Suchergebnisse

Master in the Electric Power Industry ; This thesis was set out to explore the interdependencies between long-term investment decisions of the UK's power and gas industries. The interdependencies between these two network industries have been growing during the past two decades. Technical, commercial, and regulatory decisions made with narrow scope, without considering potential interaction between the two industries, might cause unwanted consequences or fail to take advantage of opportunities. Four complementary studies have been conducted to offer different lenses through which to view gas and power interdependencies: a literature review of research traditions in long-term investments in power and gas sectors, a case study that dissects the UK's gas-to-power supply chain segment-by -segment, an econometric study that test for cointegration between gas and power prices series, and a System Dynamics simulation model that allows for quantitative testing of uncertain scenarios. The findings of the more general studies have been able to inform the research methodology of subsequent, more specific studies. The first study, the methodological review, has identified seven lines of inquiries active in gas and power research on long-term investments. It found that gas sector researchers most commonly investigate the evolution of supply and demand. On the other hand, power sector researchers most commonly investigate the design of regulatory frameworks. The exploratory research objective of this thesis re-articulated in terms of these lines of inquiries. The case study found that in the UK's gas to power supply chain, mainly coordinated through the market mechanism, uncertainties plague two particular segments: domestic gas production and power generation. The regulatory actions carried out by the government to achieve is sustainability and security goals, mainly targeting the power generation segment, exposes power and gas sector agents to regulatory uncertainty. The cointegration study found that the UK's gas prices are cointegrated with the North-western European gas hub's prices, and that the UK's power prices are cointegrated with the Dutch electricity price. It also found that the Dutch power price is driven by the North-western European gas prices, which have experience a transitioning relationships with the German import price during 2011-2015. Finally, the SD simulation model developed is validated using a base case scenario: 2011-2015 historical data and the author's best estimates for 2016-2030 are used. The simulation results show that the model captured key features of the UK gas and power markets and sector investment decisions, but deviation existed concerning the price-responsiveness of LNG supply, the level of gas-fired power generation given historical costs, the uptake of biomass generation, and the price of power and marginal cost for power generation.

Yongqing Cai,1 Jian Huang,2 Haiyan Xing,1 Bin Li,1 Ling Li,1 Xianfeng Wang,1 Dan Peng,1 Jianhong Chen1 1Department of Pharmacy, Daping Hospital and Research Institute of Surgery, Army Medical University, Chongqing 400042, China; 2Department of High Altitude Biology and Pathology, High Altitude Military Medical College, Army Medical University, Chongqing 400042, China Background/purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the role and mechanisms of the formyl peptide receptor (FPR) and the toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) in hypoxia-induced chemoresistance of human ovarian cancer cells. Materials and methods: SKOV3 cells were exposed to hypoxia for 24 hours, the supernatant was collected to stimulate normoxia-cultured SKOV3, and the inhibition rate of cell growth was detected with CCK8 test. The agonist of TLR9 CpG ODN and the agonist of FPR fMLF were applied to investigate the chemosensitivity of SKOV3 cells to cisplatin. The cells were also treated with FPR antagonist t-Boc or TLR9 antagonist CQ. Western blot was applied to detect protein levels of FPR, TLR9, MRP, P-gp, p53 and Beclin-1. Immunofluorescence staining was applied to observe the distribution of TLR9 in SKOV3 cells. Results: Hypoxia exposure reduced the inhibition rate of cisplatin on SKOV3 cells. WB showed that FPR and TLR9 were expressed in human ovarian cancer tissues and SKOV3 cells, and the levels were increased with longer hypoxia time. After SKOV3 was stimulated with fMLF or ODN2006, cisplatin-induced inhibition rate was significantly decreased. tBoc and CQ significantly attenuated hypoxia supernatant-induced chemoresistance of SKOV3 cells. Hypoxia supernatants significantly increased MRP, P-gp, p53 and Beclin-1 proteins in SKOV3 cells, which were significantly reduced by tBoc. Conclusion: Hypoxia upregulates the expression of FPR and TLR9, and promotes the release of ligands for both receptors in human ovarian cancer cell line. FPR and TLR9 may be noval targets for chemosensitizing to ovarian cancer cells. Keywords: human ovarian cancer, hypoxia, chemoresistance, FPR, TLR9, MRP, Beclin-1, HICR

Guizhou province in southwest China has abundant genetic and cultural diversities, but the forensic features and genetic structure of Guizhou populations remain poorly understood due to the sparse sampling of present-day populations. Here, we present 30 insertion/deletion polymorphisms (InDels) data of 591 human individuals collected from four populations, Dong, Yi, Han, and Chuanqing residing in Guizhou. We calculated the forensic parameters of 30 InDel loci and found that this panel meets the efficiency of forensic personal identification based on the high combined power of discrimination, but it could only be used as a complementary tool in the parentage testing because of the lower combined probability of exclusion values. The studied populations are genetically closer related to geographically adjacent or linguistically related populations in southern China, such as the Tai-Kadai and Hmong-Mien speaking groups. The unrecognized ethnic Chuanqing people show an additional genetic affinity with Han Chinese, highlighting the role of possible military immigrations in their origin.