Search

Lactate-enriched tumor microenvironment (TME) fosters an immunosuppressive milieu to hamper the functionality of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). However, tackling the immunosuppressive effects wrought by lactate accumulation is still a big challenge. Herein, we construct a dual enzyme-driven cascade reaction platform (ILH) with immunosuppressive TME modulation for photoacoustic (PA) imaging-guided catalytic therapy and immune activation. The ILH is composed of iridium (Ir) metallene nanozyme, lactate oxidase (LOx), and hyaluronic acid (HA). The combination of Ir nanozyme and LOx can not only efficiently consume lactate to reverse the immunosuppressive TME into an immunoreactive one by promoting the polarization of TAMs from the M2 to M1 phenotype, thus enhancing antitumor defense, but also alleviate tumor hypoxia as well as induce strong oxidative stress, thus triggering immunogenic cell death (ICD) and activating antitumor immunity. Furthermore, the photothermal performance of Ir nanozyme can strengthen the cascade catalytic ability and endow ILH with a PA response. Based on the changes in PA signals from endogenous molecules, three-dimensional multispectral PA imaging was utilized to track the process of cascade catalytic therapy in vivo. This work provides a nanoplatform for dual enzyme-driven cascade catalytic therapy and immune activation by regulating the immunosuppressive TME.

To examine the effect of intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) on fetal heart morphology. This case–control study was conducted with 40 women with ICP and 54 pregnant controls. Fetal heart quantification based on speckle tracking technology was used to assess the morphology of the fetal right and left ventricles. Routine ventricular size parameters, global and 24‐segment spherical indices (SIs) were measured and compared between groups. The routine fetal cardiac parameters, global and right‐ventricular SIs did not differ between the ICP and control groups. The left‐ventricular apical (segments 16‐24) SIs were lower in the ICP group than in the control group (P< .05), with no significant difference in the other left‐ventricular segments. Subclinical morphological changes were observed in the left ventricular apical segments of the fetal hearts in women with ICP, which indicates an intrauterine environment with high bile acid concentrations. Twenty‐four‐segment SIs can be used to effectively evaluate these changes.

The mechanical properties of the sample and the stability of retained austenite were studied by designing two kinds of ultra-fine bainitic steel with different heat treatment methods (austempering above and below Ms(martensite start temperature)), which were subjected to tensile tests at 20 and 450 °C, respectively. The results show that compared to room temperature (20 °C) tensile properties, the uniform elongation of the sample at high temperature (450 °C) significantly decreased. Specifically, the uniform elongation of the sample austempered above Msdecreased from 8.0% to 3.5%, and the sample austempered below Msdecreased from 10.9% to 3.1%. Additionally, the tensile strength of the sample austempered above Mssignificantly decreased (from 1281 to 912 MPa), and the sample austempered below Msslightly decreased (from 1010 to 974 MPa). This was due to the high carbon content (1.60 wt.%), high mechanical stability, low thermal stability for the retained austenite of the sample austempered below Ms. Besides, the retained austenite decomposed at high temperatures, the carbon content and transformation driving force were significantly reduced, the transformation rate increased, and the phase transformation content reduced.

Byline: Zhu. Huang, Ting. He, Junna. Zhang, Chixin. Du Myopia is one of the main causes of visual impairment worldwide. Preventing myopia and providing myopia-related interventions are of paramount importance. [...]

Gambogenic acid is a derivative of gambogic acid, a polyprenylated xanthone isolated from Garcinia hanburyi. Compared with the more widely studied gambogic acid, gambogenic acid has demonstrated advantages such as a more potent antitumor effect and less systemic toxicity than gambogic acid according to early investigations. Therefore, the present review summarizes the effectiveness and mechanisms of gambogenic acid in different cancers and highlights the mechanisms of action. In addition, drug delivery systems to improve the bioavailability of gambogenic acid and its pharmacokinetic profile are included. Gambogenic acid has been applied to treat a wide range of cancers, such as lung, liver, colorectal, breast, gastric, bladder, and prostate cancers. Gambogenic acid exerts its antitumor effects as a novel class of enhancer of zeste homolog 2 inhibitors. It prevents cancer cell proliferation by inducing apoptosis, ferroptosis, and necroptosis and controlling the cell cycle as well as autophagy. Gambogenic acid also hinders tumor cell invasion and metastasis by downregulating metastasis-related proteins. Moreover, gambogenic acid increases the sensitivity of cancer cells to chemotherapy and has shown effects on multidrug resistance in malignancy. This review adds insights for the prevention and treatment of cancers using gambogenic acid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is critical for non-shivering thermogenesis making it a promising therapeutic strategy to combat obesity and metabolic disease. However, the regulatory mechanisms underlying brown fat formation remain incompletely understood. Here, we found SOX4 is required for BAT development and thermogenic program. Depletion of SOX4 in BAT progenitors (Sox4-MKO) or brown adipocytes (Sox4-BKO) resulted in whitened BAT and hypothermia upon acute cold exposure. The reduced thermogenic capacity of Sox4-MKOmice increases their susceptibility to diet-induced obesity. Conversely, overexpression of SOX4 in BAT enhances thermogenesis counteracting diet-induced obesity. Mechanistically, SOX4 activates the transcription of EBF2, which determines brown fat fate. Moreover, phosphorylation of SOX4 at S235 by PKA facilitates its nuclear translocation and EBF2 transcription. Further, SOX4 cooperates with EBF2 to activate transcriptional programs governing thermogenic gene expression. These results demonstrate that SOX4 serves as an upstream regulator of EBF2, providing valuable insights into BAT development and thermogenic function maintenance.

