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Accurate air quality index (AQI) prediction is essential in environmental monitoring and management. Given that previous studies neglect the importance of uncertainty estimation and the necessity of constraining the output during prediction, we proposed a new hybrid model, namely TMSSICX, to forecast the AQI of multiple cities. Firstly, time-varying filtered based empirical mode decomposition (TVFEMD) was adopted to decompose the AQI sequence into multiple internal mode functions (IMF) components. Secondly, multi-scale fuzzy entropy (MFE) was applied to evaluate the complexity of each IMF component and clustered them into high and low-frequency portions. In addition, the high-frequency portion was secondarily decomposed by successive variational mode decomposition (SVMD) to reduce volatility. Then, six air pollutant concentrations, namely CO, SO 2 , PM 2.5 , PM 10 , O 3 , and NO 2 , were used as inputs. The secondary decomposition and preliminary portion were employed as the outputs for the bidirectional long short-term memory network optimized by the snake optimization algorithm (SOABiLSTM) and improved Catboost (ICatboost), respectively. Furthermore, extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) was applied to ensemble each predicted sub-model to acquire the consequence. Ultimately, we introduced adaptive kernel density estimation (AKDE) for interval estimation. The empirical outcome indicated the TMSSICX model achieved the best performance among the other 23 models across all datasets. Moreover, implementing the XGBoost to ensemble each predicted sub-model led to an 8.73%, 8.94%, and 0.19% reduction in RMSE, compared to SVM. Additionally, by utilizing SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) to assess the impact of the six pollutant concentrations on AQI, the results reveal that PM 2.5 and PM 10 had the most notable positive effects on the long-term trend of AQI. We hope this model can provide guidance for air quality management., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no competing interests., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Advancing catalyst design requires meticulous control of nanocatalyst selectivity at the atomic level. Here, we synthesized two Pd 1 Ag 14 nanoclusters: Pd 1 Ag 14 (PPh 3 ) 8 (SPh(CF 3 ) 2 ) 6 and Pd 1 Ag 14 (P(Ph- p -OMe) 3 ) 7 (SPh) 6 , each with well-defined structures. Notably, in Pd 1 Ag 14 (P(Ph- p -OMe) 3 ) 7 (SPh) 6 , the detachment of a phosphine ligand from the top silver atom facilitates the exposure of singular active sites. This exposure significantly enhances its selectivity for the electrocatalytic reduction of CO 2 to CO, achieving a Faraday efficiency of 83.3% at -1.3 V, markedly surpassing the 28.1% performance at -1.2 V of Pd 1 Ag 14 (PPh 3 ) 8 (SPh(CF 3 ) 2 ) 6 . This work underscores the impact of atomic-level structural manipulation on enhancing nanocatalyst performance.

A series of novel hybrid compounds were designed, synthesized, and utilized as multi-target drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease (AD) by connecting capsaicin and tacrine moieties. The biological assays indicated that most of these compounds demonstrated strong inhibition of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) activities with IC 50 values in the nanomolar, as well as good blood-brain barrier permeability. Among the synthesized hybrids, compound 5s displayed the most balanced inhibitory effect on hAChE (IC 50  = 69.8 nM) and hBuChE (IC 50  = 68.0 nM), and exhibited promising inhibitory activity against β-secretase-1 (BACE-1) (IC 50  = 3.6 µM). Combining inhibition kinetics and molecular model analysis, compound 5s was shown to be a mixed inhibitor affecting both the catalytic active site (CAS) and peripheral anionic site (PAS) of hAChE. Additionally, compound 5s showed low toxicity in PC12 and BV2 cell assays. Moreover, compound 5s demonstrated good tolerance at the dose of up to 2500 mg/kg and exhibited no hepatotoxicity at the dose of 3 mg/kg in mice, and it could effectively improve memory ability in mice. Taken together, these findings suggest that compound 5s is a promising and effective multi-target agent for the potential treatment of AD., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Neng Jiang reports financial support was provided by the Guangxi Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. Neng Jiang reports financial support was provided by the Special Funds for Science and Technology Development under the Guidance of the Central Government. Neng Jiang reports was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Neng Jiang reports financial support was provided by the Open Project Program of Guangxi Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience (Guilin Medical University)., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In this study, we aimed to discover novel GLP-1 analogues from natural sources. We investigated GLP-1 analogues from fish and amphibians, and bullfrog GLP-1 (bGLP-1) showed the highest potency. Starting with bGLP-1, we explored the structure-activity relationship and performed optimization and long-acting modifications, resulting in a potent analogue called 2f . Notably, 2f exhibited superior effects on food intake, glycemic control, and body weight compared to semaglutide. Furthermore, we explored the usefulness of bGLP-1 in designing GLP-1-based multiagonists. Using the bGLP-1 sequence, we designed novel dual GLP-1/glucagon receptor agonists and triple GLP-1/GIP/glucagon receptor agonists. The selected dual GLP-1/glucagon receptor agonist 3o and triple GLP-1/GIP/glucagon receptor agonist 4b exhibited significant therapeutic effects on lipid regulation, glycemic control, and body weight. Overall, our study highlights the potential of discovering potent GLP-1 receptor agonists from natural sources. Additionally, utilizing natural GLP-1 analogues for designing multiagonists presents a practical approach for developing antiobesity and antidiabetic agents.

Capsaicin and its analogues 3a-3q were designed and synthesized as potential new antioxidant and neuroprotective agents. Many analogues exhibited good antioxidant effects, and some showed more potent free radical scavenging activities than the positive drug quercetin (IC 50 = 8.70 ± 1.75 μM for DPPH assay and 13.85 ± 2.87 μM for ABTS assay, respectively). The phenolic hydroxyl of capsaicin analogues was critical in determining antioxidant activity. Among these compounds, 3k displayed the most potent antioxidant activity. Cell vitality tests revealed that the representative compound 3k was good at protecting cells from H 2 O 2 -induced oxidative damage at low concentrations (cell viability increased to 90.0 ± 5.5% at 10 μM). In addition, the study demonstrated that 3k could reduce intracellular ROS accumulation and increase GSH levels to prevent H 2 O 2 -induced oxidative stress in SY5Y cells. In the mitochondrial membrane potential assay, 3k significantly increased the MMP level of SY5Y cells treated with H 2 O 2 and played an anti-neuronal cell death role. These results provide a promising strategy to develop novel capsaicin analogues as potential antioxidant and neuroprotective agents., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)

Novel donor-acceptor blends composed of black phosphorus (BP) as an electron donor and C 60 as an electron acceptor have been prepared and successfully embedded into a non-optically active poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) matrix producing a BP:C 60 /PMMA film. In contrast to C 60 , BP and non-annealed BP:C 60 blends, annealed BP:C 60 blends show a significantly enhanced optical limiting response due to the thermal-induced intermolecular charge transfer effect between BP and C 60 .