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Neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) are a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by progressive degeneration of neurons. NDDs threaten the lives of millions of people worldwide and regretfully remain incurable. It is well accepted that dysfunction of mitochondria underlies the pathogenesis of NDDs. Dysfunction of mitochondria results in energy depletion, oxidative stress, calcium overloading, caspases activation, which dominates the neuronal death of NDDs. Therefore, mitochondria are the preferred target for intervention of NDDs. So far various mitochondria-targeting drugs have been developed and delightfully some of them demonstrate promising outcome, though there are still some obstacles such as targeting specificity, delivery capacity hindering the drugs development. In present review, we will elaborately address 1) the strategy to design mitochondria targeting drugs, 2) the rescue mechanism of respective mitochondria targeting drugs, 3) how to evaluate the therapeutic effect. Hopefully this review will provide comprehensive knowledge for understanding how to develop more effective drugs for the treatment of NDDs. Published version This study was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2020YFA0709900), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22077101), China-Sweden Joint Mobility Project (51811530018, China) and Postdoctoral Research Funding Schemes of Jiangsu Province (2021, China).

Hypoxia is one of the key characteristics of solid tumors. The over-expression of azoreductase resulting from hypoxia can be used as a target to visualize hypoxic levels and a trigger of the drug release system in tumor treatment. In this work, we developed a near-infrared fluorescent probe YLOD, composed of a near-infrared fluorophore, an azo bond, and an analogue of the anti-tumor drug melphalan. In the presence of azoreductase, YLOD displayed a red emission at 620 nm and released the anti-tumor drug concomitantly, thus achieving the integrated effects of hypoxic imaging and tumor treatment. Furthermore, YLOD successfully inhibited the growth of solid tumors during the tumor suppression experiments in nude mice. Considering all the results, YLOD emerges as a new fluorescence tool that can quickly determine the location and the edges of a tumor, showing concrete potential in clinical cancer treatment.

The depletion of fossil fuels has led to the rapid development of environmentally friendly lithium ion battery (LIB). However, exposure of LIB to elevated temperatures frequently leads to battery failure, thermal runaway (TR), or even TR propagation. In this study, a series of experiments are conducted on the LIBs with and without water mist at different initial temperatures (50°C and 106-206°C) in a novel designed battery module to investigate the cooling effect of water mist. The results show that water mist reduces the possibility of battery failure and inhibits TR. The critical temperature of TR is enhanced by 36°C. Moreover, using water mist to suppress the TR propagation requires reducing the temperature of a cell that undergoing TR to below 126°C. Analysis of cooling rate indicates that there are four cooling modes ((Ⅰ) rapid cooling and quasi-steady state, (Ⅱ) rapid cooling and slow cooling, (Ⅲ) transitional stage, and (Ⅳ) rapid heating and rapid cooling) of water mist. The heat absorbed by water mist is distinct in four cooling modes. These results reveal that water mist has better cooling effect and the cooling mode changes with the increase of temperature, which may provide insight into the thermal safety performance of cells.

Synthesizing photographic images from given text descriptions is a challenging problem. Although previous many studies have made significant progress on the visual quality of the generated images by using the multi-stage and attentional network, they ignore the interrelationships between the images generated by the generator in each stage and simply leverage the attention mechanism. In this paper, the Photographic Text-to-Image Generation with Pyramid Contrastive Consistency Model (PCCM-GAN) is proposed to generate photographic images. PCCM-GAN introduces two modules: a Pyramid Contrastive Consistency Model (PCCM) and a stack attention model (Stack-Attn). Based on generated images from the different stages, PCCM is proposed to compute a contrastive loss for training the generator. Stack-Attn concentrates on generating images with more details and better semantic consistency by stacking the global–local attention mechanism. And visual inspection of the inner product of PCCM and Stack-Attn is also performed to validate their effectiveness. Extensive experiments and ablation studies on the CUB and MS-COCO datasets prove the superiority of the proposed method.

A unique redox-coupled biomimetic system was developed, in which Fe-Anderson type polyoxometalates (POMs) were employed as electron transfer mediators (ETMs) and benzenesulfonic acid (BSA)-based deep eutectic solvents (DESs) were used as electron-donors for aerobic oxidative desulfurization (AODS) of diesel fuel. Different compositions of DESs were used and the polyethylene glycol 2000 (PEG2000)/2.5BSA system showed the highest desulfurization activity, with the removal of dibenzothiophene (DBT) at 60 °C reaching 95% in 60 min. The excellent desulfurization activity of the system is due to the in situ formation of peroxysulfonate via a biomimetic process. By constructing a coupled redox system, Fe-Anderson type POMs as ETMs reduce the activation energy of oxygen-activated sulfonate. The physical characteristics of four different DESs were tested. The results show that the conductivity of DESs is correlated with the composition of BSA-based DESs. However, there is no similar trend in viscosity testing at the same temperature, and the maximum viscosity value is obtained for the PEG2000/2.5BSA system at 60 °C, which may be associated with the stronger hydrogen bonds. It is worth noting that the PEG2000/2.5BSA system also possesses the best desulfurization activity, which suggests that the activity of the desulfurization system is related to the strength of the hydrogen bond in DESs. Finally, the biomimetic desulfurization system exhibits excellent performance and good stability under mild reaction conditions (60 °C, atmospheric pressure, oxygen as the oxidant).

