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A photocatalytic three component cascade reaction of quinoxalinones, alkenes, and sulfinic acids toward sulfonated quinoxalin-2(1H)-ones under metal-, strong oxidant-, and external photosensitizer-free conditions was developed.

Croup is a prevalent respiratory disorder in early childhood most often caused by parainfluenza virus infections. There are no preventive strategies; therefore, we investigated the potential effects of prenatal micronutrient supplementations.To investigate the supplementation effects of (1) 2.4-g n-3 long-chained polyunsaturated fatty acid (n-3 LCPUFA) (fish oil) versus olive oil and (2) high-dose (2800 IU/d) versus standard-dose (400 IU/d) of vitamin D from pregnancy week 24 until 1 week after birth on the risk for offspring croup during the double-blinded first 3 years of life in a secondary analysis of a 2 × 2 factorial designed randomized controlled trial.The study was completed in the Danish population-based single-center Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood 2010 mother-child cohort, which included 736 pregnant women. Croup was diagnosed by physicians' clinical examinations and medical record checks. Potential mediating mechanisms were investigated using blood metabolomics, airway cytokines, and airway microbiome.Of 695 children, 97 had croup before age 3 years (14%). The risk of croup was reduced in the n-3 LCPUFA (nThis analysis of the double-blinded period of the Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood 2010 randomized controlled trial of n-3 LCPUFA and high-dose vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy demonstrated a reduced risk of croup in early childhood.

The large-scale preparation of monolayer two-dimensional (2D) material remains a great challenge, which hinders its real-world applications. Herein, we report a novel layered metal–organic framewor...

To determine whether blastocyst quality affects the sex ratio at birth through a single blastocyst frozen - thawed embryo transfer (SBFET) cycle. In this retrospective analysis, we examined 3,041 singleton infants born following SBFET between 2017 and 2020 at a single institution. We compared the sex ratios of these infants with respect to the blastocyst quality, embryo growth rate, and morphology. The main outcomes of this study were that the sex ratio (M/F) at birth of SBFET was 1.24. Mothers >40 years old had a considerably lower sex ratio than mothers vs. 1.23–1.28, p < .05). Transplanting high-quality blastocysts significantly increased the proportion of boys born (1.29 vs. 0.88, p < .05). There were no significant differences in the sex ratio with respect to the inner cell mass (ICM) score and expansion degree. Additionally, a high trophoblastic cell (TE) score resulted in a significantly higher sex ratio than the TE score with C (1.62 vs. 1.15 vs. 0.85, p < .001). Multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to determine which variables were significant factors affecting sex ratio, and the outcomes were consistent with previous findings. Our study indicated that high-quality, especially good TE score, had a higher chance of resulting in a male infant than a female infant.

The fungal microbiota is an important component of the complex multikingdom microbial community colonizing the mammalian gastrointestinal tract and has an important role in immune regulation. However, how fungi regulate inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is poorly understood. This study found that intestinal fungi regulate immune responses in IBD. Antibiotic-mediated depletion of fungi facilitated the development of IBD. Fungi greatly enhanced oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) by enhancing glutaminolysis. Mechanistically, we found that fungi could activate the dectin-1-Syk- NF-κB signaling pathway to promote the expression of key enzymes and transporters involved in glutaminolysis. In summary, our findings reveal that fungal interactions in the human gut could be a promising therapeutic target for IBD.

The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) locus plays a critical role in complex traits spanning autoimmune and infectious diseases, transplantation, and cancer. While coding variation inHLAgenes has been extensively documented, regulatory genetic variation modulatingHLAexpression levels has not been comprehensively investigated. Here, we mapped expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) for classicalHLAgenes across 1,073 individuals and 1,131,414 single cells from three tissues, using personalized reference genomes to mitigate technical confounding. We identified cell-type-specificcis-eQTLs for every classicalHLAgene. Modeling eQTLs at single-cell resolution revealed that many eQTL effects are dynamic across cell states even within a cell type.HLA-DQgenes exhibit particularly cell-state-dependent effects within myeloid, B, and T cells. DynamicHLAregulation may underlie important interindividual variability in immune responses.