The lack of a convenient and effective real-time settlement mechanism is the main factor, which limits the enthusiasm of users to participate in V2G. To build a real-time measurement, real-time transaction, and real-time settlement mechanism, realize the synchronization of fund flow, energy flow, information flow, and improve the participation rate of V2G, a new e-CNY V2G real-time settlement system is constructed in this article. e-CNY is an electronic currency system that is backed by the “Central Bank of China.” First, the basic characteristics and operation modes of e-CNY are analyzed. Second, based on the settlement upon payment and programmable features of e-CNY, a new real-time settlement system is constructed, which is composed of V2G pile-side dc energy metering, e-CNY real-time settlement device, and electric vehicle-side e-CNY digital wallet. Finally, the prediction and analysis of the electric vehicles ownership, the charge capacity of electric vehicle, and the power consumption per 100 kilometers in Shanghai from 2022 to 2032 are performed. According to the simulation results of the economy for orderly charging and V2G after using e-CNY V2G real-time settlement system, it indicates that the user participation rate significantly promotes the annual internal revenue under different participation rates for orderly charging and V2G modes.

To improve the performance of the energy storage system of electric vehicles, a complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition-fuzzy logic control energy management strategy is proposed to attenuate the aging of lithium-ion batteries caused by high-frequency power demand. Firstly, the electric vehicle power demand is decomposed into a finite number of intrinsic mode functions components, and each component is reconstructed into low-frequency or high-frequency components according to its permutation entropy. Then, the low-frequency and high-frequency components of electric vehicle power demand are allocated to lithium-ion batteries and ultracapacitors, respectively. Finally, fuzzy logic based closed loop controller is designed to maintain the state of charge of ultracapacitors at the desired level. Experiments under HWFET, UDDS, US06 and combined drive cycles are performed, and experimental results show that compared with single energy storage system and other state-of-the-art methods, the proposed strategy can effectively reduce the maximum discharge current of the lithium-ion batteries and maintenance the state of charge balance of the ultracapacitor.

Transient performance of vanadium-compensated semi-insulating 4H-silicon carbide (SiC) photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSSs) is investigated through experimental testing and simulation under 532-nm laser triggering. Two types of impurity compensation (vanadium/nitrogen/boron) are presented: shallow-donor deep-acceptor (SDDA) and deep-donor shallow-acceptor (DDSA). The internal physical mechanism model is built to simulate the observed difference in device performance. Three vertical PCSS devices with varying doping concentrations are fabricated and tested under light peak power of several hundreds of kilowatts and operational voltages ranging from 0.5 to 10 kV. The maximum electrical peak power achieved by the SDDA device (a peak current of ~40 A) is higher than that of DDSA devices (a peak current of ~15 A). DDSA devices experienced bulk breakdown at 5 and 4 kV. The SDDA device exhibits superior photoelectric efficiency compared to DDSA devices due to the higher electron mobility. Moreover, the long tail in the photocurrent response of DDSA device is attributed to the presence of B hole traps (HTs), which leads to bulk breakdown and weak frequency response characteristics.

Modeling and prevention of cascading failure in power systems are important topics of research. We propose a dynamic cascading failure model that considers realistic interdependencies between power and communication networks used for system monitoring and control in power grids. In this model, power line outages do not immediately disconnect communication links, whereas communication nodes have battery backup that starts depleting after considerable load shedding in the collocated bus or bus outage. When a communication node’s battery is fully depleted, the node disconnects from the cyber layer, potentially reducing the observability and controllability of the power grid. A centralized optimal preventive controller (OPC) to minimize load shedding is proposed for cascade mitigation, which is applied selectively on fully observable and controllable islands. The OPC considers AC power flow equations, multiple hard constraints, and treats overloading of lines as soft constraints. The results of Monte-Carlo simulations on the IEEE 118-bus and the 2,383-bus Polish systems demonstrate that the proposed OPC is effective in mitigating cascading failures. Finally, we demonstrate that our recently proposed Backward Euler method with Predictor-Corrector can reduce the average simulation time by approximately 9–26-folds compared to the Trapezoidal method with acceptable accuracy.

M–Nxsingle-atom catalysts (SACs) with a high coordination number (x> 4) are effective catalysts for eliminating organic pollutants, while the origin of SACs with high activity still remains elusive. In this work, we successfully synthesized an Fe–N5SAC with axial N coordination, which exhibited exceptional catalytic performance by peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation for degrading 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) in a wide pH range (4.0–10.0). The rate constant of Fe–N5(2.99 min−1) was 6.36 times higher than that of Fe–N4, and the turnover frequency (TOF) of Fe–N5was found to be 4–149 times higher than those of state-of-the-art SACs and nanocatalysts reported in the literature for 4-CP degradation by PMS activation. Moreover, Fe–N5was not significantly affected by coexisting substances (HA, HCO3−, SO42−, H2PO4−, NO3−, and Cl−) and had satisfactory degradation efficiency for various chlorophenols. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), quenching experiments, and radical probe experiments demonstrated that 1O2played a key role in the Fe–N5/PMS system for 4-CP degradation. Density functional theory calculations confirmed that a narrower gap between the Fe-3d band center and Fermi level enhanced the electron transfer in Fe–N5, which resulted in promoted PMS activation. In addition, the Fe–N5/PMS system showed good potential for application in real wastewater. The above findings offer important implications for the future of coordination chemistry in designing M–Nx–C SACs (x> 4), highlighting their practical applications in environmental remediation.

