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The A3 adenosine receptor (AR) is an important inflammatory and immunological target. However, the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Here, we report the gene regulation in HL-60 cells treated acutely with highly selective A3AR agonist MRS5698, positive allosteric modulator (PAM) LUF6000, or both. Both pro- and anti-inflammatory genes, such as IL-1a, IL-1β, and NFκBIZ, are significantly upregulated. During our observations, LUF6000 alone produced a lesser effect, while the MRS5698 + LUF6000 group demonstrated generally greater effects than MRS5698 alone, consistent with allosteric enhancement. The number of genes up- and down-regulated are similar. Pathway analysis highlighted the critical involvement of signaling molecules, including IL-6 and IL-17. Important upstream regulators include IL-1a, IL-1β, TNF-α, NF-κB, etc. PPAR, which modulates eicosanoid metabolism, was highly downregulated by the A3AR agonist. Considering previous pharmacological results and mathematical modeling, LUF6000's small enhancement of genetic upregulation suggested that MRS5698 is a nearly full agonist, which we demonstrated in both cAMP and calcium assays. The smaller effect of LUF6000 on MRS5698 in comparison to its effect on Cl-IB-MECA was shown in both HL-60 cells endogenously expressing the human (h) A3AR and in recombinant hA3AR-expressing CHO cells, consistent with its HL-60 cell genetic regulation patterns. In summary, by using both selective agonists and PAM, we identified genes that are closely relevant to immunity and inflammation to be regulated by A3AR in differentiated HL-60 cells, a cell model of neutrophil function. In addition, we demonstrated the previously uncharacterized allosteric signaling-enhancing effect of LUF6000 in cells endogenously expressing the hA3AR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic tracking of spinal instrumentation could facilitate real-time evaluation of hardware integrity and in so doing alert patients/clinicians of potential failure(s). Critically, no method yet exists to continually monitor the integrity of spinal hardware and by proxy the process of spinal arthrodesis; as such hardware failures are often not appreciated until clinical symptoms manifest. Accordingly, herein, we report on the development and engineering of a bio-adhesive metal detector array (BioMDA), a potential wearable solution for real-time, non-invasive positional analyses of osseous implants within the spine. The electromagnetic coupling mechanism and intimate interfacial adhesion enable the precise sensing of the metallic implants position without the use of radiation. The customized decoupling models developed facilitate the precise determination of the horizontal and vertical positions of the implants with incredible levels of accuracy (e.g., <0.5 mm). These data support the potential use of BioMDA in real-time/dynamic postoperative monitoring of spinal implants. No method exists for real-time evaluation of the status of spinal implants. Here, the authors developed a bio-adhesive metal detector array (BioMDA) that provides a wearable, non-invasive solution for positional analyses of osseous implants within the spine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few-shot Semantic Segmentation (FSS) segments query images only by using a few support images with ground truth. The existing methods usually extract a single prototype from the support image feature, which results in the spatial information loss. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end multi-level feature extraction and multi-prototype localization network named MMLNet for few-shot semantic segmentation, which consists of a multi-level feature extraction network, a Prototypes Generation (PG) module, a Prototype Localization (PL) module and a Self-Reinforcing Prototypes Generation(SRPG) module. The multi-level feature extraction network extracts features of different levels and projects them to a uniform size. Then, the PG module is employed to obtain multi-prototypes by an unsupervised Gaussian mixture model with hidden variables, which can get more comprehensive low-level and high-level information. Moreover, the PL module locates the foreground prototypes and guides the activation of foreground-related feature channels, then obtains the foreground and background probability maps. Finally, the SRPG module uses query prototypes to match query features, which can effectively capture the deep consistent features of query objects to match query features appropriately. Experimental results illustrate that the proposed MMLNet can achieve 66.33% and 35.89% mIoU with ResNet-50 backbone in the 1-shot setting of PASCAL-5i and COCO-20i without any post-processing refinement, which is the best performance in all comparable methods. It also verifies the effectiveness and performance of the proposed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reuse of gutter oil has always been a sensitive social issue. In the heat treatment industry, engineers have also been troubled by the need to move away from dependence on petroleum derivatives for cleaner production. While vegetable oils appear to be a viable alternative, the higher cost and poor thermal and oxidative stability limit their use in the heat treatment industry. The use