Background and Aims Studies comparing the diagnostic efficacy of liquid-based cytology (LBC) and smear cytology (SC) of pancreatic tissue sampling obtained via EUS-guided FNA (EUS-FNA) are still insufficient, mainly because results were controversial. We compared the diagnostic efficiency of LBC and SC of EUS-FNA of pancreatic lesions in one of the largest tertiary hospitals in China. Methods A retrospective database search (January 2015 to January 2019) was performed for patients who underwent EUS-FNA with both LBC and SC. Demographic, cytologic, and endosonographic data were collected from 819 patients; 514 cases met the inclusion criteria. Diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value were compared. Rapid on-site evaluation was not available in all cases. Results Three hundred eighty-five cases (74.90%) had confirmed malignancy, and 40 cases (7.78%) confirmed benign neoplasm. Adequate tissue sampling rates showed no significant difference between the 2 groups. The sensitivity, accuracy, and negative predictive value (NPV) of LBC were higher than those of SC with statistical significance (71.4% vs 55.1%, 76.1% vs 61.6%, and 40.6% vs 27.7%, respectively). The sensitivity, accuracy, and NPV of combined SC and LBC were higher than those of LBC alone with statistical significance (83.9% vs 71.4%, 86.5% vs 76.1%, and 56.8% vs 40.6%, respectively). Multivariate analysis revealed that pancreatic neck/body/tail lesions (P = .003), solid lesions (P 3 (P = .041) were associated with higher diagnostic sensitivity in all participants using LBC, whereas number of needle passage >3 (P = .017) was associated with higher diagnostic sensitivity using SC. Conclusions LBC was more accurate and sensitive than SC in EUS-FNA of pancreatic lesions with higher NPV when rapid on-site evaluation is unavailable. Pancreatic neck/body/tail lesions, solid lesions, 22-gauge needle, and more than 3 passes were associated with higher sensitivity when using LBC. Performing more than 3 passes is associated with higher sensitivity when using SC.

Objectives Neuroimaging studies of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) during chemotherapy treatment have shown alterations in structure, function, and connectivity in several brain regions, suggesting neurobiological impairment that might influence the large-scale brain network. This study aimed to detect the alterations in the topological organization of structural covariance networks of ALL patients. Methods This study included 28 ALL patients undergoing chemotherapy and 20 matched healthy controls. We calculated the gray matter volume of 90 brain regions based on an automated anatomical labeling template and applied graph theoretical analysis to compare the topological parameters of the gray matter structural networks between the two groups. Results The results demonstrated that both the ALL and healthy control groups exhibited a small-world topology across the range of densities. Compared to healthy controls, ALL patients had less highly interactive nodes and a reduced degree/betweenness in temporal regions, which may contribute to impaired memory and executive functions in these patients. Conclusion These results reveal that ALL patients undergoing chemotherapy treatment may have decreased regional connectivity and reduced efficiency of their structural covariance network. This is the first report of anomalous large-scale gray matter structural networks in ALL patients undergoing chemotherapy treatment and provides new insights regarding the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the chemo-brain network.

The present study preliminarily evaluated neurotoxicity injuries induced by chlorpyrifos in PC12 ​cell, which were used as a model for nervous cell system. In cultured PC12 ​cell, application of soy isoflavones (genistein, daidzein, monomer and mixture) significantly reduced chlorpyrifos induced toxicity, a widely used pesticide, and resulted in a better cell survival rate. Treatments with isoflavones reduced malondialdehyde content, reactive oxygengeneration and acetylcholine level in medium, and maintained mitochondrial membrane potential integrity. Daidzein enhanced endogenous antioxidant system in PC12 ​cell with an increasing in superoxide dismutase per-unit activity. Genistein reduced acetylcholine content in the medium. Daidzein and genistein showed different effects, and their combined effect were greater than individual. In conclusion, soy isoflavones as an antioxidant and neuroprotectant, enhanced choline metabolism, which effectively mitigated disadvantageous influence of PC12 ​cell caused by chlorpyrifos.

Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a promising technology to treat waste-activated sludge, previous study proved that methane production could be enhanced with the addition of choline, this work aimed to solve the problem of rapid biodegradability of choline in the AD process by changing its dosing method. With 0.75 g/L as the optimal choline dosing concentration, experimental results showed that successive choline dosing during the first 3-6 days of AD (experimental groups, EGs) performed better than the single dosing. The accumulative biogas production in EGs was increased by 35.55-36.73%, which could be caused by the simultaneous promotion of hydrolysis-acidification and methanogenesis processes. Especially, the electron exchange capacity of digested sludge in EGs was increased by 16.71-34.58%. In addition, the surface Gibbs free energy (△G

