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Compared with silicon, gallium nitride, silicon carbide, and other traditional semiconductors, gallium oxide (Ga2O3) who possesses, an ultrawide bandgap of approximately 5.0 eV and a higher breakdown field strength of approximately 8 MV/cm has attracted increasing attention from researchers, especially for the potential application in power devices. Moreover, Ga2O3material has natural ultraviolet detection ability for photodetectors due to its ultrawide bandgap. These future commercial applications put forward an urgent require for high-quality epitaxial Ga2O3material in an efficient growth method at a lower cost. Although there are some conventional methods for single crystal Ga2O3film epitaxial growth such as MBE and MOCVD, these methods always need a vacuum growth environment and expensive equipment. As a fast-growing method, Mist-CVD gives the growth of Ga2O3in a vacuum-free, process-simple, and low-cost method, which will greatly reduce the cost and facilitate the development of Ga2O3. This review has summarizes the Mist-CVD epitaxy growth mechanism of Ga2O3, recent progress in the Ga2O3film epitaxial growth, and various device properties based on the Mist-CVD method. Our work aims to provide help for the development of Ga2O3material growth and device applications.

The hot-rolled microstructure of medium Mn steel has coarse grains and severe elemental segregation, resulting in low strength and plasticity. Constructing a multiphase structure, refining the microstructure, and regulating elemental segregation enhance the mechanical properties. In this study, liquid nitrogen treatment created a layered distribution of austenite and martensite. Warm rolling was then used to reduce layer thickness and refine grain structure. After liquid nitrogen and warm rolling treatments, the strength and plasticity of medium Mn steel increased to 1270 MPa and 23.3%, respectively, far exceeding the hot-rolled state (724 MPa, 12.8%). Warm rolling also triggers austenite reverted transformation (ART) and introduces high-density dislocations, further improving austenite stability. This strengthening effect is higher than that from intercritical annealing alone. Improved austenite stability delays the transformation induced plasticity (TRIP) effect, preventing brittle fracture and enhancing deformation coordination between layers, significantly increasing the plastic deformation capacity of medium Mn steel.

Background: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), regarded as the prodromal stage before the clinical phase of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), has been considered for early differential diagnosis. Patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), an important subtype of MCI, are more likely to progress to clinical Alzheimer disease (AD). Objective: To examine the structural and functional connectome in both kinds of MCI and found differences in structural connectivity (SC)-functional connectivity (FC) coupling. Methods: Fifty-nine individuals with aMCI, non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment (naMCI) and healthy controls (NC) underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Brains were parcellated into functional modules according to the FC networks of NC, and individual FC and SC within modules as well as average FC, average SC and average SC-FC correlation values in each module among groups were analyzed, while logistic regression was used to find predictive factors. Results: After controlling for age, sex, and education, the FC values in the temporal-occipital module and the SC-FC correlation values in the temporal-occipital and the default mode module appeared associated with the prediction of aMCI. Conclusion: These modular connectivity values can be used for further study of MCI subtypes.

Ultra-precision grinding has gained substantial attention for its ability to significantly improve surface integrity. However, existing studies rarely investigate the effects of lubrication conditions at the microscopic level, which limits the understanding of microstructure evolution during ultra-precision grinding. In this work, a large-scale molecular dynamic (MD) method is proposed for simulating microstructural evolution of polycrystalline α-Fe/Fe3C ultra-precision grinded under water lubrication. The water molecule and polycrystalline α-Fe/Fe3C models are established using the measured and calculated interatomic potential functions. The effects of grinding parameters (infeed depth and lubrication status) on the ultra-precision grinding of internal stresses, temperature fields, workpiece topography and plastic deformation are investigated. Results show that the water film has a beneficial impact on workpiece quality, but has a negative effect on grinding efficiency. The plastic deformation mechanism of ultra-precision grinded polycrystalline α-Fe/Fe3C primarily involves dislocation modulation, with the water film serving to reduce dislocations and promote cluster formation. This work offers valuable insights into the production of high-quality components.

Despite recent progress in Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), explaining predictions made by GNNs remains a challenging and nascent problem. The leading method mainly considers the local explanations, i.e., important subgraph structure and node features, to interpret why a GNN model makes the prediction for a single instance, e.g. a node or a graph. As a result, the explanation generated is painstakingly customized at the instance level. The unique explanation interpreting each instance independently is not sufficient to provide a global understanding of the learned GNN model, leading to the lack of generalizability and hindering it from being used in the inductive setting. Besides, training the explanation model explaining for each instance is time-consuming for large-scale real-life datasets. In this study, we address these key challenges and propose PGExplainer, a parameterized explainer for GNNs. PGExplainer adopts a deep neural network to parameterize the generation process of explanations, which renders PGExplainer a natural approach to multi-instance explanations. Compared to the existing work, PGExplainer has better generalization ability and can be utilized in an inductive setting without training the model for new instances. Thus, PGExplainer is much more efficient than the leading method with significant speed-up. In addition, the explanation networks can also be utilized as a regularizer to improve the generalization power of existing GNNs when jointly trained with downstream tasks. Experiments on both synthetic and real-life datasets show highly competitive performance with up to 24.7% relative improvement in AUC on explaining graph classification over the leading baseline.

Soil salinization is a globally prevalent abiotic environmental stress. The imbalance of ions caused by high concentrations of sodium chloride results in a 40% reduction in soybean yield. Soybean, as an important crop for soil quality improvement, necessitates the identification of salt-tolerant varieties and germplasms to effectively utilize and enhance saline-alkali land. In this study, we assessed the salt tolerance of 435 soybean varieties and germplasms during the seedling stage. Among them, Qihuang34, You2104, Hongzhudou, Pamanheidou, and Osage exhibited grade 1 salt tolerance rates surpassing other tested materials. Furthermore, Hongzhudou and Qihuang34 demonstrated higher salt tolerance during germination and emergence stages based on their elevated rates of emergence, salt tolerance index, chlorophyll content, and shoot fresh weights. Overall findings provide valuable resources for molecular breeding efforts aimed at developing salt-tolerant soybean varieties suitable for cultivation in saline-alkali soils.

Challenges remain to be solved for the clinical translation of β-cell encapsulation technology in the treatment of type 1 diabetes (T1D). Successful delivery of β cells urgently needs the development of an encapsulation device with a thin dimension and rapid mass transport that offers stable immune isolation and complete retrieval. In this study, we focus on a laminate in which an islet-embedding alginate hydrogel layer (Alg) is sandwiched between two polymer layers (polyether sulfone, PES). Mechanical support by the PES layer protects the alginate from disintegrating after implantation and allows complete retrieval. The multilayered device has a thin membrane configuration (∼1 mm), and the edge of the laminate and the gaps between Alg and PES offer a semiopen structure that could be more permeable to molecules compared with the closed pocket of conventional macroencapsulation. Islets are suspended in the alginate solution and then encapsulated in the hydrogel layer in the middle of the laminate after gelation. Encapsulating syngeneic or xenogeneic islets in the laminate device corrected chemically induced T1D in mice for over 90 days in both the intraperitoneal space and the epididymal fat pad. The multilayered membrane system may therefore provide a translatable solution in β cell-transplantation therapy in T1D.

