Search

Although zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) have bright prospects in wide fields like gas storage/separation, catalysis and medicine, etc., their large-scale applications are bottlenecked by the absence of their low-cost commercial production technique. Here, we report an unconventional method suitable for environmentally friendly and low-cost mass-production of ZIFs. In this method, taking the synthesis of ZIF-8 as an example, ZnO was used instead of Zn(NO3)2 in traditional solvent synthesis methods and CO2 was introduced to dissolve ZnO in aqueous solution of 2-methylimidazole (HMeim) and form water soluble salt ([ZnMeim]+[MeimCOO]-) at room temperature. Then, by removing CO2 through heating or vacuuming, Meim-ions are produced and instantaneously assemble with [ZnMeim]+s to generate ZIF-8 without any by-product. Due to the absence of strong acid anions (such as NO3− and Cl− et al.) in solution, the washing of filter cake required in the conventional approaches could be omitted and the filtrate containing only water and HMeim could be reused completely. This method is really green as no waste gas or liquid generates because CO2 and water could be recycled perfectly. It overcomes almost all bottlenecks occurred in commercial production of ZIF-8 when using traditional methods. A pilot plant was established for mass-production of ZIF-8 and hundreds kilograms of ZIF-8 was produced, which indicates that the new method is not only environmentally friendly but also low cost and commercial accessibility. It is expected that the new method would open an avenue for commercial applications of ZIFs.

Formation evaluation based on the complex dielectric dispersion in the megahertz to gigahertz frequency range has become a useful method for obtaining formation properties with the development of several logging tools. Such an evaluation relies on fitting the measured dielectric signals to a dielectric dispersion model and inverting for model parameters directly associated with certain formation petrophysical properties: the water-filled porosity, the brine salinity, and a water-phase tortuosity exponent. Hence, a model that can faithfully describe the dielectric dispersion governed by those formation properties is of importance for such a practice. By incorporating the polarization response of grains with a distribution of shapes, we have improved upon a widely accepted dielectric dispersion model, the bimodal model. To efficiently approximate the overall polarization response of ensembles of grains with continuous shape distributions, we establish two approaches that use a finite number of grain shapes: a Padé approximation and samplings with a Gauss quadrature rule. The latter method provides greater flexibility in what type of shape distribution can be introduced and how they are introduced. By adopting a specific class of shape distributions sampled with a Gauss quadrature rule, a new dielectric dispersion model for brine-saturated rocks is developed using a differential effective medium approach. The new model has the same number of model parameters and should have similar use cases, clay-free clastic and carbonate formations without complex pore structures, as those of the bimodal model. By fitting our model to available core measurements, the new model better describes the dielectric dispersion of brine-saturated rocks over a broader frequency range in comparison to the bimodal model, while giving good inverted petrophysical parameters. Based on the scaling behavior of the Maxwell-Wagner polarization, the new model would be more adequate for describing the dielectric dispersion of rocks saturated with higher salinity brine.

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of methanol (70% v/v), ethanol (80% v/v), dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO; 100% v/v) extracts of ginger rhizome (GR), and 6-shogaol on the pilocarpine-stimulated salivary flow rate in C57BL/6 mice.Three extracts of ginger (Zingiber officinale) rhizome prepared by maceration using the respective solvents and 6-shogoal were reconstituted in normal saline with 0.2% DMSO. Thirty C57BL/6 15-week-old mice were divided into 5 groups: Group 1, saline; Group 2, 70% methanol extract; Group 3, 80% ethanol extract; Group 4, 100% DMSO extract; and Group 5, 6-shogaol. The baseline pilocarpine-stimulated salivary flow rate was measured at the age of 15 weeks (15th week), and treatment solutions were administered by intraperitoneal injection from the 16th to 18th week. The stimulated salivary flow rate during treatment weeks was recorded for each group, and its difference with baseline was analysed using paired-sample t test. The change in salivary flow rate between the treatment groups and the control group was analysed using one-way analysis of variance.Groups 2, 3, 4, and 5 showed a significant increase in salivary flow rate when compared to baseline (P.05). The increase in salivary flow rate in all 4 treatment groups was significant when compared to the control group (P.05). Group 4 produced the highest increase in salivary flow rate; however, the differences amongst the treatment groups did not reach statistical significance (P.05).All GR extracts (70% methanol, 80% ethanol, 100% DMSO) and 6-shogaol were equally effective in increasing the pilocarpine-stimulated salivary flow rate in C57BL/6 mice when administered systemically as a sustained dose for 3 weeks.