In this paper, we introduce the Harish-Chandra homomorphism for the quantum superalgebra $\mathrm{U}_q(\mathfrak{g})$ associated with a simple basic Lie superalgebra $\mathfrak{g}$ and give an explicit description of its image. We use it to prove that the center of $\mathrm{U}_q(\mathfrak{g})$ is isomorphic to a subring of the ring $J(\mathfrak{g})$ of exponential super-invariants in the sense of Sergeev and Veselov, establishing a Harish-Chandra type theorem for $\mathrm{U}_q(\mathfrak{g})$. As a byproduct, we obtain a basis of the center of $\mathrm{U}_q(\mathfrak{g})$ with the aid of quasi-R-matrix., 35 pages, comments are welcome!

Abundant linear, α-mono- and di-substituted aliphatic aldehydes are decarbonylated into primary, secondary and tertiary alkyl radicals for the alkylation–cyanation of styrene derivatives to provide various carbon-chain elongated nitriles.

Background As a rare disease leading to male infertility, A has strong heterogeneity of clinical phenotype and gene mutation. At present, there is no effective diagnosis and treatment method for this disease, and the research on its pathogenesis is not exhaustive Objectives To explore the possible new pathogenic gene of idiopathic hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism and the pathological mechanism affecting its occurrence. Patients and methods: We performed a whole-exome sequencing on 9 patients with normosmic idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (nIHH), 19 varicocele patients with weak sperm, oligospermia or azoospermia and 5 patients with simple nonobstructive azoospermia and carried out comparative analysis, channel analysis, etc. Results After preliminary sequencing screening, 309–431 genes harbouring variants, including SNPs and indels, were predicted to be harmful per single patient in each group. In genetic variations of nIHH patients’ analysis, variants were detected in 10 loci and nine genes in nine patients. And in co-analysis of the three patient groups, nine nIHH patients, 19 VC patients, and five SN patients shared 116 variants, with 28 variant-harbouring genes detected in five or more patients. After that, we found that many genes crossed among groups and selected the highest number of 17 genes for analysis. Conclusion We found that the NEFH, CCDC177 and PCLO genes and the Gene Ontology pathways GO:0051301: cell division and GO:0090066: regulation of anatomical structure size may be key factors in the pathogenic mechanism of IHH. Our results suggest the pathogenic mechanism of IHH is not limited to the central nervous system effects of GnRH but may involve other heterogeneous pathogenic genetic variants that affect peripheral organs.

Supplemental Material for Atropine-eluting silicone contact lenses for myopia control by Yan Fu, Yang Luo, Xi Chen, Yao Tong, Yabin Zhu, and Lu Yang in Journal of Biomaterials Applications

Large language models (LLMs) have revolutionized the field of AI, demonstrating unprecedented capacity across various tasks. However, the inference process for LLMs comes with significant computational costs. In this paper, we propose an efficient LLM inference pipeline that harnesses the power of LLMs. Our approach begins by tapping into the potential of LLMs to accurately perceive and predict the response length with minimal overhead. By leveraging this information, we introduce an efficient sequence scheduling technique that groups queries with similar response lengths into micro-batches. We evaluate our approach on real-world instruction datasets using the LLaMA-based model, and our results demonstrate an impressive 86% improvement in inference throughput without compromising effectiveness. Notably, our method is orthogonal to other inference acceleration techniques, making it a valuable addition to many existing toolkits (e.g., FlashAttention, Quantization) for LLM inference.

Adaptive gradient methods, such as Adam and LAMB, have demonstrated excellent performance in the training of large language models. Nevertheless, the need for adaptivity requires maintaining second-moment estimates of the per-parameter gradients, which entails a high cost of extra memory overheads. To solve this problem, several memory-efficient optimizers (e.g., Adafactor) have been proposed to obtain a drastic reduction in auxiliary memory usage, but with a performance penalty. In this paper, we first study a confidence-guided strategy to reduce the instability of existing memory efficient optimizers. Based on this strategy, we propose CAME to simultaneously achieve two goals: fast convergence as in traditional adaptive methods, and low memory usage as in memory-efficient methods. Extensive experiments demonstrate the training stability and superior performance of CAME across various NLP tasks such as BERT and GPT-2 training. Notably, for BERT pre-training on the large batch size of 32,768, our proposed optimizer attains faster convergence and higher accuracy compared with the Adam optimizer. The implementation of CAME is publicly available., Comment: Accepted by ACL 2023