Optoelectronic logic gates (OELGs) are promising building blocks for next-generation logic circuits and potential applications in light detection and ranging, machine vision and real-time video analysis. On-chip OELGs operating at telecom wavelengths are highly desirable for integration with the growing possibilities offered by silicon-based optoelectronics. However, at present operations are limited to linear logic functions in the ultraviolet or visible range and high-performance OELGs for multiple logic functions are lacking. Here we integrate up to three silicon waveguides with black phosphorus for optoelectronic logic operations at 1.55 μm. We demonstrate linear (AND, OR, NOT, NAND, NOR) and nonlinear (XOR and XNOR) OELGs by programming optical inputs into the waveguides and reading out electronic signals. The devices exhibit a responsivity as high as 0.35 A W−1and a 3 dB bandwidth of 230 MHz. The combination of a photovoltaic OR gate and a voltage-switchable AND gate enables two-layer composite logic computing in the form (A + B)C. We also demonstrate symbol recognition, edge extraction, image fusion and encryption/decryption performed by these OELGs. This work paves the way for the development of new optoelectronic logic computing circuits.

Introduction:The triglyceride glucose (TyG) index is a reliable alternative biomarker of insulin resistance, but the association between the TyG index and acute kidney injury (AKI) in critically ill patients remains unclear. Methods:The data for the study were extracted from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV (MIMIC-IV) database. Cox regression and restricted cubic spline (RCS) analysis were performed to analyze the association between the TyG index and all-cause mortality. Besides, Cox regression was carried out in subgroups of age, gender, BMI, diabetes history, and dialysis status. Results:A total of 7,508 critically ill participants with AKI from the MIMIC-IV database were included in this study, with 3,688 (49.12%) participants failed to survive. In Cox regression, after confounder adjustment, patients with a higher TyG index had a higher risk of all-cause mortality (HR = 1.845, 95% CI = 1.49–2.285, p< 0.001). In RCS, after confounder adjustment, the risk of death was positively correlated with the increased value of the TyG index when TyG index surpassed 10.014. This relationship was validated in age, gender, BMI, diabetes subgroups but not in the dialysis subgroup. Interestingly, RCS analysis demonstrated that, in patients undertaking dialysis, there is a “U”-shaped curve for the value of TyG index and risk of all-cause mortality. When TyG index is less than 10.460, the risk of all-cause mortality would decrease with the increased value of TyG index, while when TyG index is higher than 11.180, the risk of all-cause mortality would increase firmly with the increased value of TyG index. Conclusion:Overall, a higher TyG index is associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality in critically ill AKI. Interestingly, the relationship in the dialysis subgroup follows a “U”-shaped curve, indicating the importance of proper clinical blood glucose and lipid management in this particular population.

In this study, a combination of adsorption–embedding and cross-linking methods was employed to prepare immobilized pellets using modified red brick as the carrier and Bacillus subtilisas the target bacterium for the removal of trichloromethane (TCM). The optimal preparation technology for the immobilized pellets was also optimized. Results demonstrated that when the adsorption time of modified red brick to Bacillus subtiliswas 24 h, the temperature was 37°C, the rotation speed was 160 rpm, the concentration of the embedding agent sodium alginate was 1.5%, the concentration of calcium chloride was 3%, and the cross-linking time was 6 h, the composite immobilized agent showed a TCM removal percentage of 75%. This was significantly higher than the pure modified red brick with free bacteria and unfixed microorganisms.

Malnutrition is associated with adverse outcomes in acute or chronic diseases. However, the prediction value of the Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index (GNRI) in critically ill patients with acute kidney injury (AKI) has not been well studied.

The development of chiral covalentorganic framework catalysts (CCOFs) to synthesize enantiopure organic compounds is crucial and highly desirable in synthetic chemistry. Photocatalytic asymmetric reactions based on CCOFs are eco-friendly and sustainable while they are still elaborate. In this work, we report a general bottom–up strategy to successfully synthesize several photoactive CCOFX (X = 1–5 and 1-Boc). The photoactive porphyrin building blocks are selected as knots and various secondary-amine-based chiral catalytic centers are immobilized on the pore walls of CCOFX through a rational design of benzoimidazole linkers. The porphyrin units act as light-harvesting antennae to generate photo-induced charge carriers for the activation of bromide during the photocatalytic asymmetric alkylation of aldehydes. Meanwhile, various aldehydes are activated by the chiral secondary amine to form the target products with a high yield (up to 97%) and ee value (up to 93%). The results significantly expand the scope to predesign CCOF photocatalysts for visible-light-driven asymmetric catalysis.

In-network caching and flexible routing are two of the most celebrated advantages of next generation network infrastructures. Yet few solutions are available for jointly optimizing caching and routing that provide performance guarantees for networks with arbitrary topology. We take a holistic approach towards this fundamental problem by analyzing its complexity in all the cases and developing polynomial-time algorithms with approximation guarantees in important special cases. We also reveal the fundamental challenge in achieving guaranteed approximation in the general case and propose an alternating optimization algorithm with good empirical performance and fast convergence. Our algorithms have demonstrated superior performance in both routing cost and congestion compared to the state-of-the-art solutions in evaluations based on real topology and request traces.

Natural enzymes are crucial in biological systems and widely used in biology and medicine, but their disadvantages, such as insufficient stability and high-cost, have limited their wide application. Since Fe3O4nanoparticles were found to show peroxidase-like activity, researchers have designed and developed a growing number of nanozymes that mimic the activity of natural enzymes. Nanozymes can compensate for the defects of natural enzymes and show higher stability with lower cost. Iron, a nontoxic and low-cost transition metal, has been used to synthesize a variety of iron-based nanozymes with unique structural and physicochemical properties to obtain different enzymes mimicking catalytic properties. In this perspective, catalytic mechanisms, activity modulation, and their recent research progress in sensing, tumor therapy, and antibacterial and anti-inflammatory applications are systematically presented. The challenges and perspectives on the development of iron-based nanozymes are also analyzed and discussed.