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have emerged as key regulators of cell differentiation and development. However, potential roles for lncRNAs in chondrogenic differentiation have remained poorly understood. Here we identify lncRNA ADAMTS9 antisense RNA 2, ADAMTS9-AS2, which controls the chondrogenic differentiation by acting as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) in human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). We screen out ADAMTS9-AS2 of undifferentiated and differentiated cells during chondrogenic differentiation by microarrays. Suppression or overexpression of lncRNA ADAMTS9-AS2 correlates with inhibition and promotion of hMSC chondrogenic differentiation, respectively. We find that ADAMTS9-AS2 can sponge miR-942-5p to regulate the expression of Scrg1, a transcription factor promoting chondrogenic gene expression. Finally, we confirm the function of ADAMTS9-AS2 to cartilage repair in the absence of transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) in vivo. In conclusion, ADAMTS9-AS2 plays an important role in chondrogenic differentiation as a ceRNA, so that it can be regarded as a therapy target for cartilage repair. Keywords: LncRNA ADAMTS9-AS2, MiR-942-5p, chondrogenesis, hMSCs, cartilage regeneration, chondrogenic differentiation, cartilage defect

5-Formyl-2-furancarboxylic acid (FFCA) is an important bio-blocks material, which has promising applications in synthesis, chemical intermediates, drugs, etc. However, the selective oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) into FFCA seems very difficult, which has been rarely studied. In this study, we have developed a new method for the selective oxidation of HMF to FFCA over a Fe-Anderson type catalyst of Na3H6FeMo6O24·5H2O (abbreviated as FeMo6). The FeMo6 catalyst was prepared by the recrystallization method and systematically characterized by XRD, UV–vis, FT-IR, TG, ICP-AES, and XPS technologies. Mo5+ species and a large number of surface oxygen species were found to be close-knit associated with catalytic performances. The experiment found that the maximum FFCA yield can be obtained when n-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP) was used as the reaction solvent and the HMF and K2CO3 molar ratio was 0.5. Under the optimal conditions (HMF/ K2CO3/Catalyst = 1/0.5/0.08, T = 100 °C, 8 h), the oxidation of HMF over the FeMo6 catalyst could produce FFCA with a yield of 75% in the solvent of NMP. Most importantly, this catalyst was employed in this reaction under aerobic environment at atmospheric pressure, demonstrating a high catalytic activity.

Person re-identification (PRID) is integral to many smart surveillance systems. However, owing to the visual ambiguities arising from the variability in viewing angles and illumination, and the presence of occlusions, PRID continues to present many challenges, especially when only a single image per view is available for each person. To overcome this problem, we propose a top distance regularized projection and dictionary learning (DL) model for PRID. The model incorporates both projection and DL to form a unified optimization framework to enhance the effectiveness of both these types of learning. Thus, the dictionary and projection matrix are jointly learned within this framework. In particular, the learned projection maps the coding coefficient into a discriminative space and minimizes the distance between the same persons across non-overlapping views such that the dictionary and projection can be discriminated. Moreover, we exploit listwise distances to capture all pairwise similarities. Based on this design, we derive a top distance regularization term to refine the solution space of the DL model such that the discriminative ability of the learned projection matrix and dictionary are further improved. Experiments on different challenging datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our method and its superiority over a few current state-of-the-art approaches.

In this paper, we designed the Y-type and T-type micromixer based on generalized Murray’s law. We studied the influence of geometric parameters and pressure drop on mixing efficiency and analyzed the concentration curves of fluid at the outlet. The influence of geometric parameters on mixing performance is studied by using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.2a. The number of hierarchical levels can have a significant effect on mixing efficiency and the more of the levels, the higher of the mixing efficiency. For Y-type micromixer, the influence of different branch angles α = 30°, 60°, 90° on the mixing efficiency was analyzed, and the 30° Y-type micromixer has the best mixing performance. The micromixer designed in this paper has a high mixing efficiency of over 90% in the range of Re 0.5–100. The generalized Murray's law can be widely used in the design of micromixers.

On the basis of the empirical orthogonal function (EOF) decomposition technique, the spatiotemporal characteristics of the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) from 2007 to 2016 over China and adjacent areas (15°–55°N, 70°–145°E) were studied. The spatial patterns and temporal variations of the TEC were separated by EOF decomposition and can be represented well by the base functions and associated coefficients, respectively. The time variation features of different scales can also be obtained by continually decomposing the coefficients that reflect the temporal variations. Results show that this method is extremely beneficial to the comprehensive analysis of the overall spatiotemporal variations in the ionospheric TEC. The base functions of EOF reflect that the TEC in China and adjacent areas experiences annual and semiannual changes with the latitudinal and longitudinal changes, as well as equatorial anomaly phenomenon. The coefficients of these spatial patterns have evident regularity with the changes in solar activity, season, and local time (LT). After the spatial patterns and the diurnal variations with LT were extracted through a two-layer EOF decomposition, the remaining time variation features were modeled using seasonal variations, solar activity, and geomagnetic activity. Finally, an empirical TEC model was established by incorporating the modeled coefficients and the original EOF base functions. The EOF-based TEC model can demonstrate the temporal and spatial variation characteristics of TEC, and the EOF-based model can obtain significantly smaller modeling errors and achieve better performance in terms of TEC modeling than the International Reference Ionosphere model IRI-2016.