of gutter oil as a quenchant raw material not only makes the quenchant cost effective but also environmentally friendly. In this study, the cooling performance of fatty acid methyl ester prepared from gutter oil was evaluated and compared with soybean oil and mineral oil. Firstly, fatty acid methyl ester was obtained by esterification and transesterification of gutter oil to reduce the free fatty acid content and make it suitable for quenching and heat treatment. The experiments were carried out using an Inconel 600 standard probe according to ISO 9950. The cooling behavior of the quenching media was tested at oil bath temperatures of 40 °C, 60 °C, and 80 °C. Quenching was carried out using AISI 4340 to obtain Vickers microhardness distributions on cross-sections of heat-treated specimens and residual stresses were determined by x-ray diffraction for all test materials. The fatty acid methyl ester used for analysis produced a hardening depth equivalent to that of commercial mineral oil when quenching the AISI 4340 alloy steel. And the test results achieved cooling properties and quenching intensity comparable to mineral oil. This indicates that fatty acid methyl ester prepared from gutter oil has the potential to replace mineral oil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

REBCO has been used extensively as coated conductors applied to superconducting magnets due to its exceptional superconducting properties. As a REBCO superconductor, YbBa2Cu3O7−y (Yb123) has a low melting temperature, making it suitable for use as an intermediate medium connector while preparing the superconducting joint. However, there is still uncertainty about the formation mechanism of Yb123 and the synthesis of this superconductor has not been fully understood. Therefore, this study systematically investigated the phase transformation process of Yb123 during heat treatment in flowing oxygen. The results indicated that Yb123 sample with the highest phase purity could be obtained by annealing at 927 °C or 937 °C but not in between, respectively. Furthermore, a quantitative phase analysis revealed that the sample annealed at 937 °C had a phase purity greater than 80 wt%. Additionally, a strong c-axis texture was observed in the bulk Yb123 superconductor prepared at 937 °C. Meanwhile, the superconducting results revealed that the bulk sample's Tc was 89.9 K, and its self-field critical current densities at 4.2 K and 77 K were 1.3 × 105 A/cm2 and 5.0 × 103 A/cm2, respectively. Based on the results mentioned above, the phase transformation process and formation mechanism of Yb123 in flowing oxygen were elaborated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid diagnosis of respiratory virus infection through breath and blow remains challenging. Here we develop a wireless, battery-free, multifunctional pathogenic infection diagnosis system (PIDS) for diagnosing SARS-CoV-2 infection and symptom severity by blow and breath within 110 s and 350 s, respectively. The accuracies reach to 100% and 92% for evaluating the infection and symptom severity of 42 participants, respectively. PIDS realizes simultaneous gaseous sample collection, biomarker identification, abnormal physical signs recording and machine learning analysis. We transform PIDS into other miniaturized wearable or portable electronic platforms that may widen the diagnostic modes at home, outdoors and public places. Collectively, we demonstrate a general-purpose technology for rapidly diagnosing respiratory pathogenic infection by breath and blow, alleviating the technical bottleneck of saliva and nasopharyngeal secretions. PIDS may serve as a complementary diagnostic tool for other point-of-care techniques and guide the symptomatic treatment of viral infections. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic highlighted our need for methods that allow rapid viral surveillance. Here, authors report a wireless, battery-free and wearable self-diagnosis platform that can continuously capture viral particles, diagnose infection status and evaluate symptom severity via breath and blow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most few-shot learning methods usually focus on the improvement of the single high-level feature extractor, however, a lot of practices have proved that the low-level features also contain abundant visual information and play an important role in the learning of feature extractors. In this paper, we propose a multi-level adaptive vision transformer few-shot learning network (MLVT-FSL). First, we propose a two-branch feature extraction network, which employs the multi-level feature extractor and vision transformer to extract the multi-level features and obtain the global relationship. It can bring 1.16% improvement to the baseline model under the setting of 5-way 5-shot on the MiniImageNet dataset. Then we use a feature adjustment module (FAM) to adaptively adjust features to achieve task-specific and more discriminative embeddings, which can bring 0.65% improvement to our network under the 5-way 5-shot condition on the MiniImageNet dataset. To further evaluate the performance of MLVT-FSL, we conduct some extensive experiments on several standard few-shot classification benchmarks on MiniImageNet, TieredImageNet and the fine-grained dataset CUB-200. Particularly, the proposed MLVT-FSL can achieve 