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Introduction: Quorum sensing (QS) is a bacterial intracellular and intercellular communication system that regulates virulence factor production, biofilm formation, and antibiotic sensitivity. Quorum-sensing inhibitors (QSIs) are a novel class of antibiotics that can effectively combat antibiotic resistance. Autoinducer-2 (AI-2) is a universal signaling molecule that mediates inter- and intraspecies QS systems among different bacteria. Furthermore, LsrK plays an important role in regulating the activity and stability of the intracellular AI-2 signaling pathway. Thus, LsrK is considered an important target for the development of QSIs.Methods: We designed a workflow integrating molecular dynamic (MD) simulations, virtual screening, LsrK inhibition assays, cell-based AI-2-mediated QS interference assays, and surface plasmon resonance (SPR)-based protein affinity assays to screen for potential LsrK kinase inhibitors.Results: MD simulation results of the LsrK/ATP complex revealed hydrogen bonds and salt bridge formation among four key residues, namely, Lys 431, Tyr 341, Arg 319, and Arg 322, which are critical for the binding of ATP to LsrK. Furthermore, MD simulation results indicated that the ATP-binding site has an allosteric pocket that can become larger and be occupied by small molecule compounds. Based on these MD simulation results, a constraint of forming at least one hydrogen bond with Arg 319, Arg 322, Lys 431, or Tyr 341 residues was introduced when performing virtual screening using Glide’s virtual screening workflow (VSW). In the meantime, compounds with hydrophobic group likely to interact with the allosteric hydrophobic pocket are preferred when performing visual inspection. Seventy-four compounds were selected for the wet laboratory assays based on virtual screening and the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) properties of these compounds. LsrK inhibition assays revealed 12 compounds inhibiting LsrK by more than 60% at a 200 μM concentration; four of these (Y205-6768, D135-0149, 3284–1358, and N025-0038) had IC50 values below 50 μM and were confirmed as ATP-competitive inhibitors. Six of these 12 LsrK inhibitors exhibited high AI-2 QS inhibition, of which, Y205-6768 had the highest activity with IC50 = 11.28 ± 0.70 μM. The SPR assay verified that compounds Y205-6768 and N025-0038 specifically bound to LsrK. MD simulation analysis of the docking complexes of the four active compounds with LsrK further confirmed the importance of forming hydrogen bonds and salt bridges with key basic amino acid residues including Lys 431, Tyr 341, Arg 319, and Arg 322 and filling the allosteric hydrophobic pocket next to the purine-binding site of LsrK.Discussion: Our study clarified for the first time that there is an allosteric site near the ATP-binding site of Lsrk and that it enriches the structure–activity relationship information of Lsrk inhibitors. The four identified compounds showed novel structures, low molecular weights, high activities, and novel LsrK binding modes, rendering them suitable for further optimization for effective AI-2 QSIs. Our work provides a valuable reference for the discovery of QSIs that do not inhibit bacterial growth, thereby avoiding the emergence of drug resistance.

Bioflocculant may be a promising bioactivator for heavy metal removal duo to its eco-friendly properties and remarkable ability to adsorb heavy metals. In this study, bioflocculant production from a bacterium, Pseudomonas sp. GO2, was optimized and its removal efficiency for two heavy metal ions was evaluated. Results demonstrated that the maximal flocculation efficiency was achieved with concentration levels of 5 g/L glucose, 3 g/L casein, and 5 g/L NaCl, with an initial pH of 9.0, and a fermentation time of 48 h. Bioflocculant produced by GO2 had a stronger removal efficiency for Cd