Metalloproteins play essential roles in various biological processes ranging from reaction catalysis to free radical scavenging, and they are also pertinent to numerous pathologies including cancer, HIV infection,and inflammation.

The in-plane local charge density of reduced graphene oxide was modulated and enriched by carbon quantum dots with abundant edge configuration, which was probed by synchronously visualized topography imaging derived from AFM-based PeakForce TUNA.

Carbon quantum dot-stabilized pH-switchable Pickering miniemulsion enables a quasi-homogenized and enhanced biphasic catalytic system.

Although gastric cancer with para-aortic lymph node (PAN) metastasis is commonly regarded as unresectable, surgeons have explored the optimal treatment for patients with PAN metastases limited to No.16a2/b1 in the past few decades. Preoperative systemic therapy combined with D2 gastrectomy plus PAN dissection may improve the prognosis of these patients. In this multicenter phase II trial, 29 gastric cancer patients with PAN metastasis limited to No.16a2/b1 will receive preoperative treatment with nab-paclitaxel, oxaliplatin, S-1 (nab-POS: nab-paclitaxel, oxaliplatin, S-1) and sintilimab followed by D2 gastrectomy plus PAN dissection; and postoperative treatment with oral S-1, intravenous sintilimab and intraperitoneal paclitaxel. The end points for the study are 3-year overall survival, 3-year disease-free survival, pathological response rate, incidence of postoperative complications and adverse events.

This study discusses the influence of fluidization and gasification parameters on the hydrogen composition in syngas. For gasification conditions, when Stage 1 and Stage 2 gasifier temperature is 900 °C, the hydrogen content in syngas is 35.59 mol.% when the activated carbon is used as bed material. For using zeolite as bed material, the hydrogen content is 38.25 mol.%. The hydrogen content is higher than that under other conditions, but if the Steam/Biomass ratio is increased to 0.6, the hydrogen content resulted from zeolite as bed material is the highest 39.38 mol.%. For fluidization parameters, when Stage 2 bed material size is changed to 0.46 mm, no matter the bed material is activated carbon or zeolite, the hydrogen content in syngas is the best among three particle sizes. In terms of operating gas velocity, when gas velocity is 1.5 Umf, the hydrogen content is higher. For fluidization parameters, the two bed materials can increase hydrogen content in syngas effectively in Stage 2 fluidized bed, and their effects are similar to each other. However, considering the fluidization parameters, the hydrogen content in syngas when activated carbon is used as bed material is better than that when the zeolite is used.

Meshes are an indispensable representation in many graphics applications because they provide conformal spatial discretizations. However, mesh-based operations are often slow due to unstructured memory access patterns. We propose MeshTaichi, a novel mesh compiler that provides an intuitive programming model for efficient mesh-based operations. Our programming model hides the complex indexing system from users and allows users to write mesh-based operations using reference-style neighborhood queries. Our compiler achieves its high performance by exploiting data locality. We partition input meshes and prepare the wanted relations by inspecting users' code during compile time. During run time, we further utilize on-chip memory (shared memory on GPU and L1 cache on CPU) to access the wanted attributes of mesh elements efficiently. Our compiler decouples low-level optimization options with computations, so that users can explore different localized data attributes and different memory orderings without changing their computation code. As a result, users can write concise code using our programming model to generate efficient mesh-based computations on both CPU and GPU backends. We test MeshTaichi on a variety of physically-based simulation and geometry processing applications with both triangle and tetrahedron meshes. MeshTaichi achieves a consistent speedup ranging from 1.4× to 6×, compared to state-of-the-art mesh data structures and compilers.