Coherent collective oscillations of electrons excited in metallic nanostructures (localized surface plasmons) can confine incident light to atomic scales and enable strong light-matter interactions, which depend nonlinearly on the local field. Direct sampling of such collective electron oscillations in real-time is crucial to performing petahertz scale optical modulation, control, and readout in a quantum nanodevice. Here, we demonstrate real-time tracking of collective electron oscillations in an Au bowtie nanoantenna, by recording photo-assisted tunnelling currents generated by such oscillations in this quantum nanodevice. The collective electron oscillations show a noninstantaneous response to the driving laser fields with a decay time of nearly 10 femtoseconds. The temporal evolution of nonlinear electron oscillations resulting from the coherent nonlinear optical response of the nanodevice were also traced in real-time. The contributions of linear and nonlinear electron oscillations in the generated tunnelling currents in the nanodevice were precisely determined. A coherent control of electron oscillations in the nanodevice is illustrated directly in the time domain. Functioning in ambient conditions, the excitation, coherent control, and read-out of coherent electron oscillations pave the way toward on-chip light-wave electronics in quantum nanodevices.

RGB-T tracking involves the use of images from both visible and thermal modalities. The primary objective is to adaptively leverage the relatively dominant modality in varying conditions to achieve more robust tracking compared to single-modality tracking. An RGB-T tracker based on mixed attention mechanism to achieve complementary fusion of modalities (referred to as MACFT) is proposed in this paper. In the feature extraction stage, we utilize different transformer backbone branches to extract specific and shared information from different modalities. By performing mixed attention operations in the backbone to enable information interaction and self-enhancement between the template and search images, it constructs a robust feature representation that better understands the high-level semantic features of the target. Then, in the feature fusion stage, a modality-adaptive fusion is achieved through a mixed attention-based modality fusion network, which suppresses the low-quality modality noise while enhancing the information of the dominant modality. Evaluation on multiple RGB-T public datasets demonstrates that our proposed tracker outperforms other RGB-T trackers on general evaluation metrics while also being able to adapt to longterm tracking scenarios., Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures

In order to limit global warming to 2 °C, countries have adopted carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emission. However, it is currently facing challenges such as controversial investment costs, unclear policies, and reduction of new energy power generation costs. In particular, some CCS projects are at a standstill. To promote the development of CCS projects in different countries, this paper reviews and compares energy conservation and emission reduction policies and different national goals. From a policy perspective, CCS-driven policies are analyzed. Based on this, corresponding policy recommendations are put forward, in order to promote the healthy development of global CCS technology and deal with climate issues more effectively. With less than 10 years away from the short-term goal, promoting the development and application of CCS projects requires scientific research from universities, enterprises and governments in order to attain zero or negative CO2 emission. On the basis of focusing on the development of CCS technology, according to the actual situation of each country, the appropriate application of CCS engineering should focus on the development of science and technology, rather than a unified requirement around the world., Carbon Neutrality, 1 (1)

To create a large amount of training labels for machine learning models effectively and efficiently, researchers have turned to Weak Supervision (WS), which uses programmatic labeling sources rather than manual annotation. Existing works of WS for binary classification typically assume the presence of labeling sources that are able to assign both positive and negative labels to data in roughly balanced proportions. However, for many tasks of interest where there is a minority positive class, negative examples could be too diverse for developers to generate indicative labeling sources. Thus, in this work, we study the application of WS on binary classification tasks with positive labeling sources only. We propose WEAPO, a simple yet competitive WS method for producing training labels without negative labeling sources. On 10 benchmark datasets, we show WEAPO achieves the highest averaged performance in terms of both the quality of synthesized labels and the performance of the final classifier supervised with these labels. We incorporated the implementation of \method into WRENCH, an existing benchmarking platform., CIKM 2022 (short)

The neural stem cells (NSCs) in the ventricular-subventricular zone of the adult mammalian spinal cord may be of great benefit for repairing spinal cord injuries. However, the sources of NSCs remain unclear. Previously, we have confirmed that cerebrospinal fluid-contacting neurons (CSF-cNs) have NSC potential in vitro. In this study, we verified the NSC properties of CSF-cNs in vivo. In mouse spinal cords, Pkd2l1+ CSF-cNs localized around the central canal express NSC markers. In vitro, Pkd2l1+ CSF-cNs form a neurosphere and express NSC markers. Activation and proliferation of CSF-cNs can be induced by injection of the neurotrophic factors basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) into the lateral ventricle. Spinal cord injury (SCI) also induces NSC activation and proliferation of CSF-cNs. Collectively, our results demonstrate that Pkd2l1+ CSF-cNs have NSC properties in vivo and may be involved in SCI recovery.