Objective: Cardiocerebrovascular disease is a severe threat to human health. Quercetin has a wide range of pharmacological effects such as antitumor and antioxidant. In this study, we aimed to determine how quercetin regulates mitochondrial function in H9c2 cells.Methods: An H9c2 cell oxygen glucose deprivation/reoxygenation (OGD/R) model was constructed. The expression of miR-92a-3p and mitofusin 1 (Mfn1) mRNA in the cells was detected using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). Changes in the mitochondrial membrane potential of cells were examined by JC-1 staining. ATP production in the cells was detected using a biochemical assay. Mitochondrial morphological changes were observed using transmission electron microscopy. Detection of miR-92a-3p binding to Mfn1 was done using dual luciferase. Western blotting was used to detect the protein expression of Mfn1 in the cells.Results: miR-92a-3p is essential in regulating cell viability, apoptosis, and tumor cell metastasis. OGD/R induced miR-92a-3p expression, decreased mitochondrial membrane potential and mitochondrial ATP production, and increased mitochondrial damage. Mitochondria are the most critical site for ATP production. Continued opening of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore results in an abnormal mitochondrial transmembrane potential. Both quercetin and inhibition of miR-29a-3p were able to downregulate miR-29a-3p levels, increase cell viability, mitochondrial membrane potential, and ATP levels, and improve mitochondrial damage morphology. Furthermore, we found that downregulation of miR-29a-3p upregulated the protein expression of Mfn1 in cells. Additionally, miR-92a-3p was found to bind to Mfn1 in a luciferase assay. miR- 29a-3p overexpression significantly inhibited the protein expression level of Mfn1. Quercetin treatment partially reversed the effects of miR-29a-3p overexpression in H9c2 cells.Conclusion: Quercetin promoted the recovery of mitochondrial damage in H9c2 cells through the miR-92a-3p/Mfn1 axis.

A broad-wall loaded photonic crystal waveguide (BWPCW) slow wave structure (SWS) for the terahertz traveling wave tube (TWT) has been presented in this article. The frequency-selective properties of photonic crystals are studied. The mode competition can be adequately suppressed by introducing photonic crystals into the SWSs. The parameters of the SWS and couplers are optimized to achieve a high-performance TWT at 220 GHz. The results of simulation of high-frequency characteristics show that the BWPCW-SWS has an interaction impedance of 1.02– $3.62 \Omega $ and an ohmic loss of 0.050–0.076 dB per period in the passband. The beam–wave interaction results indicate that the proposed BWPCW-TWT can produce a saturated output power of over 80 W ranging from 198 to 261 GHz when the operating voltage is 24.5 kV and the beam current is 150 mA. At 220 GHz, the maximum electron efficiency and saturated output power attain 4.35% and 160 W, respectively, with an input power of 0.55 W.

Polylactic acid (PLA) is often used in the preparation of environmentally friendly biodegradable polymer plastics, and how to improve the flame retardant performance of polylactic acid has been concerned by experts and scholars. Here, we provide a new idea, using bamboo activated carbon as the main material, and phytic acid, urea and Zn(NO3)2·6(H2O) as modifiers to produce a new type of carbon flame retardant. It has bamboo activated carbon as carbon source; second, it has P, N elements and metal oxides. The two synergistically play a flame retardant role on polylactic acid. The polylactic acid composite showed good thermal stability, from no grade optimization to V-0 in the UL-94 test, and the limiting oxygen index was also increased from 20.1 to 31.2%. The above tests show that bamboo activated carbon loaded with ZnO has a good flame retardant effect on polylactic acid.

ABSTRACTIntroductionTumors pose a significant global economic and health burden, with conventional cancer treatments lacking tumor specificity, leading to limited efficiency and undesirable side effects. Targeted tumor therapy is imminent. Tumor cells produce lactate and hydrogen ions (H+) by Warburg effect, forming an acidic tumor microenvironment (TME), which can be employed to design targeted tumor therapy. Recently, progress in nanotechnology has led to the development of pH-responsive nanocarriers, which have gathered significant attention. Under acidic tumor conditions, they exhibit targeted accumulation within tumor sites and controlled release profiles of therapeutic reagents, enabling precise tumor therapy.Areas coveredThis review comprehensively summarize the principles underlying pH-responsive features, discussing various types of pH-responsive nanocarriers, their advantages, and limitations. Innovative therapeutic drugs are also examined, followed by an exploration of recent advancements in applying various pH-responsive nanocarriers as delivery systems for enhanced tumor therapy.Expert opinionspH-responsive nanocarriers have garnered significant attention for their capability to achieve targeted accumulation of therapeutic agents at tumor sites and controlled drug delivery profiles, ultimately increasing the efficiency of tumor eradication. It is anticipated that the employment of pH-responsive nanocarriers will elevate the effectiveness and safety of tumor therapy, contributing to improved overall outcomes.

In this article, we present a compact analytical model for the drain current of the nanowire heterojunction tunneling field-effect transistor (FET). The model is developed by leveraging the surface potential solution and Kane’s equation, and it incorporates the ambipolar behavior of the device. Notably, in addition to considering source/drain depletions, our model effectively captures the influence of mobile charge in both inversion and accumulation states using a simplified thermal injection method. To assess the model’s accuracy, we validate it against TCAD simulations. The results demonstrate that the model successfully predicts the dependencies of the surface potential and drain current on biases, doping concentration, and channel length across the entire operation range. Furthermore, for the verified GaAs $_{{0.5}}$ Sb $_{{0.5}}$ /In $_{{0.53}}$ Ga $_{{0.47}}$ As material system, the results reveal that the screening effect caused by holes is more pronounced compared to that induced by electron, and a detailed examination of the underlying reasons behind this observation is provided.