The interlayer spacing (i.e., d-spacing) plays a crucial role in determining the selectivity and permeability of nanofiltration membranes. A high-throughput directional filtration can be achieved by designing and controlling the d-spacing. In this study, the d-spacing of a graphene oxide (GO) membrane was tuned and fixed to the desired value (approximately 0.79 nm) using a solution of polyethyleneimine (PEI) and GO at a PEI/GO mass ratio of 15:1. The resultant PEI/GO was deposited on a polyacrylonitrile (PAN) substrate to form a robust composite nanofiltration membrane (a PEI/GO@PAN membrane). The as-prepared membrane exhibited an ultrahigh flux of 117.8 L·m−2·h−1, and the rejection values for Direct Red 80 (DR80) and Na2SO4 reached 99.7% and d-spacing with PEI would be an effective strategy to achieve the anticipated functions of nanofiltration membranes. Graphical abstract

To test the hypothesis that glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonists have beneficial effects on vascular endothelial function, fibrinolysis and inflammation through weight loss-independent mechanisms.Individuals with obesity and prediabetes were randomized to 14 weeks of the GLP-1R agonist liraglutide, hypocaloric diet or the dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor sitagliptin in a 2:1:1 ratio. Treatment with drug was double blind and placebo-controlled. Measurements were made at baseline, after 2 weeks prior to significant weight loss and after 14 weeks. The primary outcomes were measures of endothelial function: flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD), plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) and urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR).Eighty-eight individuals were studied (liraglutide N = 44, diet N = 22, sitagliptin N = 22). Liraglutide and diet reduced weight, insulin resistance and PAI-1, while sitagliptin did not. There was no significant effect of any treatment on endothelial vasodilator function measured by FMD. Post hoc subgroup analyses in individuals with baseline FMD below the median, indicative of greater endothelial dysfunction, showed an improvement in FMD by all three treatments. GLP-1R antagonism with exendin (9-39) increased fasting blood glucose but did not change FMD or PAI-1. There was no effect of treatment on UACR. Finally, liraglutide, but not sitagliptin or diet, reduced the chemokine monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1).Liraglutide and diet reduce weight, insulin resistance and PAI-1. Liraglutide, sitagliptin and diet do not change FMD in obese individuals with prediabetes with normal endothelial function. Liraglutide alone lowers the pro-inflammatory and pro-atherosclerotic chemokine MCP-1, indicating that this beneficial effect is independent of weight loss.

As an environmental stress factor, ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation directly affects insect growth, development, and reproduction. Heat shock protein 70s kDa (Hsp70s) plays an important role in the environmental adaptation of insects. To determine the role of MpHsp70s in the UV-B tolerance of Myzus persicae (Sulzer), we identified the complete complementary DNA sequences of seven MpHsp70s. They were found to be ubiquitously expressed during different developmental stages and were highly expressed in second-instar nymphs and wingless adults. The expression levels of the MpHsp70s were significantly upregulated when exposed to different durations of UV-B stress. Nanocarrier-mediated dsMpHsp70 suppressed the expression of the MpHsp70s and reduced the body length, weight, survival rate, and fecundity of M. persicae under UV-B exposure. When the combinational RNAi approach was adopted, the effects on the survival rate and fecundity were greater under UV-B stress, except for MpHsc70-4. These results suggest that MpHsp70s are essential for the resistance of M. persicae to UV-B stress.