Polycarboxylate superplasticizers (PCEs) with different molecular structure had been synthesized and characterized by FT-IR. PCEs were mainly included polyester (Type A), polyether (Type B) and ester ether copolymer (Type C). The application properties, adsorption behaviors and hydration process were investigated. The TOC was used to measure the adsorption amount, and crystal components in the hydration products were detected by XRD analysis. Test showed that Type B had the excellent performance, including large water reduction rate and strong adsorption capacity. The ester group in the molecular structure of Type A and C could improve the fluidity retention of cement paste, but the hydrolysis of ester group also weakened adsorption capacity on cement particles. In addition, in the cement-water-PCEs system, the difference of molecular structure would affect the early hydration process of cement slurry. For example, research indicated that the main hydration peak and maximum elevated temperature was delayed by adding PCEs. Through the examination of hydration products, it revealed that the intensity of calcium hydroxide (CH) and ettringite (AFt) peaks with Type B was higher than the other. The concrete application performance results indicated that PCEs had the basically equal contribution to the compressive strength. Keywords molecular structure; ester group; adsorption; hydration products; compressive strength

Mesoporous lamellar-stacked cobalt-based nanopiles with surface-sulfurization modification are integrated with N/S co-doped graphene to build a robust OER/ORR bifunctional electrocatalyst, which endows zinc–air batteries with ultralong-term stability over 4000 cycles.

The effects of polycarboxylic acid (PC), naphthalene sulfonate (NS), and aliphatic (AH) superplasticizers on the carbonation of concrete were investigated. These three kinds of superplasticizers can improve anti-carbonation performance of concrete, and their order according to magnitude of effect are as follows PC > AH > NS. The mechanism behind this phenomenon was investigated using mercury intrusion porosimetry of the concrete, thermogravimetric analysis, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microcopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectrometry of synthetic hydrated products. The effects of superplasticizers on carbonation resistance are associated not only with pore structure but also with the morphology of hydrated products. Keywords: Concrete Carbonation Superplasticizer Pore structure Hydration products Morphology, 1. Introduction A major concern in the deterioration of reinforced concrete is the corrosion of the steel reinforcement. The alkalinity of the concrete at the location of the steel, which [...]

Liquid air energy storage (LAES) is regarded as one of the promising large-scale energy storage technologies due to its characteristics of high energy density, being geographically unconstrained, and low maintenance costs. However, the low liquid yield and the incomplete utilization of compression heat from the charging part limit the round-trip efficiency (RTE) of the LAES system. In this work, the organic Rankine cycle (ORC), absorption refrigeration cycle (ARC), and high temperature heat pump (HTHP) are considered to utilize the surplus compression heat in the LAES system. The ORC and the ARC are adopted to utilize high-grade compression heat in an LAES system with a four-stage compressor and a four-stage expander, while the HTHP is used to utilize medium-grade compression heat in an LAES system with a six-stage compressor and a three-stage expander. The reason is the limited working fluids available for HTHP systems. The LAES-ORC, LAES-ARC, and LAES-HTHP systems are modeled in Aspen HYSYS and optimized by a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. Optimal results indicate that the RTE of the LAES-ORC system is improved from 62.1 to 64.5% with R600a as the working fluid. For the optimized LAES-ARC system, the RTE reaches 63.5% with an increased liquid yield of air of 89.6%. In the LAES-HTHP system, the largest RTE of 58.3% is obtained when the HTHP uses R1233zd as the working fluid, and the result is an increase of 3.7% points compared to the LAES system without an HTHP. Thus, the ORC, the ARC, and the HTHP can effectively improve the performance of the LAES system using the available surplus compression heat.

The development of efficient photocatalysts for N2fixation to produce NH3under ambient conditions remains a great challenge. Since covalent organic frameworks (COFs) possess predesignable chemical structures, good crystallinity, and high porosity, it is highly significant to explore their potential for photocatalytic nitrogen conversion. Herein, we report a series of isostructural porphyrin-based COFs loaded with Au single atoms (COFX–Au, X = 1–5) for photocatalytic N2fixation. The porphyrin building blocks act as the docking sites to immobilize Au single atoms as well as light-harvesting antennae. The microenvironment of the Au catalytic center is precisely tuned by controlling the functional groups at the proximal and distal positions of porphyrin units. As a result, COF1–Au decorated with strong electron-withdrawing groups exhibits a high activity toward NH3production with rates of 333.0 ± 22.4 μmol g–1h–1and 37.0 ± 2.5 mmol gAu–1h–1, which are 2.8- and 171-fold higher than that of COF4–Au decorated with electron-donating functional groups and a porphyrin–Au molecular catalyst, respectively. The NH3production rates could be further increased to 427.9 ± 18.7 μmol g–1h–1and 61.1 ± 2.7 mmol gAu–1h–1under the catalysis of COF5–Au featuring two different kinds of strong electron-withdrawing groups. The structure–activity relationship analysis reveals that the introduction of electron-withdrawing groups facilitates the separation and transportation of photogenerated electrons within the entire framework. This work manifests that the structures and optoelectronic properties of COF-based photocatalysts can be finely tuned through a rational predesign at the molecular level, thus leading to superior NH3evolution.