82.46% and 84.97% top-1 classification accuracy under the setting of 5-way 5-shot on the benchmark dataset MiniImageNet and TieredImageNet. In addition, MLVT-FSL can obtain 87.04% 5-way 5-shot classification accuracy on CUB-200. All these results verify the effectiveness and performance of the proposed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efforts to fully understand pharmacological differences between G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) species homologues are generally not pursued in detail during the drug development process. To date, many GPCRs that have been successfully targeted are relatively well-conserved across species in amino acid sequence and display minimal variability of biological effects. However, the A3 adenosine receptor (AR), an exciting drug target for a multitude of diseases associated with tissue injury, ischemia, and inflammation, displays as little as 70% sequence identity among mammalian species (e.g., rodent vs. primate) commonly used in drug development. Consequently, the pharmacological properties of synthetic A3AR ligands vary widely, not only in binding affinity, selectivity, and signaling efficacy, but to the extent that some function as agonists in some species and antagonists in others. Numerous heterocyclic antagonists that have nM affinity at the human A3AR are inactive or weakly active at the rat and mouse A3ARs. Positive allosteric modulators, including the imidazo [4,5-c]quinolin-4-amine derivative LUF6000, are only active at human and some larger animal species that have been evaluated (rabbit and dog), but not rodents. A3AR agonists evoke systemic degranulation of rodent, but not human mast cells. The rat A3AR undergoes desensitization faster than the human A3AR, but the human homologue can be completely re-sensitized and recycled back to the cell surface. Thus, comprehensive pharmacological evaluation and awareness of potential A3AR species differences are critical in studies to further understand the basic biological functions of this unique AR subtype. Recombinant A3ARs from eight different species have been pharmacologically characterized thus far. In this review, we describe in detail current knowledge of species differences in genetic identity, G protein-coupling, receptor regulation, and both orthosteric and allosteric A3AR pharmacology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adenosine receptor (AR) ligands are being developed for metabolic, cardiovascular, neurological, and inflammatory diseases and cancer. The ease of drug discovery is contingent on the availability of pharmacological tools. Fluorescent antagonist ligands for the human A2A and A3ARs were synthesized using two validated pharmacophores, 1,3-dipropyl-8-phenylxanthine and triazolo[1,5-c]quinazolin-5-yl)amine, which were coupled to eight reporter fluorophores: AlexaFluor, JaneliaFluor (JF), cyanine, and near infrared (NIR) dyes. The conjugates were first screened using radioligand binding in HEK293 cells expressing one of the three AR subtypes. The highest affinities at A2AAR were Ki 144–316 nM for 10, 12, and 19, and at A3AR affinity of Ki 21.6 nM for 19. Specific binding of JF646 conjugate MRS7774 12 to the HEK293 cell surface A2AAR was imaged using confocal microscopy. Compound 19 MRS7535, a triazolo[1,5-c]quinazolin-5-yl)amine containing a Sulfo-Cy7 NIR dye, was suitable for A3AR characterization in whole cells by flow cytometry (Kd 11.8 nM), and its bitopic interaction mode with an A3AR homology model was predicted. Given its affinity and selectivity (11-fold vs. A2AAR, ~ 50-fold vs. A1AR and A2BAR) and a good specific-to-nonspecific binding ratio, 19 could be useful for live cell or potentially a diagnostic in vivo NIR imaging tool and/or therapy targeting the A3AR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continuous monitoring of arterial blood pressure (BP) outside of a clinical setting is crucial for preventing and diagnosing hypertension related diseases. However, current continuous BP monitoring instruments suffer from either bulky systems or poor user-device interfacial performance, hampering their applications in continuous BP monitoring. Here, we report a thin, soft, miniaturized system (TSMS) that combines a conformal piezoelectric sensor array, an active pressure adaptation unit, a signal processing module, and an advanced machine learning method, to allow real wearable, continuous wireless monitoring of ambulatory artery BP. By optimizing the materials selection, control/sampling strategy, and system integration, the TSMS exhibits improved interfacial performance while maintaining Grade A level measurement accuracy. Initial trials on 87 volunteers and clinical tracking of two hypertension individuals prove the capability of the TSMS as a reliable BP measurement product, and its feasibility and practical usability in precise BP control and personalized diagnosis schemes development. Continuous monitoring of arterial blood pressure is limited by bulky connecting systems and poor interfacial contact. Here, Li et al. report a wearable thin, soft, miniaturized system that integrates sensing, active pressure adaptation, and signal processing for improved performance and accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