Bio-char is a porous, recalcitrant, and highly aromatic carbon-rich material which can be widely used in energy, agriculture, environment, and material industry. In this study, a systematic comparison of the physicochemical characteristics of bio-char derived from three pseudo components of biomass (cellulose char (CC), hemicellulose char (HC), lignin char (LC)) was carried out at different pyrolysis temperatures (250, 350, 450, 550, 650, 750, and 850 °C). The results indicated wide variation in the physicochemical properties and quality of bio-char depending on different pyrolysis temperatures and biomass feedstock composition. Mass and energy yields of CC, HC, and LC decreased with the increase in the pyrolysis temperature, however, LC exhibited higher mass and energy yield than CC and HC because of its better thermal stability. With the increase in the pyrolysis temperature, the carbon content in CC, HC, and LC increased, while the contents of hydrogen and oxygen decreased, because the oxygen and hydrogen containing groups were easily fallen off at higher pyrolysis temperature based on the FTIR analysis. XRD analysis showed that the crystalline structure (Iα-triclinic and Iβ-monoclinic) of cellulose in CC and HC disappeared with the increase in the pyrolysis temperature above 350 °C. However, the graphite structure (002) and (101) in CC, HC, and LC increased. 13C NMR analysis indicated that the carbon structure of alkyl-C, O-alkyl-C, and carboxylic-C gradually decreased in CC, HC and LC as the pyrolysis temperature increased, while the aryl-C increased, indicating the formation of a more polyaromatic graphite-like structure at higher pyrolysis temperature. SEM results revealed that the volume of CC and LC reduced because of the significant particle agglomeration during pyrolysis process. However, the volume of HC sharply increased because of the transformation of hemicellulose into foam-like material at higher temperature. The lower values of mean absolute error strongly suggests that it is feasible to predict the properties (the contents of C, H, O, mass and energy yield) of real biomass derived bio-char based on the properties of three pseudo components derived bio-char.

Rainfall data scarcity has caused enormous problems in hydrologic and non-point pollution (H/NPS) predictions, as rainfall data represent the key input to watershed models. In this study, the effects of different imputation methods such as the data augmentation (DA) and the expectation maximization with bootstrap (EMB) algorithms on rainfall data scarcity were compared. The effects of different data scarcity rates and periods on model performance and prediction uncertainty were then quantified. Finally, the effects of different imputed data sets on H/NPS results were evaluated with the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT). A real case study in the Daning River watershed, Three Gorges Reservoir Region, China, was evaluated. The results indicated that rainfall data scarcity during low flow periods would result in poorer model performance and larger prediction uncertainty, especially to some minimum values, and the time when the maximum values are more susceptible is the rainfall data scarcity during high flow periods. The repair of rainfall data and the H/NPS model performance obtained by the EMB algorithm are superior to the traditional DA and weather generator performances. This advantage of the EMB algorithm would be more definitive if a specific threshold of data scarcity is reached. It is noted that even if the best algorithm is used, the imputed value is always lower than the peak observed value. This paper reports important implications for the choice of imputation methods and the use of H/NPS models for solving data scarcity problems for watershed studies.

Osteoporosis is common in patients undergoing spine surgery, and carries a considerable risk of adverse outcomes. New methods to positively influence bone regeneration and spine fusion under osteoporotic conditions would be impactful. Neutralizing anti-Dickkopf-1 (DKK1) antibodies has been used as a bone anabolic agent, and recently reported by our group to aid in stem cell-mediated appendicular bone regeneration. Here, a small molecule designed as a DKK1 inhibitor, WAY-262611, was used to induce posterolateral spine fusion in an ovariectomized rat model. In vitro, pharmacological inhibition of DKK1 enhanced osteogenesis and Wnt signaling activity among rat bone marrow-derived stem/stromal cells (BMSCs). In vivo, systemic treatment with WAY-262611 promoted both chondrogenesis and osteogenesis within the spinal fusion site, and ultimately led to significant improvements in lumbar fusion as assessed by XR, μCT, histology and manual palpation assessments. No significant effect on osteoclast numbers or fusion site angiogenesis was detected, suggesting a primary direct effect on mesenchymal cells of the implantation site. Finally, evidence from human stem/stromal cells further demonstrated that pharmacologic inhibition of DKK1 promoted osteogenic differentiation in vitro. Taken together, our results suggest that targeting DKK1 promotes local bone formation and suggests potential clinical value for osteoporotic bone repair.

A method for simultaneously separating six arsenic (As) species was established by ultrasound-assisted extraction-anion exchange chromatography coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Six As species could be well separated within 15 min when 0.3 M acetic acid and 25 mM NH4H2PO4 were used as the extraction solvent and mobile phase, respectively. Under optimized conditions, the limits of detection and recovery of As species and the relative standard deviation were in the ranges of 0.31–0.59 μg/L, 94.30–102.75%, and 1.63–3.72%, respectively. Furthermore, the established method was successfully applied to fresh Shiitake (Lentinus edodes) mushrooms and processed products. The inorganic As contents of all samples ranged from 0.204 to 0.500 mg/kg, half of samples (>0.400 mg/kg) were close to the maximum contaminant level allowed by the Chinese (0.5 mg/kg). The health risk index estimation results indicated that no particular risk of As exposure to Chinese consumers existed in L. edodes.