Novel electric and magnetic mixed-coupled resonators and a general design method for high selective wideband bandpass filters are presented in this paper. Transmission zeros are introduced in the f...

Hydrogen binding of molecules on specific solid surface is an attractive interaction that can be employed as driving force for chemical bond activation, material directed assembly, protein protection, etc. However, the lack of quantitative characterization method for hydrogen bonds (HBs) on surface seriously limits its application. Herein, we measured the standard Gibbs free energy change (ΔG 0 ) of surface HBs using NMR technique. HBs accepting ability of surface was investigated in term of comparing ΔG 0 values by employing model biomass platform 5-hydroxymethylfurfural on a series of Co-N-C-n catalysts with electron-rich doped-nitrogen contents adjusted. Reducing the ΔG 0 effectively improves HBs accepting ability of the nitrogen-doped surface, and promotes the O-H bonds selectively initiated activation in the oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural. As a result, the reaction kinetics is accelerated and the rate constant is significantly increased. In addition to excellent catalytic performance, the turnover frequency (TOF) value for this oxidation is extremely higher than the reported non-noble metal catalysts.

Globally, multi-units are located at the same nuclear power plant site. After several serious nuclear accidents, the overall risk assessment of a nuclear power plant with multiple reactors has attracted much attention. Combined with the concept of PSA (probabilistic safety analysis) for multi-units, this paper analyzes the off-plant power supply configuration of 9 units in Qinshan Nuclear Power Base. In view of the 6KV emergency busbar directly affected by the instability of the off-site power grid, the correlation among several units is fully considered, and the exploratory research and analysis of off-site power grid reliability is carried out in Qinshan Nuclear Power Base. Taking the reliability of external power grid of Qinshan Nuclear Power Base as an example, the reliability of emergency bus and the influence range and contribution of various analysis factors to the evaluation results are quantitatively analyzed through fault tree modeling. The results of model analysis are in line with the actual situation. The analysis concept based on the multi-unit PSA methodology should be used in a wider range. For example, thematic analysis should be carried out for other highly correlated originating events (common cold source, equipment common cause failure, etc.), and the development and progress of multi-unit PSA should be promoted through practice with a point-to-surface approach. In the follow-up research, we should improve the model system, take the actual situation into full consideration, and develop a set of overall risk assessment system that can reflect the real-time risk level of multiple unit site.

A total of 14 Festuca sinensis seed lots were collected from different geographical locations on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to study the seed microbiota and determine the abiotic (temperature, precipitation, and elevation) and biotic (Epichloë sinensis infection rate) factors likely to shape the seed microbiome. The 14 seed lots had different bacterial and fungal structures and significantly different diversities (p < 0.05). The α-diversity indices of the bacteria were significantly correlated with precipitation (p < 0.05), whereas those of the fungi were significantly correlated with temperature (p < 0.05). Microbiota analysis showed that Proteobacteria, Cyanobacteria, and Bacteroidetes were the most abundant bacteria at the phylum level in the seeds, and Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were the most abundant fungi. β-diversity analysis suggested large differences in the microbial communities of each sample. Redundancy analysis showed that temperature and precipitation were the main environmental factors that drive variations in the microbial community, at the medium-high elevation (3,000–4,500 m), the impact of temperature and precipitation on microbial community is different, and the other elevations that effect on microbial community were basically identical. Spearman's correlation analysis showed that the relative abundances of the most abundant bacterial phyla were significantly correlated with temperature (p < 0.05), whereas those of the most abundant fungal phyla were significantly correlated with precipitation (p < 0.05). E. sinensis infection rates were significantly correlated with elevation and temperature (p < 0.05). These results suggest that temperature and precipitation are the key factors driving the microbial community, that temperature and elevation also had a great influence on the E. sinensis infection rate, and that environmental factors (temperature and elevation) may further affect the microbial community by regulating the E. sinensis infection rate.