γ-Aminobutyric acid type A receptors (GABAARs) play an important role in cognitive and emotional regulation and are related to the hippocampus. However, little is known regarding patterns of hippocampal GABAAR subunit expression in rat models of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). This study investigated the above changes by establishing two PMDD rat models based on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) theories, namely, PMDD liver-qi invasion syndrome (PMDD-LIS) and PMDD liver-qi depression syndrome (PMDD-LDS). Behavioral tests were used to detect depression and irritability emotion. Western blot analysis was used to investigate protein levels of GABAAR α1, α2, α4, α5, β2, β3, and δ subunits, whereas ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) analysis was performed to determine gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate (Glu) levels in the hippocampus across each group. Concurrently, behavioral data indicated that the PMDD-LDS and PMDD-LIS rat models had been successfully established. GABAAR α2, α5, β2, and δ subunit was significantly upregulated, whereas α4 was significantly downregulated (P < 0.05) in PMDD-LDS rat models relative to controls. On the other hand, GABAAR α1, α2, and β3 were significantly downregulated while α4 and β2 were significantly upregulated in PMDD-LIS rat models relative to the control group (P < 0.05). Moreover, GABA levels significantly decreased, while Glu and the ratio of glutamate to GABA increased in PMDD-LIS rat models (P < 0.05). Conversely, GABA and Glu levels significantly decreased, whereas the ratio of glutamate to GABA increased in PMDD-LIS rat models (P < 0.05). Conclusively, our results revealed differential expression of GABAAR α1, α2, α4, α5, β2, β3, and δ subunits between PMDD-LIS and PMDD-LDS rat models, suggesting that they may be biomarkers in the pathogenesis of PMDD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adenosine-to-inosine tRNA-editing enzyme has been identified for more than two decades, but the study on its DNA editing activity is rather scarce. We show that amphioxus (Branchiostoma japonicum) ADAT2 (BjADAT2) contains the active site 'HxE-PCxxC' and the key residues for target-base-binding, and amphioxus ADAT3 (BjADAT3) harbors both the N-terminal positively charged region and the C-terminal pseudo-catalytic domain important for recognition of substrates. The sequencing of BjADAT2-transformed Escherichia coli genome suggests that BjADAT2 has the potential to target E. coli DNA and can deaminate at TCG and GAA sites in the E. coli genome. Biochemical analyses further demonstrate that BjADAT2, in complex with BjADAT3, can perform A-to-I editing of tRNA and convert C-to-U and A-to-I deamination of DNA. We also show that BjADAT2 preferentially deaminates adenosines and cytidines in the loop of DNA hairpin structures of substrates, and BjADAT3 also affects the type of DNA substrate targeted by BjADAT2. Finally, we find that C89, N113, C148 and Y156 play critical roles in the DNA editing activity of BjADAT2. Collectively, our study indicates that BjADAT2/3 is the sole naturally occurring deaminase with both tRNA and DNA editing capacity identified so far in Metazoa. An adenosine-to-inosine tRNA-editing deaminase ADAT2 from amphioxus (Branchiostoma japonicum) in complex with ADAT3 can perform A-to-I editing of tRNA and convert C-to-U and A-to-I deamination of DNA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a linear categorical random coefficient model, in which the random coefficients follow parametric categorical distributions. The distributional parameters are identified based on a linear recurrence structure of moments of the random coefficients. A generalized method of moments estimation procedure is proposed, also employed by Peter Schmidt and his coauthors to address heterogeneity in time effects in panel data models. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we find that moments of the random coefficients can be estimated reasonably accurately, but large samples are required for the estimation of the parameters of the underlying categorical distribution. The utility of the proposed estimator is illustrated by estimating the distribution of returns to education in the USA by gender and educational levels. We find that rising heterogeneity between educational groups is mainly due to the increasing returns to education for those with postsecondary education, whereas within-group heterogeneity has been rising mostly in the case of individuals with high school or less education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent advances in virtual reality (VR) technologies accelerate the creation of a flawless 3D virtual world to provide frontier social platform for human. Equally important to traditional visual, auditory and tactile sensations, olfaction exerts both physiological and psychological influences on humans. Here, we report a concept of skin-interfaced olfactory feedback systems with wirelessly, programmable capabilities based on arrays of flexible and miniaturized odor generators (OGs) for olfactory VR applications. By optimizing the materials selection, design layout, and power management, the OGs exhibit outstanding device performance in various aspects, from response rate, to odor concentration control, to long-term continuous operation, to high mechanical/electrical stability and to low