β-Catenin-dependent Wnt signaling controls numerous aspects of skeletal development and postnatal bone repair. Currently available transgenic Wnt reporter mice allow for visualization of global canonical Wnt signaling activity within skeletal tissues, without delineation of cell type. This is particularly important in a bone repair context, in which the inflammatory phase can obscure the visualization of mesenchymal cell types of interest. To tackle the issue of tissue-specific Wnt signaling, we have generated and characterized a transgenic mouse strain [termed paired related homeobox 1 (Prx1)-Wnt-green fluorescent protein (GFP), by crossing a previously validated Prx1-Cre strain with a nuclear fluorescent reporter driven by T-cell factor/lymphoid enhancer factor activity (Rosa26-Tcf/Lef-LSL-H2B-GFP)]. Prx1-Wnt-GFP animals were subject to three models of long bone and membranous bone repair (displaced forelimb fracture, tibial cortical defect, and frontal bone defect). Results showed that, irrespective of bone type, locoregional mesenchymal cell activation of Wnt signaling occurs in a defined temporospatial pattern among Prx1-Wnt-GFP mice. In summary, Prx1-Wnt-GFP reporter animals allow for improved visualization, spatial discrimination, and facile quantification of Wnt-activated mesenchymal cells within models of adult bone repair.

Hydrological and non-point source pollution (H/NPS) predictions in ungagged basins have become the key problem for watershed studies, especially for those large-scale catchments. However, few studies have explored the comprehensive impacts of rainfall data scarcity on H/NPS predictions. This study focused on: 1) the effects of rainfall spatial scarcity (by removing 11%–67% of stations based on their locations) on the H/NPS results; and 2) the impacts of rainfall temporal scarcity (10%–60% data scarcity in time series); and 3) the development of a new evaluation method that incorporates information entropy. A case study was undertaken using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) in a typical watershed in China. The results of this study highlighted the importance of critical-site rainfall stations that often showed greater influences and cross-tributary impacts on the H/NPS simulations. Higher missing rates above a certain threshold as well as missing locations during the wet periods resulted in poorer simulation results. Compared to traditional indicators, information entropy could serve as a good substitute because it reflects the distribution of spatial variability and the development of temporal heterogeneity. This paper reports important implications for the application of Distributed Hydrological Models and Semi-distributed Hydrological Models, as well as for the optimal design of rainfall gauges among large basins.

In this work, we study and report the dry etching processes for InAs-based InAs/GaAsSb strain-free superlattice long wavelength infrared (LWIR) detectors. The proper etching parameters were first obtained through the parametric studies of Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) etching of both InAs and GaSb bulk materials in Cl2/N2 plasmas. Then an InAs-based InAs/GaAsSb superlattice LWIR detector with PπN structure was fabricated by using the optimized etching parameters. At 80 K, the detector exhibits a 100% cut-off wavelength of 12 μm and a responsivity of 1.5 A/W. Moreover, the dark current density of the device under a bias of −200 mV reaches 5.5 × 10−4 A/cm2, and the R0A is 15 Ω cm2. Our results pave the way towards InAs-based superlattice LWIR detectors with better performances.

Sludge dewatering, as one of the most important steps of sludge treatment, can facilitate transportation and improve disposal efficiency by reducing the volume of sludge. This study investigated the effects of electrolysis-activated persulfate oxidation on improving sludge dewaterability. The results indicated that the sludge capillary suction time (CST) and water content of dewatered sludge cake (Wc) reduced from 93.7 s and 87.8% to 9.7 s and 68.3% respectively at the optimized process parameters: electrolysis voltage of 40 V, electrolysis time of 20 min, and 1.2 mmol/g TS S2O82-. Correlation analysis revealed that the enhancement of sludge dewaterability was closely associated with the increased floc size and zeta potential, decreased protein content in three-layers extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) and viscosity (R = -0.868, p = 0.002; R = -0.703, p = 0.035; R ≥ 0.961, p

The Taihu Lake basin is one of the most sensitive areas to climate change in the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) influenced region. There are significant differences regarding the interpretation of climate history for this area during the Holocene due to a lack of high-resolution paleoclimate records. To better understand this scientific issue, here we provide a new record of Holocene climate change from the western part of Taihu Lake region, East China. A 4-m-depth profile from Gaochun has provided a 13,200-year record of climate change. Holocene climate change was reconstructed for the western part of Taihu Lake area based on various proxy records including pollen, charcoal, degree of humification (DOH), and loss on ignition (LOI) from the Gaochun site. The results indicate that climate during the late Pleistocene (13,200–10,700 cal yr B.P.) and early Holocene (10,700–8000 cal yr B.P.) was warm and humid, alternated with several cold and dry intervals. The late Pleistocene and early Holocene was a transitional period from cold-dry to warm-wet climates. The middle Holocene (8000–4400 cal yr B.P.) was still warm and humid, with a relatively stable climate. The period between 8000 and 5300 cal yr B.P. was the Holocene climate optimum (HCO). During the late Holocene (4400–0 cal yr B.P.), the climate was cool but still humid. In addition, climate change at the western part of Taihu Lake during the late Pleistocene and Holocene was unstable, containing several short-term climate events such as Younger Dryas (YD), 8.2 ka, and 4.2 ka events. These abruptly occurred climate events were indicated by various paleoclimatic proxy indicators, and can be compared with related records from other regions. Our findings suggest that the EASM strength was strongest during the middle Holocene between 8000 and 5300 cal yr B.P. which can be depicted as the period of HCO.