Context: During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, New York City's public hospitals experienced a significant increase in the number of critically ill patients, especially from minority populations. The palliative care consult service at Bellevue Hospital, therefore, adjusted rapidly to meet the increased needs of our patients and colleagues. Objectives: To describe the dynamic palliative care needs during a public hospital's COVID-19 surge, including a process to utilize nonpalliative care trained volunteers to meet the increased demand for inpatient palliative care consults. Confronting the Challenge: Given the flexibility needed during the surge response, the consult team focused on three key elements to meet the system's needs: surge staffing, support, and scale. The consult service expanded into three individual teams to accommodate daily rounds with the medical intensive care and general medicine teams. Nonpalliative care trained community volunteers and internally redeployed providers received targeted training in advanced care planning and were subsequently embedded within the three teams, each led by a palliative care provider. A total of 12 volunteers joined the palliative care team. During eight weeks of the surge, the service cared for a total of 276 patients, 111 of whom were seen by volunteers. Over 50% of the palliative care patients had limited English proficiency. Conclusion: The inpatient palliative care consult service structure adapted rapidly in response to the increased need for advanced care planning and support throughout the hospital during the COVID-19 surge. Focusing on three key areas of surge staffing, support, and scale resulted in expert coordination with the hospital and system level leadership, efficient training of volunteer providers, and frequent re-evaluation of response strategies. These elements were vital in allowing the palliative care team to harness the expertise of various volunteer providers to meet the increased demands of a safety net hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Witnessing intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with adolescents’ externalizing behavior problems such as bullying and aggression, but its association with cyberbullying perpetration remains unclear. Given the prevalence of cyberbullying perpetration, this study aims to examine the relationship between witnessing IPV and cyberbullying perpetration, and also to explore whether self-control mediates, and parental psychological control (PPC) moderates the association. 1,670 primary and junior high school students (aged from 10 to 15 years, 53.7% boys) in China participated in the questionnaire survey in May, 2017. The results showed that witnessing IPV positively predicted cyberbullying perpetration significantly when sex and grade were controlled. Self-control partially mediated the relationship between witnessing IPV and cyberbullying perpetration, while PPC moderated the relation between witnessing IPV and cyberbullying perpetration. Specifically, the effect of IPV on cyberbullying perpetration was stronger when PPC was high compared to when PPC was low. Multi-group analysis showed that the effect of witnessing IPV on cyberbullying perpetration was stronger in boys than in girls and the mediation effect of self-control was stronger among junior high school students than among primary schools. The implications for intervention of cyberbullying perpetration are discussed.

Quorum sensing (QS) is a cell-to-cell communication mechanism that regulates bacterial pathogenicity, biofilm formation, and antibiotic sensitivity. Among the identified quorum sensing, AI-2 QS exists in both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria and is responsible for interspecies communication. Recent studies have highlighted the connection between the phosphotransferase system (PTS) and AI-2 QS, with this link being associated with protein-protein interaction (PPI) between HPr and LsrK. Here, we first discovered several AI-2 QSIs targeting the LsrK/HPr PPI site through molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, virtual screening, and bioassay evaluation. Of the 62 compounds purchased, eight compounds demonstrated significant inhibition in LsrK-based assays and AI-2 QS interference assays. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) analysis confirmed that the hit compound 4171-0375 specifically bound to the LsrK-N protein (HPr binding domain, KD = 2.51 × 10−5 M), and therefore the LsrK/HPr PPI site. The structure-activity relationships (SARs) emphasized the importance of hydrophobic interactions with the hydrophobic pocket and hydrogen bonds or salt bridges with key residues of LsrK for LsrK/HPr PPI inhibitors. These new AI-2 QSIs, especially 4171-0375, exhibited novel structures, significant LsrK inhibition, and were suitable for structural modification to search for more effective AI-2 QSIs.

Flaviviruses, represented by Zika and dengue virus (ZIKV and DENV), are widely present around the world and cause various diseases with serious consequences. However, no antiviral drugs have been clinically approved for use against them. Azelnidipine (ALP) is a dihydropyridine calcium channel blocker and has been approved for use as an antihypertensive drug. In the present study, ALP was found to show potent anti-flavivirus activities in vitro and in vivo. ALP effectively prevented the cytopathic effect induced by ZIKV and DENV and inhibited the production of viral RNA and viral protein in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, treatment with 0.3 mg/kg of ALP protected 88.89% of mice from lethal challenge. Furthermore, using the time-of-drug-addition assay, the enzymatic inhibition assay, the molecular docking, and the surface plasmon resonance assay, we revealed that ALP acted at the replication stage of the viral infection cycle by targeting the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. These findings highlight the potential for the use of ALP as an antiviral agent to combat flavivirus infections.

