It has been reported that the plasma levels of VEGF in tumor patients decreased during dendritic cell (DC)-based immunotherapy, but the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Our current report demonstrates that VEGF levels were significantly decreased in the supernatants of DCs incubated with rhVEGF or tumor conditioned medium (TCM) while the intracellular VEGF in DCs was increased. The increased intracellular VEGF was not due to the <i>de novo</i> VEGF synthesis by DCs because exogenous VEGF inhibited the mRNA expression of VEGF in DCs. More direct evidence was provided to demonstrate that Cy3-labeled VEGF could be internalized by DCs specifically and efficiently. In addition, the activity of DCs to internalize VEGF was abolished by neutralizing antibody against VEGF receptor-1 (Flt-1) and inhibitors of endocytosis such as carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenyl hydrazone (CCCP) and genistein. This

For any r-order {0,1}-tensor A with e ones, we prove that the spectral radius of A is at most exp((r-1)/r) with the equality holds if and only if e=k^r for some integer k and all ones forms a principal sub-tensor 1_{k x k x ... x k}. We also prove a stability result for general tensor A with e ones where e = k^r+l with relatively small l. Using the stability result, we completely characterized the tensors achieving the maximum spectral radius among all r-order {0,1}-tensor A with k^r+l ones, for -r-1 ≤ l ≤ r, and k sufficiently large.

This article studies the mean curvature flow of Lagrangian submanifolds. In particular, we prove the following global existence and convergence theorem: if the potential function of a Lagrangian graph in $T^{2n}$ is convex, then the flow exists for all time and converges smoothly to a flat Lagrangian submanifold. We also discuss various conditions on the potential function that guarantee global existence and convergence.

We present a network flow model to compute transport, through a pore network, of a compositional fluid consisting of water with a dissolved hydrocarbon gas. The model captures single-phase flow (below local bubble point conditions) as well as the genesis and migration of the gas phase when bubble point conditions are achieved locally. Constant temperature computational tests were run on simulated 2D and 3D micro-networks near bubble point pressure conditions. In the 2D simulations which employed a homogeneous network, negligible capillary pressure, and linear relative permeability relations, the observed concentration of CO2 dissolved in the liquid phase throughout the medium was linearly related to the liquid pressure. In the case of no gravity, the saturation of the gas phase throughout the medium was also linearly related to the liquid pressure; under gravity, the relationship became nonlinear in regions where buoyancy forces were significant. The 3Dheterogeneous network model had non-negligible capillary pressure and nonlinear relative permeability functions. While 100 % of the CO2 entered the 3D network dissolved in the liquid phase, 25 % of the void space was occupied by gas phase and 47 % of the CO2 exiting the outlet face did so via the gaseous phase after 500 s of simulation time.

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