power consumption. Representative demonstrations in 4D movie watching, smell message delivery, medical treatment, human emotion control and VR/AR based online teaching prove the great potential of the soft olfaction interface in various practical applications, including entertainment, education, human machine interfaces and so on. Virtual reality technologies need olfactory systems to improve human perception, but their bulky formats limit their practicality. Here, Liu et. al. report flexible and miniaturized odor generators with tunable odor concentration in close user proximity for immersive virtual reality applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The progress of the computer vision field is dependent on the large volume of labelled data, and it is a challenge to replicate these successes in real tasks with few labelled data. Fortunately, few-shot learning methods have made many promising attempts on few labelled data. In this paper, we propose a light transformer-based few-shot classification network under the framework of prototypical nets (PN) which has two distinctive hallmarks. First, we provide the local features combined with global features as the sample embedding, where the local features are gained by a CNN encoder and the global features are obtained by light transformer-based global information with a saliency detection structure (LT-GSE) simultaneously. Second, for each task, we use the class approximate degree as prior knowledge to interact with information among query samples at the category level, which makes the low-dimensional embedding space distribution more reasonable. The experimental results show that the proposed model can achieve 82.28% and 86.56% on the 5-way 5-shot classification task of mini ImageNet and tiered ImageNet respectively, which are the best performances of all comparable models. Moreover,few-shot task experiments on the Stanford Dogs and CUB-200 datasets also verify the superiority and robustness of the proposed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aspergillus flavus infects stored grains and produces aflatoxins with highly toxic and carcinogenic properties, which are a threat to food safety and human health. Microbes and their bio-active compounds are considered effective agents to control A. flavus and aflatoxins during the pre- and post-harvest stages. Here, we reveal that Bacillus flexus strain TR-1 isolated from tea plant rhizosphere soil could efficiently inhibit the growth of A. flavus in dual culture tests through the production of antifungal volatiles. Additionally, these volatiles showed great inhibitory effects against A. flavus infection and aflatoxin production in maize and peanut with high water activity levels during storage. Scanning electron microscope analysis further proved that the conidia of A. flavus on the peanut surface treated with TR-1 volatiles could not germinate and were severely dehydrated and shrunken. Gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry revealed that five antifungal compounds were identified in the volatile profiles, including benzene, methyl thiolacetate, dimethyl disulfide, butanethioic acid S-methyl ester analogue, dimethyl trisulfide (DMTS), and S-methyl 3-methylbutanethioate. DMTS, with the best antagonistic effect, completely inhibited the growth of A. flavus at 10 μl−1 (compound volume/airspace volume). TR-1 also exhibited efficient and broad inhibitory effects against six other fungal pathogens. Overall, B. flexus strain TR-1 and its produced volatiles showed valid antifungal activity against phytopathogens. This study provides novel materials for the production of bioactive agents to control plant pathogens in stored grains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies on particulate matter (PM) exposure and neurodegenerative disorders showed inconsistent results, and few studies systematically examined the long-term effect of PM on neurodegenerative diseases, including all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, vascular dementia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and cognitive function decline. We systematically searched for published studies in PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science up to October 31, 2022. To facilitate a comparison of effect sizes from different studies, we standardized units across studies to a 10 μg/m3 increase for PM. Heterogeneity was assessed by Cochran's Q test and I2 statistic. Publication bias was evaluated using funnel plots and Egger's tests. Subgroup analysis, meta-regression, and sensitivity analysis were performed. The protocol for this review was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42021277112). Of the 3403 originally identified studies, a meta-analysis was finally performed in 49 studies. The results showed that there was a significant positive association between long-term PM2.5 exposure and all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease as well as Parkinson's disease, with pooled OR of 1.30 (95%CI: 1.14, 1.47, I2 = 99.3%), 1.65 (95%CI: 1.37, 1.94, I2 = 98.2%), and 1.17 (95%CI: 1.00, 1.33, I2 = 91.8%). A positive association between PM10 and vascular dementia was observed (OR = 1.12, 95%CI: 1.04, 1.21, I2 = 0.0%). Association between PM exposure and decreased cognitive function score was found. Our results highlight