IntroductionWe implemented a two-sample multivariable Mendelian randomisation (MR) analyses to estimate the causal effect of socioeconomic status and leisure sedentary behaviours on gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GERD).MethodsIndependent single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with socioeconomic status and leisure sedentary behaviours at the genome-wide significance level from the Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit (MRC-IEU) UK Biobank were selected as instrumental variables. Summary-level data for GERD were obtained from a recent publicly available genome-wide association involving 78 707 GERD cases and 288 734 controls of European descent. Univariable and multivariable two-sample MR analyses, using inverse variance weighted method for primary analyses, were performed to jointly evaluate the effect of socioeconomic status and leisure sedentary behaviours on GERD risk.ResultsThree socioeconomic status, including educational attainment (OR 0.46; 95% CI 0.30 to 0.69; p<0.001), average total household income before tax (OR 0.65; 95% CI 0.47 to 0.90; p=0.009) and Townsend Deprivation Index at recruitment (OR 1.60; 95% CI 1.06 to 2.41; p=0.026), were independently and predominately responsible for the genetic causal effect on GERD. In addition, one leisure sedentary behaviour, such as time spent watching television, was independently and predominately responsible for genetic causal effect on GERD (OR 3.74; 95% CI 2.89 to 4.84; p<0.001). No causal effects of social activities and driving on GERD were observed.ConclusionsGenetically predicted Townsend Deprivation Index at recruitment and leisure watching television were causally associated with increased risk of GERD, and age at completion of full-time education and average total household income before tax were causally associated with decreased risk of GERD.

We consider the problem of training a given machine learning model by decentralized parallel stochastic gradient descent over training data distributed across multiple nodes, which arises in many application scenarios. Although extensive studies have been conducted on improving the communication efficiency by optimizing what to communicate between nodes (e.g., model compression) and how often to communicate, recent studies have shown that it is also important to customize the communication patterns between each pair of nodes, which is the focus of this work. To this end, we propose a framework and efficient algorithms to design the communication patterns through Laplacian matrix sampling (LMS), which governs not only which nodes should communicate with each other but also what weights the communicated parameters should carry during parameter aggregation. Our framework is designed to minimize the total cost incurred until convergence based on any given cost model that is additive over iterations, with focus on minimizing the communication cost. Besides achieving a theoretically guaranteed performance in the special case of additive homogeneous communication costs, our solution also achieves superior performance under a variety of network settings and cost models in experiments based on real datasets and topologies, saving 24–50% of the cost compared to the state-of-the-art design without compromising the quality of the trained model.

Two-dimensional (2D) material-based photodetectors, especially those working in the infrared band, have shown great application potential in the thermal imaging, optical communication, and medicine fields. Designing 2D material photodetectors with broadened detection band and enhanced responsivity has become an attractive but challenging research direction. To solve this issue, we report a zirconium trisulfide (ZrS3) infrared photodetector with enhanced and broadened response with the assistance of the synergistic effects of extrinsic photoconduction and photogating effect. The ZrS3photodetectors can detect infrared light up to 2 μm by extrinsic photoconduction and exhibit a responsivity of 100 mA W−1under 1550 nm illumination. Furthermore, the ZrS3infrared photodetectors with an oxide layer show a triple enhanced responsivity due to the photogating effect. Additionally, the infrared imaging capability of the ZrS3infrared photodetectors is also demonstrated. This work provides a potential way to extend the response range and improve the responsivity for nanomaterial-based photodetectors at the same time.

Caches are pervasively used in communication networks to speed up content access by reusing previous communications, where various replacement policies are used to manage the cached contents. The replacement policy of a cache plays a key role in its performance, and is thus extensively engineered to achieve a high hit ratio in benign environments. However, some studies showed that a policy with a higher hit ratio in benign environments may be more vulnerable to cache pollution attacks that intentionally send requests for unpopular contents. To understand the cache performance under such attacks, we analyze a suite of representative replacement policies under the framework of TTL approximation in how well they preserve the hit ratios for legitimate users, while incorporating the delay for the cache to obtain a missing content. We further develop a scheme to adapt the cache replacement policy based on the perceived level of attack. Our analysis and validation on real traces show that although no single policy is resilient to all the attack strategies, suitably adapting the replacement policy can notably improve the attack resilience of the cache. Motivated by these results, we implement selected policies as well as policy adaptation in an open-source SDN switch to manage flow rule replacement, which is shown to notably improve its resilience to pollution attacks.

The state of charge (SOC) is a critical state quantity that must be determined in real-time for a battery energy storage system (BESS). It is a prerequisite for the operation of a BESS. However, obtaining the precise value of SOC is challenging due to it being a hidden state quantity. Existing neural network models commonly employ an end-to-end prediction paradigm for SOC estimation, which fails to fully exploit the rich information present in the time-series battery data. Unlike most studies available in the literature, we propose a novel SOC prediction method named CLDMM. This method is the first to apply contrastive learning techniques from the image field to the SOC prediction of lithium batteries. The method utilizes data augmentation, a multi-scale encoder, and multi-layer perceptrons to learn latent representations and mix these with raw data proportionally for downstream predictive tasks. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated using the Panasonic NCR18650PF dataset, and ablation study were conducted. Experimental results show that CLDMM outperforms baseline methods, achieving an average mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.64% and an average maximum error (MAX) of 2.66%.

The helical undulator is in high demand in synchrotron radiation facilities for circular polarization generation. Owing to the higher field strength provided by the superconducting undulator compared to the conventional permanent-magnet undulator, greater research efforts should be directed toward this area. The helical superconducting undulator holds great potential in synchrotron radiation facilities, especially in low-energy storage rings that seek circularly polarized radiation with the highest possible radiation flux. Following the successful development of planar superconducting undulators, the Institute of High Energy Physics conducted research and development for the helical superconducting undulator. A 0.5-m-long Delta-type superconducting undulator prototype was developed and tested. Detailed information on the design, fabrication, and cryogenic testing of the prototype is presented and discussed.