Ketogenic medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs) with profound health benefits are commonly found in dairy products, palm kernel oil and coconut oil. We hypothesize that magnesium (Mg) supplementation leads to enhanced gut microbial production of MCFAs and, in turn, increased circulating MCFAs levels.We tested this hypothesis in the Personalized Prevention of Colorectal Cancer Trial (PPCCT) (NCT01105169), a double-blind 2 × 2 factorial randomized controlled trial enrolling 240 participants. Six 24-h dietary recalls were performed for all participants at the baseline and during the intervention period. Based on the baseline 24-h dietary recalls, the Mg treatment used a personalized dose of Mg supplementation that would reduce the calcium (Ca): Mg intake ratio to around 2.3. We measured plasma MCFAs, sugars, ketone bodies and tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA cycle) metabolites using the Metabolon's global Precision Metabolomics™ LC-MS platform. Whole-genome shotgun metagenomics (WGS) sequencing was performed to assess microbiota in stool samples, rectal swabs, and rectal biopsies.Personalized Mg treatment (mean dose 205.58 mg/day with a range from 77.25 to 389.55 mg/day) significantly increased the plasma levels of C7:0, C8:0, and combined C7:0 and C8:0 by 18.45%, 25.28%, and 24.20%, respectively, compared to 14.15%, 10.12%, and 12.62% decreases in the placebo arm. The effects remain significant after adjusting for age, sex, race and baseline level (P = 0.0126, P = 0.0162, and P = 0.0031, respectively) and FDR correction at 0.05 (q = 0.0324 for both C7:0 and C8:0). Mg treatment significantly reduced the plasma level of sucrose compared to the placebo arm (P = 0.0036 for multivariable-adjusted and P = 0.0216 for additional FDR correction model) whereas alterations in daily intakes of sucrose, fructose, glucose, maltose and C8:0 from baseline to the end of trial did not differ between two arms. Mediation analysis showed that combined C7:0 and C8:0 partially mediated the effects of Mg treatment on total and individual ketone bodies (P for indirect effect = 0.0045, 0.0043, and 0.03, respectively). The changes in plasma levels of C7:0 and C8:0 were significantly and positively correlated with the alterations in stool microbiome α diversity (r = 0.51, p = 0.0023 and r = 0.34, p = 0.0497, respectively) as well as in stool abundance for the signatures of MCFAs-related microbiota with acyl-ACP thioesterase gene producing C7:0 (r = 0.46, p = 0.0067) and C8:0 (r = 0.49, p = 0.003), respectively, following Mg treatment.Optimizing Ca:Mg intake ratios to around 2.3 through 12-week personalized Mg supplementation leads to increased circulating levels of MCFAs (i.e. C7:0 and C8:0), which is attributed to enhanced production from gut microbial fermentation and, maybe, sucrose consumption.

An outbreak occurred in Wanhua District of Taipei City. It was traced to a cluster infection originating from a teahouse. To prevent further large-scaled community spread, the Taipei City Government established the first community rapid test screening station. This report describes the station's strategy and performance and key factors that contributed to its operation. The project involves collaboration among various departments of Taipei City Government, including the health, environmental, police, transportation, and fire departments. The station provides rapid screening, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, and immediate isolation and follow-up medical services upon the detection of a positive case. These services are accessible to local residents and are intended to ease hospitals' burdens. In 36 days, a total of 8532 people were tested, and 419 confirmed cases were identified. Over the same period, the weekly number of positive cases in Wanhua District decreased from 356 to 40, and the PCR positive rate decreased from 21.7% to 1.2%. The policy of establishing rapid screening station, contact tracing and mask wearing policy are key strategies for interrupting chains of transmission of COVID-19. This intervention has become a model for preventing the spread of the epidemic and establishing community rapid screening stations in Taiwan.

Objective. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to compare the diagnostic performance of transient elastography (TE) and two-dimensional shear wave elastography (2D-SWE) for staging liver fibrosis in patients with chronic viral hepatitis (CVH). Methods. Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library were searched (-01/08/2021) for studies comparing TE with 2D-SWE in patients with CVH. Other etiologies of chronic liver disease (CLD) and articles not published in SCI journals were excluded. The bivariate random-effects model was used to pool the performance of the TE and 2D-SWE. Results. Eight articles with a total of 1301 CVH patients were included. The prevalence of significant fibrosis ( fibrosis stage ≥ 2 ), advanced fibrosis ( fibrosis stage ≥ 3 ), and cirrhosis was 50.8%, 44.8%, and 34.7%, respectively. 2D-SWE expressed higher overall accuracy than TE in detecting significant fibrosis (0.93 vs. 0.85, P = 0.04 ). No significant difference among the overall diagnostic accuracy of TE and 2D-SWE in staging advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis was found. Conclusion. TE and 2D-SWE express good to excellent diagnostic accuracies to stage fibrosis in CVH patients. 2D-SWE compares favorably with TE especially for predicting significant fibrosis.