Aim: Bladder outlet obstruction (BOO) leads to bladder wall remodeling accompanying the progression from inflammation to fibrosis where pathological hydrostatic pressure (HP)-induced alteration of bladder smooth muscle cells (BSMCs) hypertrophic and excessive extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition play a pivotal role. Recently, we have predicted survivin (BIRC5) as a potential hub gene that might be critical during bladder fibrosis by bioinformatics analyses from rat BOO bladder, but its function during BOO progression remains unknown. Here, we investigated the role of survivin protein on bladder dysfunction of BOO both in vitro and in vivo.Methods: Sprague-Dawley female rats were divided into three groups: control group, BOO group, and BOO followed by the treatment with YM155 group. Bladder morphology and function were evaluated by Masson staining and urodynamic testing. To elucidate the underlying mechanism, hBSMCs were subjected to pathological HP of 200 cm H2O and co-cultured with the presence or absence of survivin siRNA and/or autophagy inhibitor 3-MA. Autophagy was evaluated by the detection of Beclin1 and LC3B-II expression, proliferation was conducted by the EdU analysis and PCNA expression, and fibrosis was assessed by the examination of Col 1 and Fn expression.Results: BOO led to a gradual alteration of hypertrophy and fibrosis of the bladder, and subsequently induced bladder dysfunction accompanied by increased survivin expression, while these histological and function changes were attenuated by the treatment with YM155. HP significantly increased survivin expression, upregulated Col1 and Fn expression, enhanced proliferation, and downregulated autophagy markers, but these changes were partially abolished by survivin siRNA treatment, which was consistent with the results of the BOO rat experiment. In addition, the anti-fibrotic and anti-proliferative effects of the survivin siRNA treatment on hBSMCs were diminished after the inhibition of autophagy by the treatment with 3-MA.Conclusion: In summary, the upregulation of survivin increased cell proliferation and fibrotic protein expression of hBSMC and drove the onset of bladder remodeling through autophagy during BOO. Targeting survivin in pathological hBSMCs could be a promising way to anti-fibrotic therapeutic approach in bladder remodeling secondary to BOO.

The neural stem cells (NSCs) in the ventricular-subventricular zone of the adult mammalian spinal cord may be of great benefit for repairing spinal cord injuries. However, the sources of NSCs remain unclear. Previously, we have confirmed that cerebrospinal fluid-contacting neurons (CSF-cNs) have NSC potential

One of the biggest challenges hindering a table tennis robot to play as well as a professional player is the ball’s accurate motion control, which depends on various factors such as the incoming ball’s position, linear, spin velocity and so forth. Unfortunately, some factors are almost impossible to be directly measured in real practice, such as the ball’s spin velocity, which is difficult to be estimated from vision due to the little texture on the ball’s surface. To perform accurate motion control in table tennis, this study proposes to learn a ball stroke strategy to guarantee desirable “target landing location” and the “over-net height” which are two key indicators to evaluate the quality of a stroke. To overcome the spin velocity challenge, a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) based stroke approach is developed with the spin velocity estimation capability, through which the system can predict the relative spin velocity of the ball and stroke it back accurately by iteratively learning from the robot-environment interactions. To pre-train the DRL-based strategy effectively, this paper develops a virtual table tennis playing environment, through which various simulated data can be collected. For the real table tennis robot implementation, experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed control strategy compared to that of the traditional aerodynamics-based method with an average landing error around 80mm and the landing-within-table probability higher than 70%.

Graphene, as a new type of carbon material in the forefront of research, has been applied widely in the area of supercapacitors with the advantages of a large positive specific surface, high conductivity, stable chemical properties and good supercapacitor performance. In this study, an investigation on the electrochemical performance of reduced graphene oxides (rGOs) prepared from various natural graphites was conducted. X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy and electrochemical performance analysis were performed to characterize the as-prepared GOs and rGOs. The results demonstrated that a reduction modification of GO was necessary to optimize its electrochemical performance. The rGO has a great electrochemical performance with a good repair ability, better oxygen-containing functional group removal effect, lower structural defects, larger average size of the in-plane sp2 region and great specific capacitance.