Introduction:Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is a major source of chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease. The injury of glomerulus in DKD is the primary focus; however, proximal tubulopathy also is an indispensable factor in the progression of DKD. Interleukin-37 (IL-37), an anti-inflammatory cytokine of IL-1 family member, has been demonstrated to be associated with diabetes and its relative complications in recent years, but the effect of IL-37 on renal fibrosis in DKD is unclear. Methods:We established streptozotocin plus high fat diet-induced DKD mice model with wild type or IL-37 transgenic mice. Masson and HE staining, immunostaining, and Western blot were used to observe renal fibrosis. In addition, RNA-sequencing was applied to explore the potential mechanisms of IL-37. In vitro, treatment of human proximal tubular (HK-2) cells with 30 mmol/L high glucose or 300 ng/mL recombinant IL-37 further elucidated the possible mechanism of IL-37 inhibition of DKD renal fibrosis. Results:In this work, we first verified the decreased expression of IL-37 in kidney of DKD patient and its correlation with clinical features of renal impairment. Moreover, IL-37 expression markedly attenuated proteinuria and renal fibrosis in DKD mice. Using RNA-sequencing, we found and confirmed a novel role of IL-37 in ameliorating fatty acid oxidation (FAO) reduction of renal tubular epithelial cells both in vivo and in intro. In addition, further mechanistic studies showed that IL-37 alleviated the FAO reduction in HK-2 cells and renal fibrosis in DKD mice through upregulating carnitine palmitoyl-transferase 1A (CPT1A), an important catalyzer for FAO pathway. Conclusion:These data suggest that IL-37 attenuates renal fibrosis via regulating FAO in renal epithelial cells. Upregulation of IL-37 levels might be an effective therapeutic avenue for DKD.

Naked oat grain is easily contaminated by microorganisms, and it needs pretreatment to extend its shelf life. Low‐temperature plasma treatment (LTPT) has the advantages of less energy consumption, safety, and convenience, and its applications in grain include microbial inactivation and flour modification. Therefore, we studied the changes in oat microbes and the physicochemical properties of oats at different plasma treatment times (0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 min at an output discharge voltage of 60 kV). The results demonstrated that LTPT significantly decreased the number of microorganisms with the increase in treatment time, especially at 20 min. LTPT increased the L* and b* values and decreased the a* value of oat flour. Proper treatment time (5–10 min) did not affect the germination rate of the grain. Compared to the control sample, LTPT increased the water‐binding capacity and swelling power of flour and decreased the peak viscosity, final viscosity, and setback value. However, LTPT did not change the crystal structure. Besides, by fitting the peak of the amide region in Fourier transfer infrared analysis, it was found that the β‐sheet and α‐helix increased after treatment for 5–10 min. These results indicated that LTPT (20 min) can effectively reduce the microbial count of oats and proper time treatment (5–10 min) can regulate the function of the flour and improve its quality. LTPT as a new nonheat treatment technology can not only effectively reduce the microbial content of the grain but also improve the quality of the flour, which is a better pretreatment method for oat flour.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has attained extensive attention as a noninvasive tumor treatment modality. However, the hypoxia in solid tumors, skin phototoxicity of “always on” photosensitizers (PSs), and abundant supply of glutathione (GSH) in cancer cells severely hampered the clinical applications of PDT. Herein, a self-oxygenation nanoplatform (denoted as CZCH) with GSH depletion ability was encapsulated into the hyaluronic acid microneedle patch (MN-CZCH) to simultaneously improve the biosafety and therapeutic efficacy of PDT. The Cu2+-doped porous zeolitic imidazolate framework incorporated with catalase (CAT) is capable of efficiently loading PS 2-(1-hexyloxyethyl)-2-divinylpyropheophorbic-a (HPPH). The CZCH intermingled MN patch (MN-CZCH) could effectively penetrate the stratum corneum, topically transport HPPH to the target tumor site, achieve a long tumor retention time, and enhance the efficacy of PDT via the simultaneously synergistic effect of CAT-catalyzed self-supplying O2and Cu2+-mediated GSH depletion. Using traceable fluorescence (FL) imaging of the released HPPH from CZCH, the FL imaging-guided repeatable PDT can be achieved for enhanced antitumor efficacy. As a result, the MN-CZCH patch exhibited excellent therapeutic efficacy against melanoma with minimal toxicity, which has promising potential for cancer theranostics.

In the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, CO2needs to be removed to 50 ppm to avoid CO2freeze-out under cryogenic conditions. However, in LNG produced from unconventional natural gas that is rich in ethane, the allowance of CO2may be much higher due to the much higher CO2solubility than that in conventional LNG. Considering that CO2solubility data in liquid CH4+ C2H6mixtures are still quite lacking, a static solid–liquid equilibrium experimental setup is built to measure the CO2solubility data. The experiments are carried out at the temperature range of 148–203 K, covering an ethane content of 0–100%. The experimental results are compared with theoretical calculated results based on equations of state and Gibbs–Helmholtz relation. CO2solubility in the CH4+ C2H6mixture increases exponentially with increasing temperature. The addition of ethane significantly increases the CO2solubility in the entire temperature zone, indicating that the purification specification of CO2in natural gas with high ethane content can be significantly enlarged, and it is easier to achieve carbon removal by cryogenic distillation. Furthermore, the increase in CO2solubility in the CH4+ C2H6mixture approximates a logarithmic relationship to the C2H6content.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenator (ECMO) has been in development for nearly 70 years, and the oxygenator has gone through several generations of optimizations, with advances from bubble oxygenators to membrane oxygenators leading to more and more widespread use of ECMO. Membrane is the core of a ECMO system and the working mechanism of membrane oxygenator depends on the membrane material, from PDMS flat membrane to PMP hollow fiber membrane, which have experienced three generations. Blood compatibility on the surface of the membrane material is very vital, which directly determines the use duration of the oxygenator and can reduce the occurrence of complications. The mechanism of mass transfer is the basis of oxygenator operation and optimization. This review summarizes the membrane development history and preparation technology, modification approaches and mass transfer theory in the process of oxygen and blood exchange. We hoped that this review will provide more ideas for the study of gas blood exchange membrane.

