Squamous cell carcinoma is the main histological subtype of esophageal cancers in China. Clinically, cisplatin-based chemotherapy is the main approach for many patients with advanced esophageal cancer. Most patients with advanced esophageal cancer experienced chemotherapy failure, however, mechanisms for chemotherapeutic resistance have not been completely understood (Bazarbashi et al., 2008; C...

Cancer immunotherapies have shown considerable promise in pre-clinical studies, but the potency of these interventions has often proved disappointing in vivo. This is in part due to tumor infiltration by myeloid cells, which are usually associated with less favorable clinical outcomes. In the past decade, several distinct subsets of tumor-infiltrating myeloid cells have been described (Movahedi...

Two major problems facing the world are global climate change and food security. Globally, over 800 million people are undernourished and up to 2 billion people lack food security intermittently (FAO 2008). Projected changes in rainfall patterns, and an increase in the frequency and severity of drought, in many regions of the world will exacerbate this situation (Solomon et al. 2007; Funk et al...

2008), Drosophila (Simonsen et al., 2008) and yeast (Alvers et al., 2009) have shown that lifespan in these organisms was extended when autophagy was upregulated, which could improve cellular ability to eliminate dysfunctional mitochondria (i.e. stimulate mitophagy). Alternatively/additionally, mitochondrial dysfunction increases generation of oxygen free-radicals and related reactive oxygen sp...

As soon as researchers uncovered microorganisms’ abilities to communicate, efforts began to control the conversation. Among other cellular functions, quorum-sensing is implicated in biofilm formation, a problematic phenomena in a variety of settings such as persistence of infections (Costerton et al., 1999; Rutherford and Bassler, 2012) and biofouling of waterand wastewatertreatment membranes (...

*corresponding author Abstract piRNAs and their biogenesis pathways are well-conserved in Metazoans (Grimson et al. 2008). piRNAs have been implicated in transcriptional, post-transcriptional, and translational regulation (Grivna et al. 2006; Lin & Yin 2008; Brennecke et al. 2008; Brennecke et al. 2007; Aravin et al. 2007). We analyze the signatures of a critical process in the primary and seco...

Preen oil is an oleaginous secretion that birds spread onto their plumage when preening. It is secreted by the uropygial (or preen) gland, a holocrine complex that is unique to birds and located in the integument of the rump (Clark 2004). The functions of the uropygial gland are still disputed: it may be involved in sexual communication, through pheromone production (Hirao et al. 2009), and thr...

Copyright © 2014 by The Geochemical Society of Japan. Strandh et al., 1997), reactivity of different surface sites (e.g., Blum and Lasaga, 1988, 1991; Blum et al., 1990; Dove, 1994; Furrer and Stumm, 1986; Lasaga, 1992; Pelmenschikov et al., 2000; Raghavachari and Rohlfing, 1991; Bickmore et al., 2008; Wallace et al., 2010), the extent of undersaturation of the solution (e.g., Dove et al., 2005...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common human cancer world-wide but the third most common cause of mortality and evidence has been accumulating in various countries that HCC is increasing (Andrisani et al., 2011; Parkin et al., 2000; Perkin, 2004). Major etiologic agents in HCC pathogenesis are chronic infection with hepatitis B virus or hepatitis C virus (Bruix et al., 2004; Po...

Recent years have witnessed an explosion in wireless communications. In the last decades, the development of wireless communication systems and networks is taking us from a world where communications were mostly carried over PSTN, packet-switched and high speed LAN networks to one where the wireless transmission dominates. Nowadays, high data rates carry multimedia communications, real-time ser...