A practical and efficient methodology for the construction of 3-alkylquinoxalinones through base promoted direct alkylation of quinoxalin-2(1H)-ones with phosphonium ylides as alkylating reagents under metal- and oxidant-free conditions was developed. Various 3-alkylquinoxalin-2(1H)-ones were easily obtained in good to excellent yields. Tentative mechanistic studies suggest that this reaction is likely to involve a nucleophilic addition–elimination process.

To investigate adherence to immunosuppressive medication (IM) in kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) and analyze the associated factors using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Data were collected at Time1 (T1) and 3 months later (T2). T1: the elements of the TPB, past behavior, beliefs about medicines, perceived social support were measured. T2: IM adherence was measured. Structural equation modeling was applied to analyze the associated factors of medication adherence. A total of 246 KTRs were included. The average IM adherence score of KTRs’ was 4.86 ( SD = 1.63). Of the recipients, 39.43% had one aspect of non-adherence to IM. The model could explain 28.7% of the variance in adherence to IM ( R2 = .287, p = .006). TPB is a useful tool for understanding adherence to IM in KTRs. Caregivers can provide effective interventions during follow-up, which should focus on improving medication beliefs as well as provision of other external support especially from outside.

The global emergence of many severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants jeopardizes the protective antiviral immunity induced after infection or vaccination. To address the public health threat caused by the increasing SARS-CoV-2 genomic diversity, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases within the National Institutes of Health established the SARS-CoV-2 Assessment of Viral Evolution (SAVE) programme. This effort was designed to provide a real-time risk assessment of SARS-CoV-2 variants that could potentially affect the transmission, virulence, and resistance to infection- and vaccine-induced immunity. The SAVE programme is a critical data-generating component of the US Government SARS-CoV-2 Interagency Group to assess implications of SARS-CoV-2 variants on diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics, and for communicating public health risk. Here we describe the coordinated approach used to identify and curate data about emerging variants, their impact on immunity and effects on vaccine protection using animal models. We report the development of reagents, methodologies, models and notable findings facilitated by this collaborative approach and identify future challenges. This programme is a template for the response to rapidly evolving pathogens with pandemic potential by monitoring viral evolution in the human population to identify variants that could reduce the effectiveness of countermeasures.

Tissue engineering is an emerging field to create functional tissue components and whole organs. The structural and functional defects caused by congenital malformation, trauma, inflammation or tumor are still the major clinical challenges facing modern urology, and the current treatment has not achieved the expected results. Recently, 3D bioprinting has gained attention for its ability to create highly specialized tissue models using biological materials, bridging the gap between artificially engineered and natural tissue structures. This paper reviews the research progress, application prospects and current challenges of 3D bioprinting in urology tissue engineering.

From a single alkene to two different alkenes! A convenient Fe-catalyzed A–D–A–T-type radical-dual-difunctionalization and cross-coupling of two different alkenes to provide chain elongated and tri...

Objective: To explore the relationship between cerebrospinal fluid-contacting neurons (CSF-cNs) and endogenous neural progenitor cells (ENPCs) and whether CSF-cNs are involved in nerve repair after spinal cord injury (SCI).Methods: Cholera toxin B-horseradish peroxidase complex (CB-HRP) and cholera toxin B conjugated with saporin (CB-SAP) were injected into the lateral ventricles of spinal cord injured rats to mark and destroy the CSF-cNs. Then the rats in the experimental group were injured by SCI. Observe the content and co-expression of CSF-cNs and ENPCs in rats of each group, and observe the recovery of motor function after SCI in each group.Results: After the destruction of CSF-cNs, the number of ENPCs decreased significantly in the long term after the surgery, and the recovery of motor function also deteriorated as compared to the group with intact CSF-cNs. Meanwhile some cells in the spinal cord express both the biological marker of CSF-cNs and ENPCs.Conclusion: This study shows that the population of ENPCs and motor function recovery in SCI rats declined after the destruction of CSF-cNs, suggesting that CSF-cNs affect the ENPCs population and may be involved in the recovery of neural function after SCI.

Four polysaccharides are gained from pomelo peels, seeds, pulps and segment membranes by UAHE. Correlation between structures and bioactivities of those polysaccharides is explored.