A three-component reaction of alkynes, arylzinc chlorides, and iodomethanes was found to proceed in the presence of a rhodium catalyst to give high yields of trisubstituted/tetrasubstituted alkenes. The usual arylzinc chlorides only gave trisubstituted alkenes, generated through a migratory carbozincation–cross-coupling sequence, where 1,4-Rh migration from an alkenyl carbon to an aryl carbon occurred. In contrast, 5-membered heteroarylzinc chlorides only gave the tetrasubstituted alkenes via a carborhodation–cross-coupling pathway without 1,4-migration.

The insect tachykinin-related peptide (TRP), as an ortholog of tachykinin in vertebrates, regulates diverse physiological processes, including stress resistance, locomotion, aggression, lipid metabolism, and myotropic activity. In the present study, the functions of TRP and its receptor (HcTRPR) were investigated in the fall webworm, Hyphantria cunea. The results showed that HcTRPR, a typical G protein-coupled receptor, could be activated by the putative HcTRP mature peptides expressed in HEK293T cells. The effective concentrations (EC50) of TRP3 and TRP6 were 26.35 nM and 8.82 nM, respectively. HcTRP and HcTRPR were expressed in the head, midgut, hindgut, and testis of every developmental stage, and were especially highly expressed at the larval stage. To investigate the roles of HcTRP and HcTRPR in starvation stress and food intake, H. cunea larvae were assessed for the inhibitory effects of HcTRP and HcTRPR on food intake and susceptibility to starvation resistance, followed by determination of insulin-like peptide mRNA expression levels. The results showed that TRP signaling is involved in the regulation of starvation in H. cunea, and that TRP interacts with insulin signaling in response to starvation stress. Taken together, the effects of TRP/TRPR signaling on the modulation of the starvation stress in H. cunea were demonstrated. The results suggested that components of the neuropeptide signaling system could be exploited as potential targets for pest control.

Retaining intrinsic photophysical performance and efficient therapeutic efficacy of cyanine dyes in the second near-infrared (NIR-II) biowindow are challenges in the biomedical field. Herein, we develop a metal ion-assisted NIR-II fluorophore assembly strategy to modulate molecular arrangement behavior, thus overcoming the drawbacks and retaining the photophysical performance of cyanine dyes in aqueous media for cancer phototheranostics. By screening a series of metal ion-assisted fluorophore assemblies, we remarkably found gadolinium-based metallo-dye-supramolecular nanoassembly (denoted as Gd@IR1064) with the intrinsic optical properties of NIR-II cyanine dye (IR1064). Most intriguingly, the as-prepared Gd@IR1064 not only exhibits deep-tissue-penetrating NIR-II photoacoustic, fluorescence, and magnetic resonance imaging ability but also possesses enhanced photothermal conversion performance-induced hyperthermia, achieving a significant tumor elimination effect. Our study provides a promising guide for modulating dye arrangement with unique photophysical performance for biomedical applications.

The advantages of a flat-panel X-ray source (FPXS) make it a promising candidate for imaging applications. Accurate imaging-system modeling and projection simulation are critical for analyzing imaging performance and resolving overlapping projection issues in FPXS. The conventional analytical ray-tracing approach is limited by the number of patterns and is not applicable to FPXS-projection calculations. However, the computation time of Monte Carlo (MC) simulation is independent of the size of the patterned arrays in FPXS. This study proposes two high-efficiency MC projection simulators for FPXS: a graphics processing unit (GPU)-based phase-space sampling MC (gPSMC) simulator and GPU-based fluence sampling MC (gFSMC) simulator. The two simulators comprise three components: imaging-system modeling, photon initialization, and physical-interaction simulations in the phantom. Imaging-system modeling was performed by modeling the FPXS, imaging geometry, and detector. The gPSMC simulator samples the initial photons from the phase space, whereas the gFSMC simulator performs photon initialization from the calculated energy spectrum and fluence map. The entire process of photon interaction with the geometry and arrival at the detector was simulated in parallel using multiple GPU kernels, and projections based on the two simulators were calculated. The accuracies of the two simulators were evaluated by comparing them with the conventional analytical ray-tracing approach and acquired projections, and the efficiencies were evaluated by comparing the computation time. The results of simulated and realistic experiments illustrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed gPSMC and gFSMC simulators in the projection calculation of various phantoms.

Early detection of human neutrophil elastase (HNE), the potential biomarker of lung cancer, is crucial for the accurate diagnosis and evaluation of lung cancer. Currently, little progress of HNE-activated probes has been made for in vivoimaging. Herein, assisted by probe-active pocket match engineering, we synthesized a series of near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF) and photoacoustic (PA) duplex imaging probes by conjugating diverse fluorinated amide chains onto hemi-cyanine. Finally, we identified that probe 2 (denoted as LET-8), with the pentafluoroethyl group, is a superior probe to detect HNE with the best selectivity as well as good response ability and thus successfully realized NIRF/PA duplex imaging of HNE activity both in vitroand in vivo.