A range of compositionally-tuned nanosized cobalt nickel sulfides ( 125 cycles) and a decent power density of 87 mW cm−2 at 150 mA cm−2 in zinc–air batteries. The electrochemical study of the series of cobalt nickel sulfides made herein suggests that a high electronic conductivity is responsible for the high bifunctional performance, with Ni(III) being identified as a contributor to the OER, while Co(II) and Ni(II) are identified as contributors to the ORR activity. These cathode materials would be highly suitable for safe, sustainable, and long-life zinc–air secondary batteries.

Epidemics caused by flaviviruses occur globally; however, no antiviral drugs treating flaviviruses infections have yet been developed. Nafamostat (NM) is a protease inhibitor approved for pancreatitis and anti-coagulation. The anti-flavivirus potential of NM has yet to be determined. Here, utilizing in vitro and in vivo infection assays, we present that NM effectively inhibits Zika virus (ZIKV) and other flaviviruses in vitro. NM inhibited the production of ZIKV viral RNA and proteins originating from Asia and African lineage in human-, mouse- and monkey-derived cell lines and the in vivo anti-ZIKV efficacy of NM was verified. Mode-of-action analysis using time-of-drug-addition assay, infectivity inhibition assay, surface plasmon resonance assay, and molecular docking revealed that NM interacted with viral particles and blocked the early stage of infection by targeting the domain III of ZIKV envelope protein. Analysing the anti-flavivirus effects of NM-related compounds suggested that the antiviral effect depended on the unique structure of NM. These findings suggest the potential use of NM as an anti-flavivirus candidate, and a novel drug design approach targeting the flavivirus envelope protein.

Bacterial drug resistance caused by overuse and misuse of antibiotics is common, especially in clinical multispecies infections. It is of great significance to discover novel agents to treat clinical bacterial infections. Studies have demonstrated that autoinducer-2 (AI-2), a signal molecule in quorum sensing (QS), plays an important role in communication among multiple bacterial species and bacterial drug-resistance. Previously, 14 AI-2 inhibited compounds were selected through virtual screening by using the AI-2 receptor protein LuxP as a target. Here, we used Vibrio harveyi BB170 as a reporter strain for the preliminary screening of 14 inhibitors and compound Str7410 had higher AI-2 QS inhibition activity (IC50 = 0.3724 ± 0.1091 μM). Then, co-culture of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 with Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923 was used to evaluate the inhibitory effects of Str7410 on multispecies infection in vitro and in vivo. In vitro, Str7410 significantly inhibited the formation of mixed bacterial biofilms. Meanwhile, the combination of Str7410 with meropenem trihydrate (MEPM) significantly improved the susceptibility of mixed-species-biofilm cells to the antibiotic. In vivo, Str7410 significantly increased the survival rate of wild-type Caenorhabditis elegans N2 co-infected by P. aeruginosa PAO1 and S. aureus ATCC 25923. Real-time quantitative PCR analysis showed that Str7410 reduced virulence factor (pyocyanin and elastase) production and swarming motility of P. aeruginosa PAO1 by downregulating the expression of QS-related genes in strain PAO1 in co-culture with S. aureus ATCC 25923. Compound Str7410 is a candidate agent for treating drug-resistant multispecies infections. The work described here provides a strategy for discovering novel antibacterial drugs.

An adaptive active power filter (APF) for distributed power generation systems and isolated power systems is proposed to solve the problem of frequent switching of working conditions while the installed capacity is small. The filter uses FXLMS algorithm to control the FIR filter and modifies the filter parameters through quasi-online modeling. Two different multifrequency FXLMS harmonic suppression methods are simulated and compared in this paper.

Nickel–Cobalt oxide nanotubes are prepared by a simple electrospinning technique based on a phase-separation mechanism. Extra tetraethyl orthosilicate (Si(OC2H5)4) is introduced and removed by design to obtain nanotube structure. The prepared nanotubes deliver remarkable electrochemical performance as the lithium-ion batteries anode materials. It possesses a capacity of 924 mAh/g after 95 cycles at 100 mA/g. At 2000 mA/g, it has a high capacity of 770 mAh/g, and still has 255 mAh/g at 1000 mA/g after 500 cycles. The outstanding electrochemical performance is attributed to the unique hierarchical tubular nanostructures design. This simple method opens new opportunities for fabricating practical nanostructured anode materials.