Soybean (Glycine max), the primary source of high-quality plant protein, plays a crucial role as a grain and oil crop in China. Harnessing the full potential of symbiotic nitrogen fixation in soybean production holds immense significance for agriculture and ecology alike. Zhongdou 63, a newly developed early-maturing summer soybean cultivar in 2021, exhibits remarkable traits such as high yield, superior quality, multi-resistance, and wide adaptability. In this study, eight distinct rhizobia strains from diverse regions were meticulously screened to identify highly effective strains specifically suited for Zhongdou 63. The aboveground biomass, plant height, chlorophyll content, root length, nodule number, and nodule dry weight of Zhongdou 63 were measured and the data were subjected to statistical analysis. The results demonstrated that Y63-1 is a predominant strain of Zhongdou 63. Subsequently, we conducted further investigations on the broad-spectrum nodulation characteristics of Y63-1. Ten representative soybean cultivars were individually inoculated with Y63-1 and subsequently analyzed for nodule numbers and nodule dry weight in their symbiotic systems with rhizobia. The findings revealed that Y63-1 effectively formed nodules with all ten soybean varieties tested. In summary, our current study identified highly efficient broad-spectrum Bradyrhizobium elkaniistrain Y63-1 as the predominant strain in Zhongdou 63 and provided a theoretical foundation for enhancing yield potential not only in Zhongdou 63 but also in other varieties through inoculation with highly efficient rhizobia in production.

• A Ce6 loading metal-polyphenol nanocomposite (Ce6@HSF NPs) was designed for melanoma synergistic therapy. • Ce6@HSF NPs could be used as a Fenton reagent to induce the ·OH production. • Ce6@HSF NPs can combine photodynamic therapy and chemodynamic therapy. • Ce6@HSF NPs can enhance the photodynamic therapy effect of Ce6. Due to the hypoxic state of the tumor microenvironment (TME), photodynamic therapy (PDT) suffers from insufficient ROS production. The metal-polyphenol network-mediated Fenton reaction can generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) by consuming H 2 O 2 in TME, improving the inadequate ROS generation problem of PDT. Therefore, synergistic therapy combining PDT and Fenton response-based CDT is a promising approach for cancer treatment. Herein, a metal-polyphenol nanocomposite was deposited with gallic acid grafted hyaluronic acid and Fe3+ to contrast a Ce6 nano-delivery system (Ce6@HSF NPs) for melanoma synergistic therapy. Ce6@HSF NPs could be used as a Fenton reagent to induce the ·OH production and enhance the PDT effect of Ce6 to a certain extent. After 4 h of cellular uptake, the fluorescence intensity of Ce6 in the Ce6@HSF NPs group was higher than 3 times that in the Ce6 group. The intracellular ROS generation level of the Ce6@HSF NPs (L) group combining CDT and PDT was higher than that of the Ce6 group and Ce6@HSF NPs group. In vitro and in vivo anti-melanoma studies show that Ce6@HSF NPs (L) group exhibited better anti-melanoma than other groups. Together, Ce6@HSF NPs provide a promising synergistic treatment potential for melanoma. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cell entry of severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) depends on specific host cell proteases, which are the key targets for preventing and treating viral infections. Herein, we describe miyabenol C and trans-ε-viniferin, two resveratrol oligomers that specifically inhibit SARS-CoV-2 entry by targeting host protease cathepsin L. Several cell-based assays were used to demonstrate the effect of resveratrol oligomers, and their target was identified via screening of antiviral targets. Molecular docking analysis suggested that the oligomers could occupy the active cavity of cathepsin L. The surface plasmon resonance assay showed that the equilibrium dissociation constant (KD) values of miyabenol C–cathepsin L and trans-ε-viniferin-cathepsin L were 5.54 and 8.54 μM, respectively, indicating their excellent binding ability for cathepsin L. Our study demonstrated the potential application of resveratrol oligomers as lead compounds in controlling SARS-CoV-2 infection by targeting cathepsin L.

Biomaterials for cell replacement therapy could facilitate the delivery, function, and retrieval of transplanted therapeutic cells. However, the limited capacity to accommodate a sufficient quantity of cells in biomedical devices has hindered the success of clinical application, resulting from the suboptimal spatial organization of cells and insufficient permeation of nutrients in the materials. Herein, through the immersion-precipitation phase transfer (IPPT) process from polyether sulfone (PES), we develop planar asymmetric membranes with a hierarchical pore architecture spanning from nanopores (∼20 nm) in the dense skin and open-ended microchannel arrays with gradient pore size increasing vertically from microns to ∼100 μm. The nanoporous skin would be an ultrathin diffusion barrier, while the microchannels could support high-density cell loading by acting as separate chambers allowing uniform distribution of cells in the scaffold. Alginate hydrogel could permeate into the channels and form a sealing layer after gelation, which could slow down the invasion of host immune cells into the scaffold. The hybrid thin-sheet encapsulation system (∼400 μm thick) could protect allogeneic cells over half-year after intraperitoneal (IP) implantation in immune-competent mice. Such structural membranes and plastic–hydrogel hybrids of thin dimensions could find important applications in cell delivery therapy.

As a key component of e-commerce computing, product representation learning (PRL) provides benefits for a variety of applications, including product matching, search, and categorization. The existing PRL approaches have poor language understanding ability due to their inability to capture contextualized semantics. In addition, the learned representations by existing methods are not easily transferable to new products. Inspired by the recent advance of pre-trained language models (PLMs), we make the attempt to adapt PLMs for PRL to mitigate the above issues. In this article, we develop KINDLE, a Knowledge-drIven pre-trainiNg framework for proDuct representation LEarning, which can preserve the contextual semantics and multi-faceted product knowledge robustly and flexibly. Specifically, we first extend traditional one-stage pre-training to a two-stage pre-training framework, and exploit a deliberate knowledge encoder to ensure a smooth knowledge fusion into PLM. In addition, we propose a multi-objective heterogeneous embedding method to represent thousands of knowledge elements. This helps KINDLE calibrate knowledge noise and sparsity automatically by replacing isolated classes as training targets in knowledge acquisition tasks. Furthermore, an input-aware gating network is proposed to select the most relevant knowledge for different downstream tasks. Finally, extensive experiments have demonstrated the advantages of KINDLE over the state-of-the-art baselines across three downstream tasks.

Multicomponent seismic exploration as a powerful geophysical technology has attracted more and more attention in seeking and identifying subtle oil and gas reservoirs. However, like traditional single-component acquisition, multicomponent seismic data acquisition also encounters sparse and irregular sampling problems. The conventional reconstruction methods treat multicomponent data as independent components and recover the missing traces in a component-by-component manner. These componentwise approaches ignore the internal mutual relationships among different components and damage the vector characteristics of the seismic wavefield. Quaternion algebra provides an effective vector representation tool for multicomponent data. Upon that, we present a new vector Projection Onto Convex Sets (POCS) method with biquaternion Fourier transform to reconstruct the irregularly missing traces of 3-D and three-component (3-D-3C) seismic data. Compared to the current real-valued quaternion reconstruction methods implemented in the time domain, the proposed method performed in the frequency domain can fully maintain the conjugate symmetry property of the biquaternion data and only reconstruct the positive or negative frequency slices of the observed 3-D-3C data. Besides, the new method can simultaneously interpolate the 3C or 4C data with different missing patterns. We compare the proposed vector POCS method with the scalar POCS method through experiments with a synthetic 3-D-3C dataset and a field 3-D-3C volume. Both experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.

