Does living alone increase the consumption of social resources?

China's living arrangement has changed as the economy grows and society makes progress. More and more people prefer to live alone. In 2018, a total of 240 million people chose to live alone in China, with an annual growth of 0.53% per year. How will the growing number of people living alone affect the resources consumption and the ecological environment? Based on the data from 1998 to 2017 at provincial level, this paper selects domestic water and electricity consumption to represent resources consumption, and household garbage generation to represent ecological environment, taking the proportion of single-person households in the total households as the explanatory variable and age, education, and household appliances as the control variables. This paper aims to apply dynamic panel models to analyze the impact of solitary population on resources consumption (water and electricity resources as representatives) and on waste generation. The results show that (1) people living alone consume more resources and generate more garbage, while household waste is influenced most, followed by household electricity consumption and household water consumption, (2) positive relations between age and resources consumption and waste generation have been identified, and (3) the energy-saving technology of home appliances is conducive to resources conservation and emission reduction.

miR-378d suppresses malignant phenotype of ESCC cells through AKT signaling.

BACKGROUND: Post-resistance progress in paclitaxel (PTX) treatment remains a major challenge in tumor treatment. A high dose of PTX was used for cell lines to analyze the changes in molecular expression. The miR-378d was sharply reduced in surviving cells, but the role of miR-378d in Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remained unclear. METHODS: We analyzed the relationship between miR-378d expression and the clinicopathological features of ESCC. We constructed miR-378d silent expression cell lines to study phenotypes and molecular mechanisms. RESULTS: The miR-378d expression was associated with good prognosis in patients with ESCC. miR-378d inhibition promoted chemo-resistance, monoclonal formation, EMT, migration, invasion, stemness, and metastasis of ESCC cells. miR-378d can target downregulated AKT1. CONCLUSIONS: Therefore, miR-378d expression is a good prognostic factor of patients with ESCC and regulates the malignant phenotype of tumor cells through AKT.

DTYMK promote hepatocellular carcinoma proliferation by regulating cell cycle.

Overexpression of DTYMK is related with tumorigenesis and progression in several human tumors. However, the role of upregulated DTYMK in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients still remains unclear. In this study, the DTYMK expression in HCC tumors was evaluated in three GEO series (GSE14520, GSE54236, GSE63898), TCGA-LIHC, and ICGC-IRLR-JP cohorts. Survival analysis of DTYMK based on TCGA-LIHC and ICGC-LIRI-JP cohorts was conducted. We found that DTYMK was dramatically upregulated in tumor tissue compared with that in adjacent liver tissue. Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that high expression of DTYMK in HCC patients' tumor tissue was significantly corresponded to worse overall survival (OS) (P < 0.05). Further analysis showed that overexpressing DTYMK led to poor relapse free survival (RFS) and disease-specific survival (DSS) (all P < 0.05). In conclusion, DTYMK is upregulated in tumors and correlated with poor prognosis in HCC patients. In our report, DTYMK is higher expression in HCC cancer tissue and cell line than tumor adjacent tissue and normal liver cell line. Knocking down DTYMK can inhabit tumor cell proliferation by interfering cell cycle, whereas overexpression of DTYMK can promote tumor cell proliferation. These findings indicate that upregulation of DTYMK enhances tumor growth and proliferation by promoting cell cycle.

Neuroendocrine neoplasms of the middle ear: report of 2 cases and review of the literature.

Neuroendocrine adenoma of the middle ear is a rare tumor of the middle ear. The origins, as well as classification of the disease, are still controversial. We reported 2 cases of neuroendocrine adenoma of the middle ear separately in a 60-year-old male and a 48-year-old patient who both presented with hearing loss. This article reviewed the reported literatures and summarized the pathogenesis, clinical features, imaging manifestations, pathological features, and biological behavior of neuroendocrine adenoma of the middle ear, so as to improve the understanding of the disease.