Earth-abundant and high-performance catalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) are highly desirable in development of energy-efficient rechargeable Zn-air batteries. In this work, sulfur-rich colloidal nickel sulfides (NiSₓ) are prepared as OER/ORR bifunctional catalysts via a two-step hydrothermal process. The NiSₓ nanoparticles (NPs) with large surface area show high OER activity and excellent stability, as evidenced by low overpotential of 301 mV, small Tafel slope of 41 mV dec⁻¹ and high stability over 20 h of chronopotentiometry test. Due to their sulfur-rich nature (i. e. Ni₃S₄ and NiS₂), the obtained NiSₓ also exhibit good ORR activity. The introduction of graphene oxide (GO) in the starting materials leads to the formation of a composite catalyst composed of conductive sulfur-doped reduced graphene oxide (S-rGO) and NiSₓ. A high ORR onset potential of 0.91 V (vs. RHE) is obtained from the sulfur-rich NiSₓ NPs coupled with the S-rGO which facilitates the electron-transfer and furnishes the bifunctional catalytic activity. Rechargeable Zn-air batteries with NiSₓ/S-rGO bifunctional catalyst deliver stable charge and discharge voltages of 2.1 and 1.1 V over 590 cycles. Furthermore, all-solid-state and foldable Zn-air batteries using pliable and robust air cathodes of NiSₓ/S-rGO show similar voltage profile as their non-foldable counterparts. The foldable batteries exhibit stable cycling performance for up to 120 discharge/charge cycles at either flat or folded state, proving their high electrochemical and mechanical stability. Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) This research was supported by the Advanced Energy Storage Research Programme (IMRE/12-2P0503 and IMRE/12-2P0504), Institute of Materials Research and Engineering of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore.

Sodium titanate nanopowder (nominal formula Na1.5H0.5Ti3O7) was directly synthesized using a continuous hydrothermal flow synthesis process using a relatively low base concentration (4 M NaOH) in process. The as-made titanate nanomaterials were characterised using powder X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller analysis and transmission electron microscopy, and evaluated as potential electrode materials for Li-ion and Na-ion batteries. Cyclic voltammetry studies on half-cells revealed that the sodium titanate nanomaterial stored charge primarily through a combination of pseudocapacitive and diffusion-limited processes in both systems. Electrochemical cycling tests at a high specific current of 1000 mA g−1, revealed that the Li-ion and Na-ion cells retained relatively high specific capacities after 400 cycles of 131 and 87 mAh g−1, respectively. This study demonstrates the potential of CHFS-made sodium titanate nanopower as an anode material for both Li- and Na-ion cell chemistries.

Background: Chicken infectious anemia (CIA) is an immunosuppressive disease induced by the chicken infectious anemia virus (CIAV) causing heavy economic losses once outbreak. This study conducted a systematic analysis of the epidemiology and pathology of CIA in Henan province, central China.Methods: A total of 437 clinical tissue samples and 120 poultry disease-related live attenuated vaccines were collected during 2017-2019; of which 45 were positive for CIAV nucleic acid, with a positive rate of 8.08%. Results: Our results showed that genome sequences similarity among a total of 12 CIAV isolates was high, and ranged from 97.1% to 99.3%, and their similarity to the vaccine strains Cux-1 and Del-Ros ranged from 97.8% to 98.6%. However, There were non-synonymous amino acid mutations in the locus of the major capsid proteins VP1, VP2 and VP3 among all isolates. The subsequent sequence analysis indicated that the isolates of HN-4 and HN-8 showed genetic recombination and follow up animal experiments revealed that HN-4 might be a high pathogenic strain. Conclusions: Our results reveal that both field infection and vaccine contamination promote epidemiology of CIAV in China. Some dominant epidemic viruses have undergone recombination and evolution. This study provides important information for CIAV prevention and control in poultry industry development.