Multi-modal fusion overcomes the inherent limitations of single-sensor perception in 3D object detection of autonomous driving. The fusion of 4D Radar and LiDAR can boost the detection range and more robust. Nevertheless, different data characteristics and noise distributions between two sensors hinder performance improvement when directly integrating them. Therefore, we are the first to propose a novel fusion method termed $M^{2}$-Fusion for 4D Radar and LiDAR, based on Multi-modal and Multi-scale fusion. To better integrate two sensors, we propose an Interaction-based Multi-Modal Fusion (IMMF) method utilizing a self-attention mechanism to learn features from each modality and exchange intermediate layer information. Specific to the current single-resolution voxel division's precision and efficiency balance problem, we also put forward a Center-based Multi-Scale Fusion (CMSF) method to first regress the center points of objects and then extract features in multiple resolutions. Furthermore, we present a data preprocessing method based on Gaussian distribution that effectively decreases data noise to reduce errors caused by point cloud divergence of 4D Radar data in the $x$-$z$ plane. To evaluate the proposed fusion method, a series of experiments were conducted using the Astyx HiRes 2019 dataset, including the calibrated 4D Radar and 16-line LiDAR data. The results demonstrated that our fusion method compared favorably with state-of-the-art algorithms. When compared to PointPillars, our method achieves mAP (mean average precision) increases of 5.64$\%$ and 13.57$\%$ for 3D and BEV (bird's eye view) detection of the car class at a moderate level, respectively.

We report an iodide-induced phase regulation strategy to in-situsynthesize a cerium-based catalyst (Ce-N4O2SACs) with high Ce loading (15.9 wt%), radicals scavenging ability and high-density Ce-N4O2sites on the surface of porous nanocarbon frameworks. The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) mechanisms on the Ce-N4O2SACs are recorded by in-situRaman spectra. Moreover, the density functional theory (DFT) calculations show that the Ce-N4O2structure can optimize the electronic configuration of Ce and positively promote the activation of adsorbates. As expected, this catalyst delivers excellent ORR electrocatalytic activity and stability (half-wave potential decay ∼11 mV after cycling for 30k cycles). The assembled primary zinc-air battery demonstrates a remarkable energy density (ED) of 946 Wh kgZn−1and exhibits predominant long-term durability (ED reduction ∼3.5 % after for 130 h). This work shows that rare-earth single-atom catalysts, subjected to regulation encompassing structure-density-configuration-mass transfer, hold great promise in realizing high ED metal-air batteries.

In this article, we investigate the effect of variability in p-type nanowire tunnel FET (TFET) using quantum mechanical transport simulations. The simulations have been carried out using the Nano Electronics Simulation Software (NESS) from the University of Glasgow. Random discrete dopants (RDDs) and work-function variations (WFV) have been investigated in the simulations. Our statistical simulations reveal that key figures of merit (FoMs) such as the current variability generally decrease as the gate voltage decreases, the threshold voltage variability increases as the threshold current increases, and the dependences of these FoM variabilities on criteria become stronger with the switch characteristic ameliorated. Furthermore, it is interesting to find that the band offset in heterostructure can more or less alleviate the current variability, especially around the OFF-state.

A decarboxylative cyanation of amino acids under paired electrochemical reaction conditions has been developed. 4-CN-pyridine was found to be a new and effective cyanation reagent under catalyst-free conditions. Mechanistic studies support a nucleophilic reaction pathway, and the cyanation protocol can be applied to diverse substrates including N,N-dialkyl aniline and indole derivatives.

Anomaly detection is an important data mining task with numerous applications, such as intrusion detection, credit card fraud detection, and video surveillance. However, given a specific complicated task with complicated data, the process of building an effective deep learning-based system for anomaly detection still highly relies on human expertise and laboring trials. Also, while neural architecture search (NAS) has shown its promise in discovering effective deep architectures in various domains, such as image classification, object detection, and semantic segmentation, contemporary NAS methods are not suitable for anomaly detection due to the lack of intrinsic search space, unstable search process, and low sample efficiency. To bridge the gap, in this article, we propose AutoAD, an automated anomaly detection framework, which aims to search for an optimal neural network model within a predefined search space. Specifically, we first design a curiosity-guided search strategy to overcome the curse of local optimality. A controller, which acts as a search agent, is encouraged to take actions to maximize the information gain about the controller’s internal belief. We further introduce an experience replay mechanism based on self-imitation learning to improve the sample efficiency. Experimental results on various real-world benchmark datasets demonstrate that the deep model identified by AutoAD achieves the best performance, comparing with existing handcrafted models and traditional search methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulating the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance of N-doped carbon-based catalyst to oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is of prospective to the wide-ranging applications of rechargeable zinc-air batteries. In this work, a facile double-enhancing strategy is proposed to prepare a bifunctional catalyst to ORR and OER. In the strategy, the smaller carbon particles were generated by carbonizing cyclodextrin. The fresh carbon particles can well react with the gasified product of melamine to facilitate the anchoring of nitrogen to prepare the N-doped Fe-N-CD-C-A2 catalyst for ORR. Then, an OER enhanced bifunctional catalyst Fe-N-CD-C-A2-Ni was prepared by separately blending Ni2+and OH−with Fe-N-CD-C-A2 to evenly load Ni(OH)2particles as an OER catalyst. Benefiting from the intentionally regulated properties, the Fe-N-CD-C-A2-Ni shows 0.8728 V of ORR half wave potential and 1.5868 V of OER potential at 10 mA cm−2, both being realized in a practical rechargeable zinc-air battery with 1.526 V of open circuit potential, 192 mW cm−2of peak power density, 1.18–1.27 V of discharge voltage plateau and 957 mWh g-1 Zn of energy density. Importantly, the Fe-N-CD-C-A2-Ni exhibits superior rechargeability and durability during the discharge-recharge cycles, being better than Pt/C + RuO2catalyst and revealing promising prospects for practical application.