the important role of PM pollution, particularly PM2.5, in the risk of age-related neurodegenerative diseases and cognitive function decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanostructured transition metal phosphides (TMPs) have emerged as an attractive material in energy storage domains, owing to their high electrical conductivity and easy redox properties. However, the low actual specific capacitance and weak cycling stability hinder its further application. In this paper, the hierarchical nanosheet of CoP nanoparticles embedded in a two-dimensional carbon skeleton (Co-NP@C) with flake-like ZIF-67 as its precursor was synthesized by facile carbonization and phosphorization and employed as positive electrodes for asymmetric supercapacitors. Due to the presence of carbon skeleton and nanoparticles, a stable structure and more reaction channels for the electrochemical reactions were created, leading to a remarkable improvement of the electrical properties of Co-NP@C. The Co-NP@C electrode presents the exceptional electrochemical performance of 540 F g−1 at 1.0 A g−1. Furthermore, an asymmetric symmetric supercapacitor with Co-NP@C cathode and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) anode achieves superior cycling stability (92.4% after 10, 000 cycles at 10 A g−1) and a high energy density of 20.22 Wh kg−1 at a power density of 649.93 W kg−1. This study offers a simplified method for guiding the design of MOF-derived phosphide electrode materials and provides additional opportunities for optimizing high-efficiency supercapacitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are embedded in phospholipids that strongly influence drug-stimulated signaling. Anionic lipids are particularly important for GPCR signaling complex formation, but a mechanism for this role is not understood. Using NMR spectroscopy, we explore the impact of anionic lipids on the function-related conformational equilibria of the human A2A adenosine receptor (A2AAR) in bilayers containing defined mixtures of zwitterionic and anionic phospholipids. Anionic lipids prime the receptor to form complexes with G proteins through a conformational selection process. Without anionic lipids, signaling complex formation proceeds through a less favorable induced fit mechanism. In computational models, anionic lipids mimic interactions between a G protein and positively charged residues in A2AAR at the receptor intracellular surface, stabilizing a pre-activated receptor conformation. Replacing these residues strikingly alters the receptor response to anionic lipids in experiments. High sequence conservation of the same residues among all GPCRs supports a general role for lipid-receptor charge complementarity in signaling. In cell membranes, lipids are ubiquitous regulators of protein function. Here, Thakur et al. observe anionic phospholipids impact the conformational dynamics of a class A human GPCR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and objective: Acute lung injury (ALI)/ acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) was increasingly recognized as one of the most severe acute hyperimmune response of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Clofazimine (CFZ) has attracted attention due to its anti-inflammatory property in immune diseases as well as infectious diseases. However, the role and potential molecular mechanism of CFZ in anti-inflammatory responses remain unclear. Methods: We analyze the protein expression profiles of CFZ and LPS from Raw264.7 macrophages using quantitative proteomics. Next, the protective effect of CFZ on LPS-induced inflammatory model is assessed, and its underlying mechanism is validated by molecular biology analysis. Results: LC–MS/MS-based shotgun proteomics analysis identified 4746 (LPS) and 4766 (CFZ) proteins with quantitative information. The key proteins and their critical signal transduction pathways including TLR4/NF-κB/HIF-1α signaling was highlighted, which was involved in multiple inflammatory processes. A further analysis of molecular biology revealed that CFZ could significantly inhibit the proliferation of Raw264.7 macrophages, decrease the levels of TNF-α and IL-1β, alleviate lung histological changes and pulmonary edema, improve the survival rate, and down-regulate TLR4/NF-κB/HIF-1α signaling in LPS model. Conclusion: This study can provide significant insight into the proteomics-guided pharmacological mechanism study of CFZ and suggest potential therapeutic strategies for infectious disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An integrated and systematic database of sooting tendency with more than 190 kinds of fuels was obtained through a series of experimental investigations. The laser-induced incandescence (LII) method was used to acquire the 2D distribution of soot volume fraction, and an apparatus-independent yield sooting index (YSI) was experimentally obtained. Based on the database, a novel predicting model of YSI values for surrogate fuels was proposed with the application of a machine learning method, named the Bayesian multiple kernel learning (BMKL) model. A high correlation coefficient (0.986) between measured YSIs and predicted values with the BMKL model was obtained, indicating that the BMKL model had a reliable and accurate predictive capacity for YSI values of surrogate