Many deep learning (DL)-based molecular generative models have been proposed to design novel molecules. These models may perform well on benchmarks, but they usually do not take real-world constraints into account, such as available training data set, synthetic accessibility, and scaffold diversity in drug discovery. In this study, a new algorithm, ChemistGA, was proposed by combining the traditional heuristic algorithm with DL, in which the crossover of the traditional genetic algorithm (GA) was redefined by DL in conjunction with GA, and an innovative backcrossing operation was implemented to generate desired molecules. Our results clearly show that ChemistGA not only retains the strength of the traditional GA but also greatly enhances the synthetic accessibility and success rate of the generated molecules with desired properties. Calculations on the two benchmarks illustrate that ChemistGA achieves impressive performance among the state-of-the-art baselines, and it opens a new avenue for the application of generative models to real-world drug discovery scenarios.

Abstract: Objectives: Narrow-diameter implants (NDIs) may serve as a feasible treatment alternative for the rehabilitation of specific cases. The aim of this review article was to assess the clinical outcomes of restoring stress-bearing posterior edentulous ridges with NDIs. Materials and Methods: An electronic search was conducted in MEDLINE/PubMed and Cochrane Library databases and enriched by hand search. Prospective and retrospective clinical studies, from January 2000 to November 2021, with at least 10 patients and a follow-up period of at least 1-year after functional loading, were included. Marginal bone level (MBL) and implant survival/success rate were set as primary outcome variables. Results: From the initially identified 2,401 articles, 17 clinical studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were included. Of the selected studies, mean MBL after loading was within 2 mm at different time intervals up to 10 years. Recorded implant survival rate was 92.6-100%, 95.3-100%, 95.3-100%, and 95.1-97.9% after 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year, respectively, while success rate was 92.6-100%, 95-100%, and 95% at 1, 3, and 10 years. Biological and prosthetic complications were observed. Conclusions: Within the limitation of the present study, it could be concluded that the use of NDIs for rehabilitation of posterior jaws is a viable treatment alternative, with comparable MBL and implant survival/success rate to standard-diameter implants (SDIs). &nbsp

Neural tube defect (NTD) is the most common and severe embryopathy causing embryonic malformation and even death associated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Leu-Pro-Phe (LPF) is an antioxidative tripeptide isolated from hydrolysates of corn protein. However, the biological activity of LPF in vivo and in vitro remains unclear. This study is aimed at investigating the protective effects of tripeptide LPF against NTD in the high glucose exposure condition and delineate the underlying biological mechanism. We found that LPF alleviated NTD in the high glucose-exposed chicken embryo model. In addition, DF-1 chicken embryo fibroblast was loaded with high glucose for induction of oxidative stress and abnormal O-GlcNAcylation in vitro. LPF significantly decreased accumulation of reactive oxygen species and content of malondialdehyde in DF-1 cells but increased the ratio of reduced glutathione and oxidized glutathione in chick embryo. Oxygen radical absorbance capacity results showed that LPF itself had good free radical scavenging capacity and could enhance antioxidant activity of the cell content. Mechanistic studies suggested that the resistance of LPF to oxidative damage may be related to promotion of NRF2 expression and nuclear translocation. LPF alleviated the overall O-GlcNAcylation level of cellular proteins under high glucose conditions and restored the level of Pax3 protein. Collectively, our findings indicate that LPF peptide could act as a nutritional supplement for the protection of development of embryonic neural tube affected by GDM.

Owing to the security requirements of Internet of vehicles (IOV), it is necessary to design a secure privacy-preserving scheme for communication. Traditional privacy-preserving schemes have two deficiencies. One is the high cost of computation and communication. Another is the inability to prevent the spread of malicious or modified messages. Motivated by those facts, we proposed a trust-based authentication scheme for certificateless privacy-preserving of IOV, based on the advantages of the short key, fast speed, and high security performance of elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). We proposed a method to replace the revocation list by authenticating trust to prevent broadcasting fake and altered massages. Our scheme can encrypt the message sent by the node while adopting a certificateless authentication method to complete the anonymous authentication function, which protects the privacy of the node information and effectively reduces the system storage load. In addition, aggregate signatures can effectively reduce computational and communication overhead. It is proven theoretically that the proposed scheme can satisfy correctness, anonymity, confidentiality of messages, and unforgeability of signatures. Therefore, this scheme is more suitable for the deployment and application of physical IOV.