In the paper the whole heterojunction structure design process in LWIR type-II InAs/GaSb superlattices (T2SLs) detectors has been presented. The high quality T2SLs materials were grown and the high performance double heterojunction LWIR detectors have been fabricated. In the double heterojunction LWIR detectors a electrons barrier layer and a holes barrier layer were designed and introduced successively, based on the electrical properties measurement and compensation doping of the T2SLs intrinsic material. The processed double heterojunction structure photodiodes had a 100% cutoff wavelength of 12.5 μm at 80 K. The peak current responsivity was 2.5 A/W under zero applied bias, corresponding to a quantum efficiency of 30%. The R 0 A product at 80 K is 14.5 Ω cm 2 which leads to the peak detectivity D ∗ of 1.4 × 10 11 cm Hz 1/2 /W for the detector.

In this paper, we consider the partial eigenvalue assignment problem of high order control systems. Based on the orthogonality relations, we propose a new method for solving this problem by which the undesired eigenvalues are moved to desired values and keep the remaining eigenvalues unchanged. Using the inverse of Cauchy matrix, we give the solvable condition and the explicit solutions to this problem. Numerical examples show that our method is effective.

At the Jinsha site it has been discovered, through field surveys and observations of the geomorphology and sedimentology, that the direction of flow of ancient rivers, obtained through debris fabric measurement, was consistent with the direction in which buried palaeotrees had been broken, indicating that the Jinsha site possibly suffered palaeofloods. By sampling the suspected palaeoflood sediments at the Jinsha site and analysing their grain size distribution and Zr/Rb and Ba/Nb ratios, the paper discovered that the sediments tend to be composed of coarse particles, with a relatively high percentage of traction load components and saltation load components. Various samples had relatively great differences in particle size distribution; the change in the percentage content of coarse sand particles being very obvious, and the sedimentary particles exhibiting upward coarsening within the same layer. The Zr/Rb ratios and Ba/Nb ratios of the sediments reflect the changes in hydrodynamic forces within the sedimentary environment. When the hydrodynamic force was relatively weak, the Zr/Rb ratios are relatively low and the Ba/Nb ratios relatively high; whereas when the hydrodynamic force was strengthened, the Zr/Rb ratios increase and the Ba/Nb ratios decrease. On account of these sedimentological and geochemical characteristics, these sediments are judged to be palaeoflood sediments. The AMS 14 C dating results of the palaeoflood sediments shows that the period when sudden flooding occurred frequently in the Chengdu Plain was 4.0–3.6 ka BP, contemporaneous with an ancient global flooding event. This palaeoflood event probably brought about the extinction of the Baodun Culture.

The Shabutai molybdenum deposit is a newly discovered deposit located in the northern part of the Xilamulun metallogenic belt. Molybdenum mineralization is distributed in granite porphyry and its exocontact zone is in the shape of quartz veins. The LA-ICP-MS zircon U-Pb age of ore-bearing granite porphyry is 140.1 ± 0.7 Ma with a MSDW of 0.078. The granite belongs to the high-K calc-alkaline series characterized by relatively high LREE, low HREE, depletion of Ti, Ba, and Nb, and a negative Eu anomaly. Mineralization evolution is divided into three stages: early, middle and late. The stages are characterized by potassium feldspar veins, quartz-potassium feldspar veins, and quartz veins in the early stage, quartz-molybdenite veins in the middle stage, and quartz-carbonate veins in the late stage. Ore minerals were mainly precipitated in the middle stage. Pure-vapor (PV), vapor-rich (V), liquid-rich (L), and daughter mineral-bearing (S) fluid inclusions were observed in the hydrothermal quartz. Homogeneous temperatures of fluid inclusions in the early stage ranged from 240 °C to 420 °C, with salinities ranging from 4.0 to 57.2 wt.% NaCl eqv. The fluid inclusions contained hematite daughter minerals, indicating high oxygen fugacity conditions in the early stage. The temperatures of the fluid inclusions at the middle stage ranged predominantly from 200 to 300 °C with a salinity range of 0.5–48.5 wt.% NaCl eqv. The inclusions also showed high K ion content characteristics, both in the early and middle stage fluid. A drop in potassium concentration caused by potassic alteration created a favorable condition for Mo precipitation. The temperature range of the late-stage fluid inclusions was 160–307 °C with salinities below 10.7 wt.% NaCl eqv. According to Laser Raman microprobe data, CO 2 occurred only in a few gas fluid inclusions, while most gases were H 2 O. Microthermometric analysis results suggested that fluid boiling was the main factor triggering molybdenite precipitate and forming the Shabutai molybdenum deposit.

