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Natural language processing (NLP), or the pragmatic research perspective of computational linguistics, has become increasingly powerful due to data availability and various techniques developed in the past decade. This increasing capability makes it possible to capture sentiments more accurately and semantics in a more nuanced way. Naturally, many applications are starting to seek improvements by adopting cutting-edge NLP techniques. Financial forecasting is no exception. As a result, articles that leverage NLP techniques to predict financial markets are fast accumulating, gradually establishing the research field of natural language based financial forecasting (NLFF), or from the application perspective, stock market prediction. This review article clarifies the scope of NLFF research by ordering and structuring techniques and applications from related work. The survey also aims to increase the understanding of progress and hotspots in NLFF, and bring about discussions across many different disciplines.

Polyploid giant cancer cells (PGCCs) have been observed by pathologists for over a century. PGCCs contribute to solid tumor heterogeneity, but their functions are largely undefined. Little attention has been given to these cells, largely because PGCCs have been generally thought to originate from repeated failure of mitosis/cytokinesis and have no capacity for long-term survival or proliferation. Here we report our successful purification and culture of PGCCs from human ovarian cancer cell lines and primary ovarian cancer. These cells are highly resistant to oxygen deprivation and could form through endoreduplication or cell fusion, generating regular-sized cancer cells quickly through budding or bursting similar to simple organisms like fungi. They express normal and cancer stem cell markers, they divide asymmetrically and they cycle slowly. They can differentiate into adipose, cartilage and bone. A single PGCC formed cancer spheroids in vitro and generated tumors in immunodeficient mice. These PGCC-derived tumors gained a mesenchymal phenotype with increased expression of cancer stem cell markers CD44 and CD133 and become more resistant to treatment with cisplatin. Taken together, our results reveal that PGCCs represent a resistant form of human cancer using an ancient, evolutionarily conserved mechanism in response to hypoxia stress; they can contribute to the generation of cancer stem-like cells, and also play a fundamental role in regulating tumor heterogeneity, tumor growth and chemoresistance in human cancer.

Interstellar comets offer direct samples of volatiles from distant protoplanetary disks. 2I/Borisov is the first notably active interstellar comet discovered in our Solar System 1 . Comets are condensed samples of the gas, ice and dust that were in a star’s protoplanetary disk during the formation of its planets, and inform our understanding on how chemical compositions and abundances vary with distance from the central star. Their orbital migration distributes volatiles 2 , organic material and prebiotic chemicals around their host system 3 . In our Solar System, hundreds of comets have been observed remotely, and a few have been studied up close by space missions 4 . However, knowledge of extrasolar comets has been limited to what could be gleaned from distant, unresolved observations of cometary regions around other stars, with only one detection of carbon monoxide 5 . Here we report that the coma of 2I/Borisov contains substantially more CO than H 2 O gas, with abundances of at least 173%, more than three times higher than previously measured for any comet in the inner (<2.5 au) Solar System 4 . Our ultraviolet Hubble Space Telescope observations of 2I/Borisov provide the first glimpse into the ice content and chemical composition of the protoplanetary disk of another star that is substantially different from our own. Hubble Space Telescope data show that interstellar comet 2I/Borisov has an unusually high CO/H 2 O ratio—higher than any other comet that has been seen in the inner regions of our Solar System. This allows us to constrain the nature and location of the circumstellar region from which 2I/Borisov originated.

Metastasis is a multistep process starting with the dissemination of tumor cells from a primary site and ending with secondary tumor development in an anatomically distant location. The epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), a process that endows epithelial tumor cells with mesenchymal properties including reduced adhesion and increased motility, is considered a critical step driving the early phase of cancer metastasis. Although significant progress has been made in understanding the molecular characteristics of EMT, the intracellular mechanisms driving transition through the various stages of EMT remain unclear. In recent years, an increasing number of studies have demonstrated the involvement of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in tumor metastasis through modulating EMT. LncRNAs and their associated signaling networks have now emerged as new players in the induction and regulation of EMT during metastasis. Here we summarize the recent findings and characterizations of several known lncRNAs involved in the regulation of EMT. We will also discuss the potential use of these lncRNAs as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers as well as therapeutic targets to slow down or prevent metastatic spread of malignant tumors.

Classical laws of friction suggest that friction force is proportional to the normal load and independent of the nominal contact area. As a great improvement in this subject, it is now widely accepted that friction force is proportional to the real contact area, and much work has been conducted based on this hypothesis. In present study, this hypothesis will be carefully revisited by measuring the friction force and real contact area in-site and real-time at both normal loading and unloading stages. Our experiments reveal that the linear relation always holds between friction force and normal load. However, for the relation between friction force and real contact area, the linearity holds only at the loading stage while fails at the unloading stage. This study may improve our understanding of the origin of friction.

Geomaterials (i.e. rock, sand, soil and concrete) are increasingly being encountered and used in extreme environments, in terms of the pressure magnitude and the loading rate. Advancing the understanding of the mechanical response of materials to impact loading relies heavily on having suitable high-speed diagnostics. One such diagnostic is high-speed photography, which combined with a variety of digital optical measurement techniques can provide detailed insights into phenomena including fracture, impact, fragmentation and penetration in geological materials. This review begins with a brief history of high-speed imaging. Section  2 discusses of the current state of the art of high-speed cameras, which includes a comparison between charge-coupled device and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor sensors. The application of high-speed photography to geomechanical experiments is summarized in Sect.  3 . Section  4 is concerned with digital optical measurement techniques including photoelastic coating, Moiré, caustics, holographic interferometry, particle image velocimetry, digital image correlation and infrared thermography, in combination with high-speed photography to capture transient phenomena. The last section provides a brief summary and discussion of future directions in the field.

