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Spider angioma refers to a type of telangiectasis that presents slightly beneath the skin surface on the face, neck, arms or upper trunk, often manifesting with a central red spot and reddish extensions that radiate outwards like a spider's web. The cutaneous spider angioma may be benign but it often indicates abnormal liver function, especially in patients with chronic cirrhosis. The spider angioma is irreversible and rarely occurred diffusely over the body or with giant sizes. Here, we report two rare multiple and giant spider angioma cases in patients with HIV/AIDS who developed chronic cirrhosis. In addition, we comprehensively reviewed related literatures and evaluated the existing possible mechanisms of spider angioma.

Rye (Secale cereale) is an important crop with multiple uses and a valuable genetic resource for wheat breeding. However, due to its complex genome and outcrossing nature, the origin of cultivated rye remains elusive. The geneticist N.I. Vavilov proposed that cultivated rye had been domesticated from weedy rye, rather than directly from wild species like other crops. Unraveling the domestication history of rye will extend our understanding of crop evolution and upend our inherent understanding of agricultural weeds. To this end, in this study we generated the 8.5 Tb of whole-genome resequencing data from 116 worldwide accessions of wild, weedy, and cultivated rye, and demonstrated that cultivated rye was domesticated directly from weedy relatives with a similar but enhanced genomic selection by humans. We found that a repertoire of genes that experienced artificial selection is associated with important agronomic traits, including shattering, grain yield, and disease resistance. Furthermore, we identified a composite introgression in cultivated rye from the wild perennial Secale strictum and detected a 2-Mb introgressed fragment containing a candidate ammonium transporter gene with potential effect on the grain yield and plant growth of rye. Taken together, our findings unravel the domestication history of cultivated rye, suggest that interspecific introgression serves as one of the likely causes of obscure species taxonomy of the genus Secale, and provide an important resource for future rye and wheat breeding.

This study adopts the dynamic capability view in investigating the relationship between social media applications, firm capabilities, and performance. It highlights the dynamic and ever-changing environment, and firms with limited resources. It argues that social media is a strategic resource, and agility and adaptability are critical in measuring firms’ dynamic capabilities. The study further evaluates the mediating role of time-based performance on the relationship between these capabilities and firm performance. Drawing upon a sample of 249 firms, the findings validate the positive impact of social media on both capabilities and confirm the mediating effect of time-based performance on the relationship between agility, adaptability, and firm performance. Finally, the study provides some recommendations for senior management teams regarding social media application as a resource that can strengthen firms’ agility and adaptability, while time-based performance is seen to require special attention where the external business environment is volatile.

Nitrogen-rich porous organic polymers have shown great potentials in gas adsorption/separation, photocatalysis, electrochemistry, sensing and so on. Herein, 1,2,3-triazole functionalized triazine-based porous organic polymers (TT-POPs) have been synthesized by the copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (Cu-AAC) polymerization reactions of 1,3,5-tris(4-azidophenyl)-triazine with 1,4-diacetylene benzene and 1,3,5-triacetylenebenzene, respectively. The characterizations of N2 adsorption at 77 K show TT-POPs possess permanent porosity with BET surface areas of 666 m2·g−1 (TT-POP-1) and 406 m2·g−1 (TT-POP-2). The adsorption capacities of TT-POPs for CO2, CH4, C2H2 and C2H4, as well as the selective separation abilities of CO2/N2, CO2/CH4, C2H2/CH4 and C2H4/CH4 were evaluated. The gas selective separation ratio of TT-POPs was calculated by the ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST) method, wherein the selective separation ratios of C2H2/CH4 and C2H4/CH4 of TT-POP-2 was 48.4 and 13.6 (298 K, 1 bar (1 bar = 0.1 MPa)), which is comparable to other adsorbents (5.6−120.6 for C2H2/CH4, 10−26 for C2H4/CH4). This work shows that the 1,2,3-triazole functionalized triazine-based porous organic polymer has a good application prospect in natural gas purification.

Graphical abstract CDs are utilized as crucial structure-directing agents to elaborately design 3D cross-linked rod-like structured Bi2Se3/CDs composites. Computational simulations combined with experiments demonstrate that such robust 3D framework and the existence of interface Bi-O-C bond can simultaneously enhance the intrinsic sluggish kinetics and structural stability, endowing Bi2Se3/CDs anode with fast-charging capability and durable cycling life. Download : Download high-res image (205KB) Download : Download full-size image Advanced electrode materials for fast-charging lithium-ion batteries are of great significance to next-generation energy-storage systems. Herein, three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical rod-structured Bi2Se3/carbon dots (Bi2Se3/CDs) composite is elaborately designed for fast-kinetics lithium storage. It is proposed that CDs-induced self-assembly growth and site-selective ion-exchange transform nanosheets into cross-linked architecture. Such robust 3D framework provides efficient channels for electron/ion transport and sufficient inner space for volume variation as confirmed by theoretical prediction. Notably, the existence of interface Bi-O-C bond would effectively enhance its inherent bulk electronic conductivity and accelerate ionic transportation by narrowing the bandgap and reducing the Li+ migration energy barriers. Consequently, intrinsic sluggish kinetics and structural stability are simultaneously improved, endowing Bi2Se3/CDs composite electrode fast charging/discharging capability of 165 mAh g−1 at 20 A g−1 (corresponding to charge in ≈27 s) and excellent long-term durability with the capacity of 502 mAh g−1 over 950 cycles at 1 A g−1. Moreover, the intercalation-conversion-alloying type lithium storage mechanism of Bi2Se3/CDs is revealed by in-situ XRD. This work provides a train of thoughts for other CDs-tailored composites with tunable morphology and structure.

Eight SrxCa1−xCO3 (0.2 strontianite > witherite > cerussite. The vibrational contribution to the excess Gibbs free energy is constrained for the SrxCa1−xCO3 solid solution, whose miscibility gap shrinks at elevated temperatures and disappears above ~400 K. The calculated equilibrium Sr-Ca exchange coefficient ( K D Sr / C a ) between aragonite and seawater is systematically lower than the measured ones below ~80 °C, suggesting kinetic control on Sr partitioning at low temperatures. We also evaluate the metal cation effect on the carbon and oxygen isotope fractionations between aragonite-group carbonates and CO2 or H2O. Our results show that the 1000∙lnβ (where β is the reduced partition function ratio) for both carbon and oxygen isotope fractionations decrease linearly with increasing average atomic mass of the divalent cation in these aragonite-group carbonates, and the compositional effect on isotope fractionations can be treated as a linear function of Sr2+ concentration in the SrxCa1−xCO3 solid solution.