ABSTRACTBreast cancer is characterized by high morbidity and mortality. GDC-0941 is a PI3K inhibitor with oncogenic effects in breast cancer. However, certain breast cancer cells are insensitive to GDC-0941. Hence, the mechanism of GDC-0941 in breast cancer resistance was investigated in this study. Breast cancer cell lines BT-474, MCF7, Hs-578-T, MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-453, and MDA-MB-468 were cultured in different medium and then treated with 100 or 500 nM GDC-0941, 100 nM OSU-T315, or TNF-α antibody. Moreover, ILK and shILK were transfected into cells. The half maximal inhibitory concentrations (IC50) for GDC-0941 were detected using CCK-8 assay. The levels of ILK, AKT, PDK1, S6, and p70S6K expression were detected using western blotting and qPCR. In addition, the mouse model of breast cancer was constructed to measure the tumor size, volume, and weight. The results showed that GDC-0941 decreased cell survival rate, downregulated the phosphorylation of AKT, S6, and p70S6K, and promoted the expression of ILK, while it had little effect on PDK1 expression. GDC-0941 inhibited the increases in p-AKT, p-S6, and p-p70S6K caused by ILK overexpression and promoted ILK knockdown-induced reduction of p-AKT, p-S6, and p-p70S6K. In addition, the combination of OSU-T315 and GDC-0941 decreased p-AKT, p-S6, and p-p70S6K level, tumor volume, and tumor weight. GDC-0941 promoted ILK expression by upregulating TNF-α level. Taken together, GDC-0941 increased ILK level by upregulating TNF-α, thus affecting AKT expression and the sensitivity of breast cancer cells to GDC-0941.

Although advances in protein assembly preparation have provided a new platform for drug delivery during tissue engineering, achieving long-term controlled exosome delivery remains a significant challenge. Diffusion-dominated exosome release using protein hydrogels results in burst release of exosomes. Here, a fibroin-based cryo-sponge was developed to provide controlled exosome release. Fibroin chains can self-assemble into silk I structures under ice-cold conditions when annealed above the glass transition temperature. Exosome release is enzyme-responsive, with rates primarily determined by enzymatic degradation of the scaffolds. In vivoexperiments have demonstrated that exosomes remain in undigested sponge material for two months, superior to their retention in fibrin glue, a commonly used biomaterial in clinical practice. Fibroin cryo-sponges were implanted subcutaneously in nude mice. The exosome-containing sponge group exhibited better neovascularization and tissue ingrowth effects, demonstrating the efficacy of this exosome-encapsulating strategy by realizing sustained release and maintaining exosome bioactivity. These silk fibroin cryo-sponges containing exosomes provide a new platform for future studies of exosome therapy.

Ice accumulation on various surfaces in low-temperature and high-humidity environments is still a major challenge for several engineering applications. Herein, we fabricated a kind of PDMS coating with the introduction of porous structures under the surface by a two-step curing and phase separation method. The coatings with no further surface modification showed good hydrophobicity and icephobicity, and the typical ice adhesion strength was down to 40 kPa with a water contact angle of 116.5°. More than that, the porous PDMS coatings showed extraordinary icephobicity, especially toward large-scale ice (>10 cm2). In this case, the large-scale ice layer can be rapidly removed under a small external deicing force in a form of interface crack propagation rather than whole direct fracture. It was confirmed that by regulating the pore size and porosity of PDMS coatings properly, the stiffness mismatch between coatings and ice can be controlled to induce the initiation of interfacial cracks. On this basis, under the condition of a large-scale icing area, a small external deicing force can cause an increased surface stress concentration, and the formed interface cracks can propagate quickly, resulting in the ice layer falling off easily. In addition, under the influence of the size effect, ice can be removed without an additional force, and the minimum external force (per unit width) can be only 60 N/cm. This paper proposes that prefabricating a large number of microcracks at the interface can significantly weaken the bonding between ice and coatings, that is, reduce the fracture toughness. The new coatings have a remarkable effect toward large-scale icing.

ABSTRACTAccurate diagnosis of the origin of brain metastases (BMs) is crucial for tailoring an effective therapy to improve patients’ prognosis. BMs of unknown origin account for approximately 2–14% of patients with BMs. Hence, the aim of this study was to identify the original cancer type of BMs based on their DNA methylation profiles. The DNA methylation profiles of glioma (GM), BM, and seven other types of primary cancers were collected. In comparison with GM, the reversal CpG site pairs were identified for each of the seven other types of primary cancers based on the within-sample relative methylation orderings (RMOs) of the CpG sites. Then, using the reversal CpG site pairs, GMs were distinguished from BMs and the seven other types of primary cancers. All 61 of the GM samples were correctly identified as GM. The cancer type was also identified for the non-GM samples. For the seven other types of primary cancers, greater than 93% of samples of each cancer type were correctly identified as their corresponding cancer type, except for breast cancer, which had an 88% accuracy. For 133 BM samples, 132 BM samples were identified as non-GM, and 95% of the 133 BM samples were correctly classified into their corresponding original cancer types. The RMO-based method can accurately identify the origin of BMs, which is important for precision treatment.

Auxin has been reported to regulate plant growth and development, as well as to mediate plant adaption to abiotic stresses, including drought. AUX/LAXfamily displays auxin uptake functions and comprises four highly conserved genes AUX1and LIKE AUX1(LAX1, LAX2, and LAX3) in Arabidopsis. There are fifteen GmLAXfamily genes in the soybean genomes and several members were regulated by dehydration stress. In this study, the sequence differences and expression pattern of GmLAXs-Iwere analyzed under stress treatment between the soybean drought-tolerant Jindou 21 and drought-sensitive varieties Zhongdou 33. Five homologous genes of AUX1were all responsive to PEG, salt, ABA and IAA stimuli. There were two SNPs in the promoter region of GmLAX4gene, and this gene was differentially expressed in two cultivars. Moreover, our results showed YFP-GmLAXs are predominantly localized in plasma membrane. Taken together, our results suggest that GmLAXsare involved in abiotic response, which can provide theoretical and technical support for the genetic improvement of soybean drought tolerance.

The development of 3D printing techniques has provided a promising platform to study tissue engineering and mechanobiology; however, the pursuit of printability limits the possibility of tailoring scaffolds’ mechanical properties. The brittleness of those scaffolds also hinders potential clinical application. To overcome these drawbacks, a double-network ink composed of only natural biomaterials is developed. A shear-thinning hydrogel made of silk fibroin (SF) and methacrylated hyaluronic acid (MAHA) presents a high mechanical modulus with a low concentration of macromers. The physical cross-linking due to protein folding further increases the strength of the scaffolds. The proposed SF/MAHA scaffold exhibits a storage modulus 10 times greater than that of methacrylated gelatin scaffold, along with better flexibility and biodegradation. The synergistic effect between fibroin and hyaluronic allows us to tailor the mechanical strength of scaffolds without compromising their printability. The hierarchy porous structure of the SF/MAHA scaffolds offers a better spatial microenvironment for the migration and proliferation of cells compared to gelatin scaffolds. For the first time, this strategy achieves 3D printing of natural biomaterials with controlled mechanical characteristics by manipulating the cross-linking of peptide chains. The design of such ductile scaffolds with hydrolysis resistance provides a new platform for the mechanobiology research. It also shows promise in the tissue engineering of musculoskeletal system where structural strength is needed.