The wavefront sensor plays an important role in the adaptive optics (AO) system for aero-optical distortion correction. However, the bandwidth of the current data interfaces of wavefront sensors, as one of the key factors, limits applications of the AO system in extremely high-frequency aero-optical distortion correction, leading to unsatisfactory performance. In this paper, a framework for wavefront data compression using compressed sensing is established to improve the correction ability of the AO system, and a disturbed Zernike gradient dictionary (DZGD) learning over the k-singular value decomposition algorithm is proposed for achieving good performance in the compression of aero-optical wavefront data. Based on the proposed DZGD, a method for aero-optical distortion data compression and wavefront reconstruction is developed that can efficiently reduce the amount of data in the information channel without degradation of the correction effect in aero-optical distortion correction. The compressibility of aero-optical distortions over the DZGD is analyzed in detail by numerical simulations. In addition, the selection criteria of the measurement matrix and the anti-noise characteristic of the method are also discussed. Data compression using our method is feasible and highly adaptable in the correction of aero-optical distortions, and exhibits stronger resistance against detector noise compared with using the conventional dictionary.

• Novel heterogenous MoS 2 /C hollow spheres as a sulfur host material are constructed. • The composite allows both physical confinement and chemical adsorption for LiPSs. • The hollow structure enables fast ion transport and a high sulfur loading. • The MoS 2 /C-based sulfur cathode exhibits superior comprehensive performance. Rational design of advanced polar hosts with high sulfur loading, facilitated ionic/electronic transport and effectively suppressed shuttling effect has great potential for high performance lithium-sulfur batteries, yet it remains challenging. Here we propose a novel templated spherical coassembly strategy to fabricate the MoS 2 /C hollow spheres as an efficient sulfur host material. The unique hollow structure provides enough interior space for accommodating a substantial amount of sulfur, and effectively suppresses the diffusion of dissolved polysulfides by both physical confinement and chemical adsorption. Moreover, the ionic transport as well as the ability to mitigate volume variation upon cycling is also improved, thereby maximizing the utilization of sulfur. Owing to these merits, when evaluated as a sulfur host for lithium-sulfur batteries, the MoS 2 /C hollow spheres exhibit appealing electrochemical performance with an impressive specific capacity of 1082 mA h g−1 at 0.1 C, excellent rate capability and superior cycling stability with a low fading rate of 0.04% per cycle. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The functional diversities of two-dimensional (2D) material devices with simple architectures are ultimately limited by immature doping techniques. An alternative strategy is to use geometry-asymmetric metal–semiconductor–metal (GA-MSM) structures, which enable the basic functions of semiconductor junctions such as rectification and photovoltaics. Here, the mixed-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures (MDvdWHs) based on the separation and self-assembly of p-type SnS layered nanosheets (NSs) and n-type SnS2nanoparticles (NPs) are obtained using an aqueous phase exfoliation (APE) method. Due to the surface charge transfer doping, the carrier transport mechanism of devices based on MDvdWHs turns from thermionic field emission (TFE) to thermionic emission (TE), with the rectification factor (Iforward/Ireverse) changing from 0.7 to 3. To further illustrate the experimental results, the generic current transport models of GA-MSM devices have been established based on the TE and TFE mechanisms in which the TE and TFE mechanisms lead to opposite rectification phenomena in good agreement with the experimental results. The GA-MSM devices show a photovoltaic effect with a high responsivity of 35 A W−1and detectivity of 3.4 × 1011cm Hz1/2W−1. This study not only provides a novel strategy to design photovoltaic devices with MDvdWHs, but more importantly, we have established fundamental models for the rectification behavior of GA-MSM devices.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) therapy has shown potential benefits in multiple diseases. However, their clinic performance is not as satisfactory as expected. This study aimed to provide an alternative explanation by comparing MSCs’ fates in different liver diseases. The distribution and therapeutic effects of human MSC (hMSCs) were investigated in acute liver injury (ALI) and chronic liver fibrosis (CLF) mice models, respectively. The two models were induced by single or repeated injection of carbon tetrachloride separately. The increase of hMSCs exposure in the liver (AUCliver 0–72 hour) were more significant in ALI than in CLF (177.1% versus 96.2%). In the ALI model, the hMSCs exposures in the lung (AUClung 0–72 hour) increased by nearly 50%, whereas it decreased by 60.7% in CLF. The efficacy satellite study indicated that hMSCs could significantly ameliorate liver injury in ALI, but its effects in CLF were limited. In the ALI, suppressed natural killer (NK) cell activities were observed, while NK cell activities were increased in CLF. The depletion of NK cells could increase hMSCs exposure in mice. For mice MSC (mMSCs), their cell fates in ALI were very similar to hMSCs in ALI: mMSCs' exposure in the liver and lung increased in ALI. In conclusion, our study revealed the distinct cell pharmacokinetic patterns of MSCs in ALI and CLF mice, which might be at least partially attributed to the different NK cell activities in the two liver diseases. This finding provided a novel insight into the varied MSCs' therapeutic efficacy in the clinic.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTCurrently, there is little knowledge about the PK behavior of cell products like MSCs. This study was the first time investigating the influence of liver diseases on cell fates and efficacies of MSCs and the underneath rationale. The exposure was distinct between two representative liver disease models, which directly linked with the therapeutic performance that MSCs achieved. The difference could be attributed to the NK cells–mediated MSCs clearance.