Weed competing with the rice seedlings for resources, which also provided a better condition for pests and diseases. Targeted spraying herbicide of weed was the key to greatly reduce pesticides and reduce pollution. Weed category information and position detection were the basis of the field intelligence management. In order to realize the automatic recognition and position detection of weed from the complicated background and the natural light in the paddy field, this paper presented a new recognition method for weeds at seedling stage in paddy fields using Faster R-CNN (convolutional neural network). In this proposed method, transfer learning and target detection framework with Faster R-CNN were combined, and transfer the feature extractor of pre-training network model VGG16 and AlexNet. The result indicated that the recognition accuracy of Faster R-CNN with backbone network of VGG16 is better than the that of AlexNet, which could reach 82.47%.

Semiconductors of narrow bandgaps and high quantum efficiency have not been broadly utilized for photocatalytic coevolution of H(2) and O(2) via water splitting. One prominent issue is to develop effective protection strategies, which not only mitigate photocorrosion in an aqueous environment but also facilitate charge separation. Achieving local charge separation is especially challenging when these reductive and oxidative sites are placed only nanometers apart compared to two macroscopically separated electrodes in a photoelectrochemical cell. Additionally, the driving force of charge separation, namely the energetic difference in the barrier heights across the two type of sites, is small. Herein, we used conformal coatings attached by nanoscale cocatalysts to transform two classes of tunable bandgap semiconductors, i.e., CdS and GaInP(2), into stable and efficient photocatalysts. We used hydrogen evolution and redox-mediator oxidation for model study, and further constructed a two-compartment solar fuel generator that separated stoichiometric H(2) and O(2) products. Distinct from the single charge-transfer direction reported for conventional protective coatings, the coating herein allows for concurrent injection of photoexcited electrons and holes through the coating. The energetic difference between reductive and oxidative catalytic sites was regulated by selectivity and local kinetics. Accordingly, the charge separation behavior was validated using numerical simulations. Following this design principle, the CdS/TiO(2)/Rh@CrO(x) photocatalysts evolved H(2) while oxidizing reversible polysulfide redox mediators at a maximum rate of 90.6 μmol⋅h(−1)⋅cm(−2) by stacking three panels. Powered by a solar cell, the redox-mediated solar water-splitting reactor regenerated the polysulfide repeatedly and achieved solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 1.7%.

Many viruses use the host cell division cycle to facilitate replication. Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) are a group of serine/threonine kinases that play a central role in regulating cell cycle progression. However, the prospect of using CDKs for anti-influenza virus treatment remains to be elucidated. We conducted this study to investigate the potential of the CDK1 inhibitor Ro-3306 in preventing influenza virus infection and to elucidate the underlying mechanism. We showed that Ro-3306, a CDK1 inhibitor, exerts anti-influenza activity both in vitro and in vivo. Proof-of-concept studies revealed that knockdown of host CDK1 might affect the splicing of M2 viral mRNA, leading to the restriction of viral replication. Moreover, Ro-3306 directly bound to viral PB2 protein and inhibited viral RNA replication. Transcriptome analysis further revealed that Ro-3306 treatment inhibited the expression of MAPK-regulated genes, which might also contribute to the antiviral activity of Ro-3306. This study highlighted the multifunctional role of Ro-3306 as a novel anti-influenza virus agent.

This paper aims at helping researchers develop low-noise ECG monitors and analyze existing solutions for eliminating noise in ECG signals. A brief introduction of ECG signal, main kinds of noise in ECG signal and a summary of different kinds of low noise solutions is given. The components of the ECG signal and the origin of noise in the ECG signal are analyzed first. In order to find optimized solutions for eliminating the noise, highly effective solutions are listed and analyzed. Solutions are divided into three main directions, which are circuit design, signal processing and machine learning. Specific practical examples from former research and analyses for each direction help the reader understand and select different ways of eliminating noise in ECG signals. After introducing three directions, a summary and further improvement are given to help readers have a horizontal comparison between solutions.