Twelve undescribed jatrophane diterpenoids, euphpepluones A–L (1–12), together with seven known analogues (13–19), were isolated from the whole plant of Euphorbia peplus, and their structures were elucidated by spectroscopic studies. The absolute configurations of 1and 4were assigned by X-ray crystallographic analysis. All isolates were investigated for their inhibitory effects against the ATR-Chk1 pathway using a Western blotting assay. As a result, 1, 2, 5, 8, 10, and 16were found to suppress the camptothecin (CPT)-induced phosphorylation of Chk1, indicating that these compounds inhibit the activation of the ATR-Chk1 pathway. A preliminary structure–activity relationship (SAR) study of the isolates was conducted. When compound 10and CPT were combined, apoptosis was induced in A549 cells with PARP cleavage, while there was no apoptotic effect by treatment with CPT or 10alone. The data obtained indicate that 10potentiates the chemotherapeutic sensitivity of A549 cells to CPT.

Despite high global vaccination coverage, Newcastle disease (ND) remains a constant threat to poultry producers owing to low antibody levels. Given the respiratory mucosa is the important site for Newcastle disease virus (NDV) vaccination, enhancing respiratory mucosal immunity may help control ND. Our previous study showed that mulberry leaf polysaccharide (MLP) is very promising in delivering a robust balanced immune response, but the effects of it on respiratory immunity in chicks are unknown. In this study, we evaluated the potential of MLP to activate respiratory mucosal immunity and revealed the possible mechanism of MLP as an immunopotentiator for ND vaccines. Chicks were randomly divided into 5 groups: blank control, vaccination control (VC), and low-, middle-, and high-dose MLP (MLP-L, MLP-M, and MLP-H) (n = 30). The serum results of humoral and cell-mediated immune responses showed significant increases in NDV hemagglutination inhibition antibody titer, IgG and IgA antibody levels, and the T-lymphocyte population in the MLP-M group compared with the VC group. Validation of results also indicated remarkable increases in tracheal antibody-mediated immunity and a mucosal immune response in the MLP-M group. Furthermore, the upregulation of TLR7 revealed a possible mechanism. Our findings provided evidence to consider MLP as a potential mucosal vaccine adjuvant candidate against ND in chickens.

Effective oil-water separation is a continuous pursuit, not only for scientific research but also for engineering application, because oil spills are causing the great pollution in the current ocean environment. Here we reported a superhydrophobic coated-mesh, where the coatings were composed of fluorinated silica (F-SiO 2) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), demonstrating the excellent oil-water separation ability towards various organic liquids. The introduction of F-SiO 2 could well induce a certain extent of microscopic roughness, leading to the remarkable water repellence. The resultant coatings exhibited the robust superhydrophobicity with the water contact angle reaching 155.9°±1.0°. On this basis, the pore size of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) mesh materials (as a substrate) was mainly discussed with the great oil-water separation efficiency of as high as 98% towards various organic liquids. Also, under the assistance of physical model, it was confirmed that there was a mechanical relation between pore size and organic liquids, where the main connotation was the matching issue of surface tension of organic liquids with the geometrical mechanic (induced by the pore size of the superhydrophobic coated-mesh). This work on the size effect of superhydrophobic coated-mesh materials on various organic liquids is beneficial to the design and manufacture of ideal oil-water separation materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACTRNA secondary structure elements in the mRNA 3ʹ-untranslated regions (3ʹUTR) play important roles in post-transcriptional regulation. RNA structure elements in the viral RNA provide valuable model for studying diverse regulation mechanisms. Herpesvirus genomes are double-stranded DNA with GC-rich sequences, which can be transcribed into abundant GC-rich RNAs. It is valuable to explore the structures and function of those GC-rich RNAs. We identified a G2-quadruplex-forming sequence named PQS18-1 in the 3ʹUTR of the unique immediate early gene of Pseudorabies virus (PRV), an important member of Alphaherpesvirinaesubfamily. The RNA PQS18-1 was folded into parallel G-quadruplex structure, enhancing gene expression. Both non-G-quadruplex mutant and G3-quadruplex mutant in the 3ʹUTR showed lower gene expression level than the wildtype G2-quadruplex. TMPyP4 destroyed PQS18-1 G2-quadruplex and suppressed gene expression, accordingly reducing PRV replication by one titre in the PK15 cells at 24 h post infection. Our findings indicated that the RNA G2-quadruplex in 3ʹUTR was essential for high expression of IE180gene, and it could be a specific post-transcription regulation element in response to small molecules or other macromolecules. This study discovers a novel RNA G2-quadruplex in the 3ʹUTR of an immediate early gene of alphaherpesvirus and provides a new nucleic acid target for anti-virus drug design.

This study aims to investigate the effects of albendazole on pancreatic cancer cells and to explore the possible mechanisms involved. MTT, colony formation, wound healing and Transwell assays and immunocytochemistry analyses of proliferation antigen Ki-67 were employed to evaluate the role of albendazole in pancreatic cancer cell line proliferation and migration. Moreover, flow cytometry cell apoptosis evaluation was used for mechanism analysis. Finally, the in-vivo effects of albendazole were examined in an in-vivo nude mouse xenograft model. Compared to the control treatment, albendazole significantly decreased the growth of the pancreatic cancer cell lines SW1990 and PANC-1 in a time- and dose-dependent manner, as evidenced by decreased MTT absorbance, colony number and Ki-67 levels. Furthermore, albendazole decreased cell migration in 2- and 3-dimensional models in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, albendazole increased the apoptotic cell ratio in a dose-dependent manner. Finally, the in-vivo results confirmed that albendazole could decrease tumor growth. We demonstrated the inhibitory effects of albendazole on pancreatic cell proliferation and migration in vitroand in vivo, which indicate that albendazole might serve as a novel treatment modality for pancreatic cancer.

Sustainability, eco-efficiency, and green chemistry guide the development of new materials in various fields. Herein, we designed and fabricated bio-based superhydrophobic coatings by means of a facile spraying synthesized method. The as-prepared superhydrophobic coatings exhibited high water repellency with higher water contact angle being up to 156.9 ± 2.7° and a lower sliding angle of only 4.3 ± 0.6°. Also, the water adhesion on the superhydrophobic coatings was as low as 11 μN, which was far less than that (346 μN) of the normal polyurethane surfaces. The superhydrophobic properties still retained high stability under the conditions of soaking in acid solution (pH = 1) and alkaline solution (pH = 13). Meanwhile, the as-prepared bio-based superhydrophobic coatings were verified for effective corrosion and pollution protection ability. The electrochemical measurements showed excellent corrosion resistance with a higher corrosion voltage of −204.7 mV and lower corrosion current of 1.494 × 10–5A/cm2. The corrosion protection efficiency reached a value of 95.2%, and meantime, the superhydrophobic coatings displayed higher antipollution performance without any stains when they were removed from the polluted liquids. On this basis, the underlying physical–chemical mechanisms clearly revealed that the surface micro-nanostructures could capture the continuous and stable air layer to segregate the corrosion and pollution media.