The nitrite (NO2−) inhibition in anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) process is widely reported. Here, the effects of three pyrolytic biochars (CS300, CS550 and CS800) were investigated to alleviate NO2− stress on anammox process under exposure of varied NO2−-N concentrations (70, 200, 400 and 600 mg L−1). No nitrite inhibition was observed at 70 mg N L−1. However, the total nitrogen removal efficiency (TNREs) decreased with NO2−-N concentration increased, while the biochar-amended groups achieved higher TNREs than the control (CK). At 200 mg N L−1, the TNREs were 60.2%, 99.0%, 98.5% and 86.6% for CK, CS300, CS550 and CS800, respectively. At 400 mg N L−1, the TNREs were 23.3%, 56.0%, 37.1% and 29.7% for CK, CS300, CS550 and CS800, respectively. At 600 mg N L−1 in which severe inhibition was observed, the TNREs were increased by 231% (p = 0.002), 149% (p = 0.014), and 51.0% (p = 0.166) for CS300, CS550 and CS800, respectively, as compared to CK, with the corresponding specific anammox activity increased by 3.1-, 2,0- and 1.1-folds, respectively. CS300 enriched the relative abundance of Candidatus Kuenenia and increased the gene copies of functional genes (hzsA, hdh, nirS and nirK). Besides, CS300 effectively alleviated the suppression of three membrane-associated enzyme complexes for anammox electron transport chain, indicating the possible contribution of redox-active moieties of CS300 to energy conversion metabolism for mitigating the NO2−-N inhibition. This study provided an effective strategy for alleviating NO2−-N stress by applying an environmentally compatible material (biochar) on anammox process.

In this work, the thermal runaway (TR) hazards of a 4.5 Ah 21,700 cylindrical lithium-ion battery (LIB) are investigated at 100%, 110% and 120% stage of charge (SOC). The TR behavior of the sample at elevated temperature is characterized using an extended volume accelerating rate calorimetry and a customized battery test canister. The results show that the time interval from the LIB voltage drop to the initial of TR increases with the increase of SOC. The time interval for the LIB with 120% SOC is significantly greater than 100% and 110% SOCs, which is meaningful for the early warning of TR. In adiabatic or side-heating test, the initial temperature of TR of LIBs at different SOCs is almost the same, but the temperature at voltage drop shows a downward trend as the adding SOC. The separator thermal stability of slightly overcharged LIB is lower than fully charged LIB according to the SEM and DSC tests. Besides, the TR hazards of the LIB are recommended to be determined by multiple factors, including pressure, ambient temperature and battery surface temperature.

In this work, electrochemical performance, aging mechanisms and thermal stability of LIBs after immersion were analyzed. The results show that corrosion increases with the increasing electric potential, NaCl concentration and immersion time. Moreover, capacity fading occurs after immersion, decreasing the lifespan of the battery. This effect is mainly caused by the loss of active material (LAM). With increasing NaCl concentration, capacity fading increases and battery lifespan decreases. The activation barriers (Ea) and the onset temperature of exothermic reactions (TOER) of cells initially increases and then decreases. The thermal stability of cells dramatically decreases after immersion in highly-concentrated NaCl solutions, which has higher onset temperature of thermal runaway (TOTR) and lower maximum temperature (TMax). With the increasing immersion time, the TOER initially decreases and then increases, TOTR increases, while TMax and Ea decrease.

Nitrate (NO3−) accumulation in effluent decreases the biological nitrogen performance of anammox process for wastewater treatment. Redox-active biochar has been demonstrated as an effective additive to improve microbial NO3− reduction via redox cycling of the surface functional groups. However, their redox reactivity toward anammox consortia remains unknown. In this study, we investigated the effects of corn stover-derived biochars with different particle sizes (10–30 μm (SP), 200–500 μm (MP) and 2–5 mm (LP)) on nitrogen removal performance of anammox reactors under continuous operation with varying nitrogen loading rates over the long term. The average nitrogen removal efficiencies of anammox reactors amended with SP-, MP- and LP-biochar were 97.9%, 97.5% and 87.9%, respectively, which were significantly higher than that of the control (80.5%). Effluent NO3− concentration was reduced by 40.7–45.2% with presence of biochar as compared to the control, which may be attributed to microbial interaction with Chloroflexi-affiliated heterotrophic denitrifying bacteria. The electrochemical analysis of the sludge extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) based on cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectrum revealed that the extent of biochar to increase the electron-transport ability of EPS decreased with the biochar particle size (SP > MP > LP). Furthermore, SP-biochar outperformed LP-biochar for promoting the proliferation of anammox bacteria Candidatus Brocadia and increasing the abundance of anammox-associated functional genes (hzsA, hdh, nirS and napA) in the sludge. Together, these findings showed the stimulatory effect of redox-active biochar for anammox consortia and the particle size-dependence, which may potentially assist in operating anammox processes with high nitrogen removal performance.

This work investigated the effects of water spray on lithium-ion battery (LIB) fires. Experiments were conducted on single cell and multi-cell batteries to study the effect of water volume and spray pressure on the fire extinguishing and the effectiveness of preventing propagation of thermal runaway in LIB's. Meanwhile, the potential hazard of water spray as a fire extinguishing method was assessed by investigating the influence of water on combustion gas production during extinguishing. It was found from these experiments that water spray can effectively extinguish 21700 LIB fires and reduce the maximum surface temperature of LIB. But the water spray has no significant difference in cooling rate after temperature recovery. The contact efficiency between the water spray and batteries decreased with the increase in water pressure. With sufficient volume of water spray and high contact efficiency, water spray can inhibit the thermal runaway propagation. With insufficient volume of water spray or low contact efficiency, the time to onset of thermal runaway was delayed. Water affects combustion gas production during thermal runaway. When water was applied, the concentration of CO, H2 and HF increased, while CO2 decreased.