Developing large-scale and high-performance OER (oxygen evolution reaction) and ORR (oxygen reduction reaction) catalysts have been a challenge for commercializing secondary zinc–air batteries. In this work, transition metal-doped cobalt–nickel sulfide spinels are directly produced via a continuous hydrothermal flow synthesis (CHFS) approach. The nanosized cobalt–nickel sulfides are doped with Ag, Fe, Mn, Cr, V, and Ti and evaluated as bifunctional OER and ORR catalyst for Zn–air battery application. Among the doped spinel catalysts, Mn-doped cobalt–nickel sulfides (Ni1.29Co1.49Mn0.22S4) exhibit the most promising OER and ORR performance, showing an ORR onset potential of 0.9 V vs. RHE and an OER overpotential of 348 mV measured at 10 mA cm−2, which is attributed to their high surface area, electronic structure of the dopant species, and the synergistic coupling of the dopant species with the active host cations. The dopant ions primarily alter the host cation composition, with the Mn(III) cation linked to the introduction of active sites by its favourable electronic structure. A power density of 75 mW cm−2 is achieved at a current density of 140 mA cm−2 for the zinc–air battery using the manganese-doped catalyst, a 12% improvement over the undoped cobalt–nickel sulfide and superior to that of the battery with a commercial RuO2 catalyst.

In recent years, a huge number of neural networks have been applied in music generation, many of which use generative adversarial networks (GAN). In this paper, a novel melody generation framework is proposed to create motivation for composers, which contains a generator made by bidirectional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) and a discriminator made by long short-term memory (LSTM). We change the traditional optimization policy of GAN by bringing Bayesian optimization in our model. In last, we conduct a user study that show better preference of our generated melodies over that produced by several recent other music generation models.

Semiconductors of narrow bandgaps and high quantum efficiency have not been successfully utilised for coevolving photocatalysis despite the widely demonstrated protective coating schemes. Herein, we showcase a general strategy of using conformal coatings and cocatalysts energetic properties to transform CdS powders and GaInP2 films into stable and efficient photocatalysts for coevolution of H2 and reversible redox couples. A scalable redox-mediated solar water-splitting reactor was constructed, regenerating the redox mediators while evolving O2 in a separate compartment. Distinct from the single direction of charge transfer found with conventional photoelectrode stabilisation, the coating herein allows both photo-excited electrons and holes to spatially separate and inject simultaneously to the respective reductive and oxidative sites. With TiO2 stabilisation, CdS particles produced H2 continuously for 150 hours. Under simulated sunlight, solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiency of 5.9% and 9.4% can be achieved for the CdS and GaInP2 panels, respectively, by stacking multiple panels and matching the rate of redox regeneration to that of H2 production.

The dawn of machine learning methods brings a possible solution to efficiently get through the vast design space of doped Li7La3Zr2O12 (LLZO) solid-state electrolytes. In this work, a machine learning model to classify the ionic conductivity of doped LLZO is developed using features derived from molecular, structural, and electronic descriptors. Meticulous model selection, validation, and optimization yielded a classifier based on the Light Gradient Boosting Machine algorithm with a leave-one-out cross-validation accuracy score of 0.903. Two key aspects were identified to obtain doped LLZO with high ionic conductivity, namely electrolyte's relative density and Li site dopant’s electronegativity. This study illustrates the role of powerful data-driven methods with easily obtainable features in accelerating the process of novel solid-state electrolyte design.

Catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction are in demand to realize the efficient conversion of hydrogen via water electrolysis. In this work, cobalt phosphides were prepared using a one-step, scalable, and direct gas-solid phosphidation of commercially available cobalt salts. It was found that the effectiveness of the phosphidation reaction was closely related to the state of cobalt precursors at the reaction temperature. For instance, a high yield of cobalt phosphides obtained from the phosphidation of cobalt(II) acetate was related to the good stability of cobalt salt at the phosphidation temperature. On the other hand, easily oxidizable salts (e.g., cobalt(II) acetylacetonate) tended to produce a low amount of cobalt phosphides and a large content of metallic cobalt. The as-synthesized cobalt phosphides were in nanostructures with large catalytic surface areas. The catalyst prepared from phosphidation of cobalt(II) acetate exhibited an improved catalytic activity as compared to its counterpart derived from phosphidation of cobalt(II) acetylacetonate, showing an overpotential of 160 and 175 mV in acidic and alkaline electrolytes, respectively. Both catalysts also displayed an enhanced long-term stability, especially in the alkaline electrolyte. This study illustrates the direct phosphidation behavior of cobalt salts, which serve as a good vantage point in realizing the large-scale synthesis of transition-metal phosphides for high-performance electrocatalysts.