We present herein a rare and efficient method for the creation of vinylated all carbon quaternary centers via Fe-catalyzed cross-electrophile coupling of vinyl halides with tertiary alkyl methyl oxalates. The reaction displays excellent functional group tolerance and broad substrate scope, which allows cascade radical cyclization and vinylation to afford complex bicyclic and spiral structural motifs. The reaction proceeds via tertiary alkyl radicals, and the putative vinyl–Br/Fe complexation appears to be crucial for activating the alkene and enabling a possibly concerted radical addition/C–Fe forming process.

Seed vigor plays an essential role in soybean production. Soybean seed is sensitive to environment and easy to get seed deterioration. Generally soybean seed vigor can be maintained for less than one year and have to be multiplied every year. Varieties with good seed vigor are essential for maintaining planting population and stable yield. In this research, 419 germplasms from three eco-regions, South China, Huanghuai region and Northeast China, were evaluated for seed vigor by assessing germination ratio, germination potential and germination index. About 34.8% of tested germplasm had germination ratio equal or more than 85%, suggested by the national soybean seed quality standard of China. Only 9 from 82 tested cultivars met the seed standard. Seed germination ratio distribution had obvious regional feature. Landraces performed better seed vigor than cultivars. Germplasms from South China had stronger seed vigor compared to those from Huanghuai and Northeast regions. Seed vigor has no significant relationship with maturity and 100-seed weight. Totally 21 germplasms with strong seed vigor, favor maturation and seed size were identified and can be used in future breeding program.

Soybean (Glycine max) is one of the most important economic legume crops with largest planting area, and is also an important oil crop, as well as food and feed material. Soybean-rhizobia symbiosis plays important roles in plant cultivation and fertilizer application. However, there are many problems in agricultural application of soybean symbiotic nitrogen fixation. In this review, we summarized three restriction factors (host specificity, low nitrogen fixation efficiency and abiotic stress) and discussed research progresses of these factors. Clarification of host specific mechanism will help to select and apply rhizobia inoculants. Both maintaining high nitrogenase activity and delaying nodule senescence can improve the efficiency of symbiotic nitrogen fixation. Abiotic stress-tolerant rhizobia can improve the abiotic stress tolerance of soybean. Breeding stress tolerant genotypes of soybean and rhizobia, obtaining correlated genes are the common strategies to improve soybean symbiotic nitrogen fixation under extreme conditions. Regulatory mechanisms of these restriction factors are still poorly understood and needs further clarification.

Soybean (Glycine max) is a legume crop with great economic value that provides rich protein and oil for human food and animal feed. In order to cope with the ever-increasing need for soybean products and the changing environment, soybean genetic improvement needs to be accelerated. In recent years, the rapid developed genome editing technologies, such as zinc finger nuclease (ZFNs), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR associated protein (CRISPR/Cas), have shown broad application prospects in gene function research and improvement of important agronomic traits in many crops, and has also brought opportunities for soybean breeding. Here we systematically reviewed recent advances in genome editing technology. We also summarized the significances, current applications, challenges and future perspectives in soybean genome editing, which could provide references for exerting the feature and advantage of this technology to better soybean improvement.

The surface with the gradient non-wettability intensely appeals to researchers because of its academic significance and applications for directional droplet movement. Herein, we developed a homogeneous structure superhydrophobic surface with the gradient non-wettability by a combination strategy of chemical etching and vapor diffusion modification. As a consequence, the as-prepared surface exhibits a remarkable gradient characteristic of water repellency, and the water contact angle is mainly located within the range of 162 ± 0.5 to 149 ± 0.4°. Meanwhile, the sliding angle also exhibits a corresponding change from 3 to 11°. On this basis, the gradient characteristic of non-wettability induces the distinguishing droplet adhesion on the surface, that is, from 19 μN for the most hydrophobic end to 57 μN for the opposite one. Because of the difference of the water adhesion force, droplets on the as-prepared surface can well roll alongside a specific direction (i.e., gradient direction of non-wettability). In terms of dynamic impact droplets, they can rapidly rebound off the sample surface with the short contact time of 12.8 ms, and the finally fallen droplets mainly deviate toward weaker regions because of water repellency. To analyze this phenomenon, it is found that the asymmetric mechanic behavior is mainly caused by the unbalanced retraction force between the both ends of the impact droplet. This work provides a novel strategy to construct the homogeneous structure superhydrophobic surface with the gradient non-wettability for the applications in the droplet movement control or transport.

The development of high-performance carbon-based composite hosts play decisive roles in the electrochemistry of lithium sulfur batteries. Herein, a novel metal-ion induced gelation self-assembly technology is reported to construct sodium alginate carbon (SAC) based polar hierarchical carbon composites with cross-linked network architecture and in-situco-grown cross-linked polar nanoparticles. Interestingly, it shows high versatility to an extensive array of materials including metals, alloys, and metallic oxides. As a representative, NiCo alloy nanoparticles are chosen to obtain the SAC/NiCo composite host for sulfur in LSBs, which possess superior physical/chemical adsorption capabilities and catalytic conversion kinetics to polysulfide in virtue of synergistic interaction between the hierarchical pore structures and NiCo catalyst. The designed SAC/NiCo-S cathode shows superior electrochemical performance with excellent rate capacity (2 C: 693.5 mAh/g) and enhanced cycling stability (764.3 mAh/g at 0.1 C after 240 cycles). This work provides a straightforward approach for fabricating multifunctional carbon composites with adjustable component for advanced energy storage system.

To investigate the impact of the coupling effects of carbon fiber reinforced polymer in the seat back layer on the performance of car seats, this paper presents a comprehensive optimization design method for composite materials. In detail, the finite element models firstly established and validated through five typical working conditions of automotive seats based on experimental data. Then, the optimized variables are divided and determined through backrest stress nephograms for each working conditions of the automotive seats, in which the various perspective are taken into account, such as the total mass of seat backrest, safety performance, and comfort index. Subsequently, an optimization strategy for unequal thickness layers lay-up design is constructed, which combines strength factors, optimal Latin hypercube sampling, best-worst method, gray relational analysis, and Visekriterijumsko KOmpromisno Rangiranje method for the optimal design of the automotive CFRP seat backrest. Additionally, the impact of layer coupling effects on different performance indices of the seat is examined through simulating and analyzing the seat backrest with various layer coupling types, while incorporating the classical laminate theory. The study reveals that by minimizing the laminate coupling effect, the comfort of the seat can be enhanced. Finally, a comprehensive comparative analysis of the optimal trade-off solution is carried out in terms of optimization strategies. The results show that ensuring the safety performance, the total mass of the seat backrest decreased by 21.3%, as a result of the optimization strategy proposed in this paper, and the comfort performance is also improved to some extent. Therefore, the multi-objective optimization strategy proposed in this paper performs well in terms of effectiveness and provides a reliable reference for related composite material multi-objective optimization.

