end UAV intelligent mission planning method based on deep reinforcement learning is proposed to solve the shortcomings of the traditional intelligent optimization algorithm, such as relying on simple, static, low-dimensional scenarios, and poor scalability. Specifically, the suppression of enemy air defense mission planning is described as a sequential decision-making problem and formalized as a Markov decision process. Then, the SEAD intelligent planning model based on the proximal policy optimization algorithm is established and a general intelligent planning architecture is proposed. Furthermore, three policy training tricks, i.e., domain randomization, maximizing policy entropy, and underlying network parameter sharing, are introduced to improve the learning performance and generalizability of PPO. Experiments results show that the model in this work is efficient and stable, and can be adapted to the unknown continuous high-dimensional environment. It can be concluded that the UAV intelligent mission planning model based on DRL has powerful intelligent planning performance, and provides a new idea for researching UAV autonomy.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, journalists and scholars noted differences between Asians and North Americans in their support for public mask use. These differences were primarily assumed to be due d to variations in ethnocultural norms and practices. To better ascertain people’s motives for wearing masks and potential cultural differences in these rationales, this comparative, mixed-methods research examines Chinese and non-East Asian Canadians’ mask use attitudes utilizing online group interviews and a nation-wide survey Study 1, conducted in the early stages of the pandemic, captured an ambivalent, yet evolving attitude toward public mask use among the non-East Asian Canadians, which differed from their Chinese counterparts who more uniformly perceived mask use favorably. Study 2, conducted 2 months later, suggests that both groups primarily wore masks for disease protection- and prevention-related reasons. However, age and education appeared to influence the mask wearing frequency of the non-East Asian Canadians, for whom public mask use was less prevalent and normative. The attitudinal differences in public mask use call for targeted strategies to support mask wearing for different ethnocultural groups, which may be achieved partially through enhancing interethnic understanding on the diversified use of and opinions about masks. The findings suggest that favorable social norms, along with evidence-based information campaigns involving personal appeals may encourage greater mask use by the non-East Asian population.

Objectives: The corona virus disease-2019 pandemic spread globally, and we aimed to investigate the psychosocial impact on healthcare workers in China during the pandemic.Methods: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched seven electronic databases for cross-sectional studies on psychosocial impact on HWs in relation to COVID-19 from January 1, 2020 to October 7, 2020. We included primary studies involving Chinese HWs during the pandemic, and data were extracted from the published articles. Our primary outcome was prevalence of anxiety, depression, and stress disorders. We pooled prevalence value with their 95% confidence interval using random effect models and assessed study quality on the basis of an 11-item checklist recommended by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The study protocol was registered in PROSPERO.Results: We identified 25 articles comprising a total of 30,841 completed questionnaires and 22 studies for meta-analysis. The prevalence of anxiety, depression, and stress disorders was 34.4%, 31.1%, and 29.1% for HWs. The pooled prevalence of anxiety disorders for HWs from late January to early February was 46.4%, significantly higher than those in mid-term February and after late February. The pooled prevalence of depression disorders for HWs from late January to early February was 46.5%, significantly higher than those in mid-term February and after late February. HWs working in Hubei Province had a higher prevalence of anxiety and a lower prevalence of depression than those working in other regions. Nurses had a higher prevalence of anxiety and depression than other HWs.Conclusions: About one-third of HWs in China suffered anxiety, depression, and stress at the early epidemic of COVID-19. HWs in Hubei Province, especially nurses, had a higher prevalence of psychological disorders. During the pandemic, a negative psychological state may persist in a proportion of Chinese HWs, fluctuating with the control of the pandemic. The long-term impact should continue to be observed. Attention should be paid to HWs for their psychological impact due to the pandemic.Systematic Review Registration: The study protocol was registered with PROSPERO.

Teachers’ emotions may be affected by structural reforms of education that emphasizes performance-based accountability and by individual psychological processes like thinking style, but there is a lack of research concerning the relationship between the three factors. In this study, thus, we attempted to test the influence of PBA on teacher emotions and to examine whether the relationship was moderated by a zhongyong thinking style in a Chinese context. A sample of 402 primary and secondary schoolteachers from Hubei, Liaoning, and Beijing in China participated in this study. Structural equation modeling was applied to develop moderation models. The results demonstrated that PBA is a singificant factor with respect to teachers’ joy, sadness/frustration, anger, and fear, as related to their job of teaching, but not love of their profession. Moreover, the ZYT style may moderate the relationship between PBA and joy.