“CN” generation from formamide dehydration! A novel Ni-catalyzed hydrocyanation of various alkenes to provide aliphatic nitriles is developed by generating hydrocyanic acid in situ from safe and readily available formamide. Excellent linear or branched regio-selectivity, wide substrate scope, cheap and stable nickel salt as a pre-catalyst, a safe cyano source, slow generation of “CN” to obviate catalyst deactivation and convenient experimental operation would render this hydrocyanation attactive for laboratory synthesis of aliphatic nitriles.

Background A recent sham-controlled clinical study has shown that low-intensity pulsed ultrasound twice per week can safely and effectively treat patients with mild-to-moderate erectile dysfunction (ED). However, large-scale clinical trials are needed to verify its efficacy and safety and determine a reasonable treatment interval. Aim To study whether low-intensity pulsed ultrasound therapy thrice per week is non-inferior to twice per week in patients with mild-to-moderate ED. Methods A randomized, open-label, parallel-group, non-inferiority clinical trial was conducted in 7 hospitals in China. A total of 323 patients with mild-to-moderate ED were randomized (1:1) into thrice per week (3/W) and twice per week (2/W) groups. Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound was applied on each side of the penis for 16 sessions. Outcomes The primary outcome was response rate using the minimal clinically important difference in the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-EF) score at week 12. Secondary outcomes included Erection Hardness Score (EHS), Sexual Encounter Profile, Global Assessment Question, and Self Esteem and Relationship Questionnaire. Results Response rates in 3/W and 2/W groups were 62.0% and 62.5%, respectively. Treatment effect in the 3/W group was noninferior to that of the 2/W group, with rate difference lower bound of −0.01% [95% confidence interval −0.11 to 0.10%] within the acceptable margin (−14.0%). No significant difference was found among secondary outcomes. IIEF-EF score showed a significant increase from baseline in the 3/W group (16.8 to 20.7) and 2/W group (17.8 to 21.7), and the percentage of patients with EHS ≥3 increased in the 3/W (54.9% to 84.0%) and 2/W (59.5% to 83.5%) groups. There was no significant difference in response rate between the 2 groups after controlling for strata factors and homogeneous tests. No treatment-related adverse events were reported. Clinical Implications Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound therapy displays similar efficacy and safety for mild-to-moderate ED when administered thrice or twice per week for 16 sessions. This study provides two options to suit patients’ needs. Strengths & Limitations This is a large-sample, randomized, controlled, noninferiority trial study. Short-term follow-up and mostly younger patients are the main limitations. Conclusion Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound therapy thrice and twice per week showed equivalent therapeutic effects and safety for mild-to-moderate ED in a young and generally healthy population. This therapy warrants further investigation of its potential value in rehabilitation of ED.

A copper-catalyzed decarbonylative alkylation-cyanation of styrene derivatives with aliphatic aldehydes and trimethylsilyl cyanide to provide chain elongated nitriles is reported. Using TBHP as an oxidant and free radical initiator, the reaction can smoothly convert abundant α-di-substituted, α-mono-substituted and linear aliphatic aldehydes into the corresponding 3°, 2° and 1° alkyl radicals to initiate the subsequent radical-type difunctionalization of various styrenes.

Additional file 1.

The motion of atoms is at the heart of any chemical or structural transformation in molecules and materials. Upon activation of this motion by an external source, several (usually many) vibrational modes can be coherently coupled, thus facilitating the chemical or structural phase transformation. These coherent dynamics occur on the ultrafast time scale, as revealed, e.g., by nonlocal ultrafast vibrational spectroscopic measurements in bulk molecular ensembles and solids. Tracking and controlling vibrational coherences locally at the atomic and molecular scales is, however, much more challenging and in fact has remained elusive so far. Here, we demonstrate that the vibrational coherences induced by broadband laser pulses on a single graphene nanoribbon (GNR) can be probed by femtosecond coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (CARS) when performed in a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM). In addition to determining dephasing (~ 440 fs) and population decay times (~1.8 ps) of the generated phonon wave packets, we are able to track and control the corresponding quantum coherences, which we show to evolve on time scales as short as ~ 70 fs. We demonstrate that a two-dimensional frequency correlation spectrum unequivocally reveals the quantum couplings between different phonon modes in the GNR., Comment: 18 pages