This essay will introduce an increasingly popular topic: Green building. We list 3 important fields of green building technology, which are materials, structure design and energy. In each part we will introduce some advanced technologies and evaluate them with some principles.

Solid state lithium- and sodium-ion batteries utilize solid ionically conducting compounds as electrolytes. However, the ionic conductivity of such materials tends to be lower than their liquid counterparts, necessitating research efforts into finding suitable alternatives. The process of electrolyte screening is often based on a mixture of domain expertise and trial-and-error, both of which are time and resource-intensive. In this work, we present a novel machine-learning based approach to predict the ionic conductivity of sodium and lithium-based SICON compounds. Using primarily theoretical elemental feature descriptors derivable from tabulated information on the unit cell and the atomic properties of the components of a target compound on a limited dataset of 70 NASICON-examples, we have designed a logistic regression-based model capable of distinguishing between poor and good superionic conductors with a validation accuracy of over 84%. Moreover, we demonstrate how such a system is capable of cross-domain classification on lithium-based examples with the same accuracy, despite being introduced to zero lithium-based compounds during training. Through a systematic permutation-based evaluation process, we reduced the number of considered features from 47 to 7, reduction of over 83%, while simultaneously improving model performance. The contributions of different electronic and structural features to overall ionic conductivity is also discussed, and contrasted with accepted theories in literature. Our results demonstrate the utility of such a facile tool in providing opportunities for initial screening of potential candidates as solid-state electrolytes through the use of existing data examples and simple tabulated or calculated features, reducing the time-to-market of such materials by helping to focus efforts on promising candidates. Given enough data utilizing suitable descriptors, high accurate cross-domain classifiers could be created for experimentalists, improving laboratory and computational efficiency. Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Published version The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council are thanked for funding the Centre for Doctoral Training in Molecular Modelling & Materials Science (UCL, UK; EPSRC reference EP/L015862/1) and A*Star (Singapore) are thanked for supporting a studentship for YX. KH acknowledges funding from the Accelerated Materials Development for Manufacturing Program at A*STAR via the AME Programmatic Fund by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research under Grant No. A1898b004.

Five imidazole/benzimidazole-based metal complexes, Cd(bim)2(L1)2 (1) [L1 = 2-methyl-2-phenoxypropionate, bim = benzimidazole], Zn(im)2(L2)2 (2) [L2 = 3-(4-methoxyphenyl)acrylate, im = imidazole], Zn(im)2(L3)2 (3) [L3 = 3,4-(methylenedioxy)benzoate], [Cd(im)2(L3)2]2·4H2O (4), and Cd(Bim)2(L4)·CH3CH2OH·H2O (5) (L4 = 1,4-cyclohexanedicarboxylate), were obtained by the introduction of the carboxylates as coligands and are structurally characterized by different techniques including elemental analysis, IR spectra, TG, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. The X-ray crystal structure analyses reveal that these complexes display mononuclear to dinuclear structures with tetrahedral coordination spheres around each central zinc atom, and octahedral coordination sphere around each central cadmium atom. The imidazole ligands in all compounds are coordinated only in a monodentate fashion with their neutral nitrogen groups. The carboxylates coordinate to the metal in monodentate, chelating bidentate, and bridging bidentate fashions. The N–H···O hydrogen bonds from the NH donor of the neutral imidazole were found in all compounds. On the basis of X-ray crystallographic study the rich intra- and intermolecular noncovalent interactions (including classical hydrogen bonds, C–H···O, CH2···O, CH3···O, CH2–N, C–H···π, CH3–π, O–H···π, and π–π interactions) are analyzed. The various nonbonding interactions in these compounds are responsible for different structures such as 3D network, 3D prismatic layer network, and 3D layer network structure.

Studies concentrating on non-covalent interactions between the organic base of 6-bromobenzo[d]thiazol-2-amine, and carboxylic acid derivatives have led to an increased understanding of the role 6-bromobenzo[d]thiazol-2-amine has in binding with carboxylic acid derivatives. Here anhydrous and hydrated multicomponent organic acid–base adducts of 6-bromobenzo[d]thiazol-2-amine have been prepared with the carboxylic acids as p-nitrobenzoic acid, fumaric acid, l -tartaric acid, and terephthalic acid. The four crystalline compounds were characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis, infrared (IR), melting point (mp), and elemental analysis. All structures adopted hetero R 2 2 ( 8 ) supramolecular synthons except the salt 3. Analysis of crystal packing of the compounds under study suggests that there are N H⋯O, O H⋯N, and O H⋯O hydrogen bonds (charge assisted or neutral) between acid and base components in the supramolecular assemblies.