Intact and connected wilderness areas are vital for biodiversity conservation. The Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP) hosts some of the world's most unique ecosystems. Yet, increased economic development across the QTP raises concerns about the potential negative effects of increased human pressure on the stability of this unique biodiversity hotspot. In this study, we assessed the impacts of human activities on wilderness quality, habitat connectivity, and the effectiveness of protected areas across the QTP from 2000 to 2020. During this period, wilderness areas experienced a 41.08% reduction in large, intact patches, with a notable decline in quality, particularly in the eastern region of the QTP. Habitat connectivity decreased over time, and the cost of animal migration increased, with the most striking changes in areas with the highest initial wilderness quality. Economic growth and infrastructure development had strong negative impacts on the effectiveness of protected areas, with experimental protected areas declining faster than non‐protected areas during periods of high infrastructure expansion. These emergent trend highlights the significant impact of increasing human pressure on animal migration and underscore the need for adaptive management and careful monitoring to ensure protected areas effectively prevent habitat fragmentation and support animal migration across global biodiversity hotspots.

Main effects, epistatic effects and their environmental interactions of QTLs are all important genetic components of quantitative traits. In this study, we analyzed the main effects, epistatic effects of the QTLs, and QTL by environment interactions (QEs) underlying four yield traits, using a population of 240 recombinant inbred lines from a cross between two rice varieties tested in replicated field trials. A genetic linkage map with 220 DNA marker loci was constructed. A mixed linear model approach was used to detect QTLs with main effects, QTLs involved in digenic interactions and QEs. In total, 29 QTLs of main effects, and 35 digenic interactions involving 58 loci were detected for the four traits. Thirteen QTLs with main effects showed QEs; no QE was detected for the QTLs involved in epistatic interactions. The amount of variations explained by the QTLs of main effect were larger than the QTLs involved in epistatic interactions, which in turn were larger than QEs for all four traits. This study illustrates the ability of the analysis to assess the genetic components underlying the quantitative traits, and demonstrates the relative importance of the various components as the genetic basis of yield traits in this population.

Increasing evidence has demonstrated a significant role of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in diverse biological processes. However, their functions in cerebral ischemia remain largely unknown. Through an lncRNA array analysis in a rat model of focal cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R), we have identified CAMK2D -associated transcript 1 ( C2dat1 ) as a novel I/R-induced lncRNA that regulated the expression of CaMKII δ in murine models of focal cerebral ischemia. C2dat1 mRNA was upregulated in a time-dependent manner in mouse cortical penumbra after focal ischemic brain injury, which was accompanied by increased expression of CaMKII δ at transcript and protein levels. The expression patterns of C2dat1 and CAMK2D were confirmed in mouse Neuro-2a cells in response to in vitro ischemia (oxygen-glucose deprivation/reoxygenation, OGD/R). Knockdown of C2dat1 resulted in a significant blockade of CaMKII δ expression, and potentiated OGD/R-induced cell death. Mechanistically, reduced CaMKII δ expression upon silencing C2dat1 inhibited OGD/R-induced activation of the NF- κ B signaling pathway. Further analysis showed that the downregulation of IKK α and IKK β expression and phosphorylation, and subsequent inhibition of I κ B α degradation accounted for the inhibition of the NF- κ B signaling activity caused by silencing C2dat1 . In summary, we discovered a novel I/R-induced lncRNA C2dat1 that modulates the expression of CaMKII δ to impact neuronal survival, and may be a potential target for therapeutic intervention of ischemic brain injury.

Purpose Gross extrathyroidal extension (gETE) into major vessel is considered the most advanced stage of the locally advanced papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). Surgical intervention may not benefit some patients at this disease stage or even result in intraoperative death due to massive hemorrhage; however, it is still considered an effective strategy for most cases. The lack of description for this challenging invasion in PTC warrants detailed characterization of its pattern, risk factors, optimal surgical method, and prognostic value. Methods In total, 3127 patients diagnosed as having PTC were enrolled and categorized into two the following groups, namely the major vessel invasion (MVI) group ( n  = 30) and the control group ( n  = 3097). Data regarding clinicopathological and demographic characteristics, vascular invasion sites, postoperative complications, locoregional recurrence, distant metastasis, and surgical strategies were collected. Predictive disease-free survival (DFS) was also compared between the two groups. Results MVI was independently associated with invasion of the esophageal extension, age < 55 years, tumor size > 1 cm, lateral lymph node metastasis, and distant metastasis ( P  = 0.00; P  = 0.01; 0.05; P  = 0.00; P  = 0.00, respectively). The difference in the predictive DFS between the two groups was significant ( P  = 0.00), and the difference remained significant even in patients with ETE when compared with patients without ETE ( P  = 0.00). Additionally, predictive DFS did not differ significantly between patients who received vessel repairment and those who received vessel resection ( P  = 0.28). Conclusions This study first characterized the gross MVI pattern exhibited by PTC and the risk factors for MVI. Additionally, it demonstrated the DFS of patients with PTC. Extensive gross MVI significantly worsened the biological characteristics of PTC. Regardless of the high risk and difficulty of the operation, patients still benefited from the surgical intervention, and vessel repairment may be the optimal surgical strategy.