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Background The Estrogen receptor-1 (ESR1) gene encodes estrogen receptor-α which is a major biomarker in the development of breast cancer. This research aimed to investigate the effect of ESR1 polymorphisms on breast cancer in Chinese Han women.Methods Four candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in ESR1 gene among 503 breast cancer patients and 503 healthy people were genotyped using Agena MassARRAY platform. The association between ESR1 polymorphisms and breast cancer risk was evaluated using odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) in four genetic models. The HaploReg v4.1 and GEPIA database were used for SNP functional annotation and ESR1 expression analysis respectively.Results The allele T of rs9383938 in ESR1 was significantly associated with an increased breast cancer risk (OR = 1.26, 95% CI = 1.05 – 1.50, p = 0.013). In genetic models, rs9383938 increased breast cancer risk in codominant model (OR = 1.54, 95% CI = 1.07 – 2.22, p = 0.021), dominant model (OR = 1.31, 95% CI = 1.01 – 1.68, p = 0.040), and additive model (OR = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.04 – 1.48, p = 0.017). Stratification analysis showed that rs9383938 and rs2228480 raised the breast cancer susceptibility at age < 50 years. Rs1801132 of ESR1 was also associated with the status of ER, PR, and Her-2 in allele model and genetic models significantly.Conclusion This study demonstrated that ESR1 polymorphisms might influence breast cancer susceptibility in Chinese Han population. Further mechanisms studies are needed to confirm the contribution of ESR1.

Cold spraying is being developed as effective and promising additive manufacturing process. However, how to create a deposit by cold spraying with comparable properties to bulk material is still challenge. It is well known that post-spray annealing is an effective process to enhance the deposit properties. In this paper, copper deposits are cold-sprayed at three different sets of spray conditions corresponding to three mean particle velocities of 578, 745, and 807 m/s. The tensile strength, thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity are measured at three different directions to clarify the anisotropy of deposit properties, which are parallel to gun moving direction and other two perpendicular directions. Furthermore, the influence of post-spray annealing on the anisotropy effect is also investigated by examining the effect of spray conditions and annealing conditions on the deposit properties at three different directions. The results clearly demonstrate the anisotropy of as-deposited Cu. Although it can be found that post-spray annealing significantly improves the properties of the as-sprayed deposits and reduces anisotropy of Cu deposit properties, the microstructure of the as-sprayed initial Cu deposit presents a significant effect on final annealed deposit. Therefore, an optimized cold-sprayed deposit will benefit manufacturing of a deposit with comparable properties with bulk by cold-spraying combined with post-spray annealing.

A parameter estimation problem for a backup system in a condition-based maintenance is considered. We model a backup system by a hidden, three-state continuous time Markov process. Data are obtained through condition monitoring at discrete time points. Maximum likelihood estimates of the model parameters are obtained using the EM algorithm. We establish conditions under which there is no more than one limitation in the parameter space for any sequence derived by the EM algorithm.