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is implicated in the pathogenesis of diseases such as Parkinson's disease (PD). Peroxynitrite is the pivotal causative factor of ER stress. However, fluorescent probes for imaging the peroxynitrite in the ER are still lacking. In the present paper, we reported the design and synthesis of a two-photon fluorescence probe (ER-PN) for visualizing the ER peroxynitrite in PD models of living cells and C. elegans. ER-PN showed a rapidly and highly selective “turn-on” response to peroxynitrite over other biological species in vitro. Moreover, ER-PN showed excellent ER targeting ability and worked well in living systems for the ER peroxynitrite imaging. Noteworthy, ER-PN has been successfully applied for imaging the peroxynitrite in PD models, indicating its potential application for revealing the fundamental roles of peroxynitrite in ER stress-related diseases.

Biochar is an inexpensive redox-active carbon material that has been demonstrated to enhance microbial nitrogen-transforming processes. However, how redox-active biochar affects anammox remains unclear. Here, the effects of three functionally distinct biochars produced from corn stover biomass at varied pyrolysis temperatures (CS300, CS500, CS800) were evaluated as additives on the anammox performance in three reactors (R300, R550, R800) over the long term, during which nitrogen loading rate was either increased drastically (pulse strategy) or gradually (gradual strategy). Nitrogen removal was achieved at 86.5% (R300), 77.1% (Control), 59.3% (R550) and 57.7% (R800) under pulse strategy, and at 95.4% (R300), 92.3% (R550), 86.2% (Control) and 82.0% (R800) under gradual strategy, respectively. Compared with Control, addition of CS300 increased abundance of Candidatus Kuenenia with superior anammox activity. CS300 enriched with reduced functional groups (phenolic/hydroquinone) could donate electrons to support bioenergetics of anammox metabolism, whereas electron-accepting CS800 functioned inversely. Overall, this study highlights the importance of surface functional groups and redox property of biochar such that determines whether its addition impose stimulatory or suppressive effect on anammox process.

Currently, effective suppression methods are still required to deal with lithium-ion battery (LIB) fires. In this paper, a novel synergistic fire extinguishing method of gas extinguishing agent (C6F12O, CO2 and HFC-227ea) and water mist is designed to evaluate the effect of their combination. A 243 Ah large-scale LIB with LiFePO4 as cathode is used in this work. Several cell parameters are measured to evaluate the suppression effect of fire extinguishing method, such as extinguishing time, maximum temperature, mass loss and heat release rate. Meanwhile, the cooling effect, fire extinguishing effect and economic benefit of different fire extinguishing methods are all considered. Results show that the suppression effect of synergistic fire extinguishing method is better than that of the single agent. Single application of water mist can hardly extinguish the flame, while the combination of gas extinguishing agents and water mist can extinguish the flame finally. However, the C6F12O extinguishes the flame immediately, while CO2 has a longer extinguishing time, and HFC-227ea cannot extinguish the flame. So in these experiments, the C6F12O combined with water mist exhibits the best extinguishing and cooling effect. The CO2 combined with water mist has good economic benefit, better fire extinguishing effect and cooling effect in these experiments, which can also be considered in suppressing LiFePO4 LIB fires.

The aim of this study was to investigate the bonding effectiveness of the universal adhesive on caries-affected dentin and normal dentin of deciduous teeth. We collected 12 extracted second deciduous molars with adjacent caries on one side. Each tooth was divided into two parts: the carious half was grouped into the caries-affected (CAD) group, whereas the other half was allocated to the normal dentin (ND) group. In the CAD group, carious tissue was removed using a slow-speed ball drill under the indication of the caries maker. In the ND group, dentin was prepared to the similarly deep level. The Single Bond Universal adhesive system using self-etch strategies was applied following the manufacturer's instructions. The defective area was filled with a resin composite Shofu Beautifil II Namer. Electron microscope observation indicated that CAD was partially demineralised and the surface was rougher than ND after acid etching. Transmission electron microscopy images of CAD showed that the hydroxyapatite platelets were distributed sparsely in strips, whereas normal dentin was intact. There was no significant difference between the CAD group and ND group in microtensile bonding strength and failure mode analysis (P > 0.05). What's more, the morphology of hybrid layer was similar in two groups. In conclusion, caries-affected deciduous tooth dentin can achieve similar bonding strength to normal dentin with the application of Single Bond Universal adhesive.

Halide perovskite quantum dots (QDs) are regarded as a rising star of semiconductor materials for modern optoelectronic and photovoltaic applications due to their remarkable optical and electronic properties. However, the inherent poor stability of the materials have restricted their broad applications. Here, we report the one-step synthesis of an ultrastable CsPbBr3/Polypyrrole (PPy) composite by a photocatalytic polymerization method, in which CsPbBr3 QDs act as a photocatalyst and benzoquinone serves as an electron acceptor. The encapsulation of CsPbBr3 QDs into the PPy protective layer dramatically enhances the water stability, which can preserve the structure and morphology even after immersion in water for 30 days. Simultaneously, encapsulating with the electrical conductive PPy layer allows for efficient charge transport properties and improved photoelectric activities in real water testing. This study provides new opportunities for photocatalytic and optoelectronic applications of perovskites QDs in aqueous phase.