Gallium oxide (Ga2O3) is the promising material for the solar-blind photodetector (SBPD) because of its ultra-wide energy band gap. In this paper, the metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) SBPDs were fabricated based on the high quality single crystal β-Ga2O3nanobelts grown by carbothermal reduction without catalyst. The influences of annealing treatment for devices were investigated. The increase of annealing temperature (Ta) improved the SBPD's performance greatly. Ultra-low dark currents of ∼0.89 ​pA and ∼3.58 ​pA at 20 ​V were achieved after Ta ​= ​500 ​°C and 550 ​°C annealing process, respectively. Meanwhile, at the optimal Taof 550 ​°C, the device achieves excellent performance: high photo-to-dark current ratio of more than 106, high responsivity (867 A/W), high external quantum efficiency (4.2 ​× ​105%), and high detectivity (1.8 ​× ​1015cmHz1/2W−1(Jones)).

To find small-molecule regulators of RXRα, a phytochemical study of Hypericum elodeoideswas conducted. Fifteen compounds, including the new 1and 6, were isolated from the whole plant of H. elodeoides. The absolute configuration of 1was assigned by comparison of experimental and calculated ECD data. Compounds 1and 6exhibited concentration-dependent inhibitory effects on RXRα transcription and selectively inhibited the proliferation of HeLa cells. Western blot analysis suggested that 1and 6induced apoptosis of HeLa cells with time- and dose-dependent PARP cleavage. A caspase activation assay indicated that these two compounds triggered caspase-8 activation to induce apoptosis by the extrinsic pathway. Molecular docking results suggested that 1and 6interacted with the Arg319 moiety of RXRα-LBD. Ligands binding to RXRα have shown promise in the discovery of anticancer drugs. A fluorescence quenching assay indicated the binding of 1and 6to the RXRα with the binding constant (KD) fitted as 68.3 and 14.0 μM, respectively. A preliminary SAR study of the isolates was conducted to enhance the knowledge of the RXRα ligands. Thus, 1and 6might act as the small-molecule regulators of RXRα, which target RXRα and mediate HeLa cell apoptosis through the extrinsic pathways.

Ficus hirtaVahl. (Wuzhimaotao) is an edible functional food used for the soup cooking and health products. Seven undescribed phenolic glycosides (1–7), along with 20 analogues, were isolated from the roots of Ficus hirta. Their structures were determined by comprehensive spectroscopic methods (UV, IR, HRESIMS, and NMR), while the absolute configuration of 1was established by comparison of the experimental and calculated ECD data. The antineuroinflammatory effects of all the compounds were examined by Western blot. Compounds 1and 11attenuated the phosphorylation of AKT, JNK, and ERK1/2. In addition, compound 11inhibited the NF-κB p65 phosphorylation. Our results indicated that compounds 1and 11decreased the occurrence of neuroinflammation in BV2 microglia cells, which might be regulated by inhibiting the activity of proteins in NF-κB, MAPK (JNK and ERK1/2), or AKT signaling pathways. Thus, 1and 11might exhibit antineuroinflammatory activities and show promise in treating neurodegenerative diseases.

Intrinsically disordered proteins and regions (IDPs and IDRs) have attracted increasing interest with their abundance in the human proteome and critical roles in various human diseases. However, the characterization of structural dynamics of IDPs presents a challenge to general experimental methods due to their highly heterogeneous ensembles. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation has been an alternative method with recent advances in computation power. Nevertheless, it is imperative that eligible predictions are determined by a highly precise force field, but traditional force fields sometimes give a collapsed disorder structure and overestimate the stability of IDPs. Here, we present a novel residue-specific force field, OPLSIDPSFF, to correct backbone dihedral terms for all 20 natural amino acids based on OPLS-AA/L. Extensive tests of 11 IDPs and two short peptides show that the simulated chemical shifts and J-coupling with the OPLSIDPSFF force field are in quantitative agreement with those from NMR experimental observables and are more accurate than the base generic force field. The influences of solvent models were also investigated, and it was found that TIP4P-D water had positive effects on limited observables. Furthermore, OPLSIDPSFF can still be used to model structural and dynamic properties of two tested folded proteins and fast-folding proteins. These findings confirm that the newly developed residue-specific force field OPLSIDPSFF can improve the conformer sampling of intrinsically disordered and folded proteins.

This work is focused on the development of a facile strategy to fabricate superhydrophobic coatings, which are characterized with lower water freezing temperature and lower ice adhesion. First, a kind of polyacrylic acid (PAA) based resin material is synthesized as the coating-matrix. Then the functionally-modified SiO2nanoparticles are added to regulate the surface morphology for obtaining the ideal superhydrophobicity. The as-synthesized resin coatings possess strong bonding strength with metal substrate, and the surface hierarchical morphologies (10 wt% SiO2nanoparticles) induce the robust superhydrophobicity with a high water contact angle of 152°. Also, the superhydrophobic coatings are endowed with high icephobicity, and the freezing temperature of reference water droplet is reduced to −20.33°C comparing with that (−13.83°C) on the coatings without additive nanoparticles. Furthermore, the ice adhesion strength on the superhydrophobic coatings is only 250 kPa, exhibiting the great ability of ice repellence.

To apply hydrotalcites more effectively to the problem of dye wastewater, the effects of divalent metal ions on the structure and stability of hydrotalcites, especially on their photocatalytic activity, were compared. In the present study, M/Cr hydrotalcites (M3Cr-CO3-LDHs) (in which M= Mg, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn), where the M/Cr molar ratio was 3, were prepared by the co-precipitation method. The structures and properties were characterized using powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric-differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA), and UV-Visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-Vis DRS). The results showed that five kinds of M3Cr-CO3-LDHs were synthesized successfully, and the layered structure of the samples obtained was regular and the crystal phase was single. When methylene blue (MB) solution was exposed to ZnCr-CO3-LDHs, H2O2, and visible light irradiation, more than 90.67% of the methylene blue (MB) was removed after 140 min. The photocatalytic activity of the samples was in the order: Co3Cr-CO3-LDHs > Mg3Cr-CO3-LDHs > Cu3Cr-CO3-LDHs > Zn3Cr-CO3-LDHs > Ni3Cr-CO3-LDHs. The results of a catalytic mechanism study showed that photocatalytic degradation of MB involved a demethylation reaction, with the reactive species containing •O2-, •OH, and h+.