The discovery of human papillomavirus (HPV) as a necessary etiological factor for cervical cancer has spurred the development of preventive and therapeutic HPV vaccines for the control of HPV-associated malignancies including cervical, vulvar, vaginal, and a subset of head and neck cancers. The commercial preventive HPV vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, use HPV virus-like particles to generate neutralizing antibodies against HPV major capsid protein L1. However, they do not exert therapeutic effects on existing lesions and are unlikely to have an immediate impact on the prevalence of cervical cancer due to their cost and limited availability in developing countries, which account for more than 80% of cer- vical cancers. Thus, there is an urgent need for therapeutic HPV vaccines. Therapeutic HPV vaccines can eliminate pre- existing lesions and infections by generating cellular immunity against HPV-infected cells. HPV E6 and E7 oncoproteins represent ideal targets for therapeutic intervention because of their constitutive expression in HPV-associated tumors and their crucial role in the induction and maintenance of HPV-associated disease. This review discusses the current progress of various therapeutic HPV vaccine approaches, including live vector-based, peptide/protein-based, nucleic acid-based and cell-based vaccines targeting E6 and/or E7 antigens, and their future prospects for the control of HPV-associated ma- lignancies.

Cancer immunotherapy, particularly antigen-specific immunotherapy, has become a potentially promising approach for control of cancer due to its ability to kill tumor cells without harming normal cells. Among different forms of antigen-specific immunotherapy, DNA vaccines are an attractive approach because of their safety, simplicity and ease of mass production. However, they suffer from low immunogenicity due to their inability to amplify and spread in vivo and therefore require innovative strategies to enhance the immune response stimulated by DNA vaccines. Strategies to improve DNA vaccine efficacy should focus on dendritic cells (DCs) because they are the most potent activators of an antigen-specific T cell response, which is crucial in the control of tumors. Increased understanding of DC biology has created opportunities to improve DNA vaccine potency through the applications of strategies that modify the function of DCs. In this review, we use human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cervical cancer as a model system to illustrate the various strategies that improve DNA vaccine potency. Specifically, we will discuss the various strategies to improve targeting of DNA to DCs, antigen processing and presentation by DCs and DC interactions with T cells in this book chapter.

Zambirinis et al. show that TLR9 stimulation has a protumorigenic effect in pancreatic carcinoma by inducing pancreatic stellate cells to become fibrogenic and produce chemokines that stimulate epithelial cell proliferation. Activation of TLR9 results also in an immune suppressive tumor microenvironment via recruitment of regulatory T cells and induction of myeloid-derived suppressor cell proliferation., Modulation of Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling can have protective or protumorigenic effects on oncogenesis depending on the cancer subtype and on specific inflammatory elements within the tumor milieu. We found that TLR9 is widely expressed early during the course of pancreatic transformation and that TLR9 ligands are ubiquitous within the tumor microenvironment. TLR9 ligation markedly accelerates oncogenesis, whereas TLR9 deletion is protective. We show that TLR9 activation has distinct effects on the epithelial, inflammatory, and fibrogenic cellular subsets in pancreatic carcinoma and plays a central role in cross talk between these compartments. Specifically, TLR9 activation can induce proinflammatory signaling in transformed epithelial cells, but does not elicit oncogene expression or cancer cell proliferation. Conversely, TLR9 ligation induces pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) to become fibrogenic and secrete chemokines that promote epithelial cell proliferation. TLR9-activated PSCs mediate their protumorigenic effects on the epithelial compartment via CCL11. Additionally, TLR9 has immune-suppressive effects in the tumor microenvironment (TME) via induction of regulatory T cell recruitment and myeloid-derived suppressor cell proliferation. Collectively, our work shows that TLR9 has protumorigenic effects in pancreatic carcinoma which are distinct from its influence in extrapancreatic malignancies and from the mechanistic effects of other TLRs on pancreatic oncogenesis.