fuels. The BMKL model provides an accurate and low-cost approach to assess surrogate performances of diesel, jet fuel, and biodiesel in terms of sooting tendency. Particularly, this model is one of the first attempts to predict the sooting tendencies of surrogate fuels that concurrently contain hydrocarbon and oxygenated components and shows a satisfying matching level. During surrogate formulation, the BMKL model can be used to shrink the surrogate candidate list in terms of sooting tendency and ensure the optimal surrogate has a satisfying matching level of soot behaviors. Due to the high accuracy and resolution of YSI prediction, the BMKL model is also capable of providing distinguishing information of sooting tendency for surrogate design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the turning tool has worn and failed but the failure is not found, if it continues to be used for processing, it will break, and cause the workpiece to be scrapped, and even damage the machine tool. In order to avoid the loss caused by turning tool wear, the remaining useful life (RUL) prediction of turning tool wear has become a hot research topic in recent years. For RUL prediction in turning tools, the traditional machine is difficult to acquire sufficient degradation data and inconsistent data distribution among different turning tools in engineering, and they cannot provide better prediction accuracy to some extent. To solve the above problems, this paper proposes a multi-granularity feature extraction (MGFE) method based on the gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) and random forest (RF). Moreover, a health indicator (HI) of turning tools in the source domain was obtained. The common representative features in HI sequence of target domain was transferred to source domain and builds the condition monitoring and life prediction system of turning tools based on extreme learning machine and transfer learning. Finally, extreme vector machine (ELM) is used to construct the RUL prediction model. The research results show that the model constructed in this paper is effective in RUL prediction and can significantly improve the prediction accuracy of remaining useful life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thin, soft, and skin-integrated electronic system has great advantages for realizing continuous human healthcare monitoring. Here, we report an ultra-thin, flexible, and garment-based microelectronics powered by sweat-activated batteries (SABs) and applications of powering biosensors and microelectronic systems for real time sweat monitoring. The SAB cell is ultra-thin (1.25 mm) with excellent biocompatibility. The SAB has good electricity output with high capacity (14.33 mAh) and maximum power density (3.17 mW cm−2) after being activated by the sweat volume of 0.045 mL cm−2, which could continuously power 120 light emitting diodes over 3 h. The outputs could maintain stable after repeatable bending. Wireless microelectronics system could be continuously powered by the SABs for 3 h to monitor sweat and physiological information, including sweat Na+ concentration, pH, and skin impedance. The reported integrated system provides a potential for solving the power issues of flexible wearable electronics and realizing personalized medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economists specify high-dimensional models to address heterogeneity in empirical studies with complex big data. Estimation of these models calls for optimization techniques to handle a large number of parameters. Convex problems can be effectively executed in modern programming languages. We complement Koenker and Mizera (J Stat Softw 60(5):1–23, 2014)'s work on numerical implementation of convex optimization, with focus on high-dimensional econometric estimators. Combining R and the convex solver MOSEK achieves speed gain and accuracy, demonstrated by examples from Su et al. (Econometrica 84(6):2215–2264, 2016) and Shi (J Econom 195(1):104–119, 2016). Robust performance of convex optimization is witnessed across platforms. The convenience and reliability of convex optimization in R make it easy to turn new ideas into executable estimators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The A3 adenosine receptor (AR) is emerging as an attractive drug target. Antagonists are proposed for the potential treatment of glaucoma and asthma. However, currently available A3AR antagonists are potent in human and some large animals, but weak or inactive in mouse and rat. In this study, we re-synthesized a previously reported A3AR antagonist, DPTN, and evaluated its affinity and selectivity at human, mouse, and rat ARs. We showed that DPTN, indeed, is a potent A3AR antagonist for all three species tested, albeit a little less selective for mouse and rat A3AR in comparison to the human A3AR. DPTN's Ki values at respective A1, A2A, A2B, and A3 receptors were (nM) 162, 121, 230, and 1.65 (human); 411, 830, 189, and 9.61 (mouse); and 333, 1147, 163, and 8.53 (rat). Its antagonist activity at both human and mouse A3ARs was confirmed in a cyclic AMP functional assay. Considering controversial use of currently commercially available A3AR antagonists in rats and mice, we also re-examined other commonly used and selective A3AR antagonists under the same experimental conditions. The Ki values of MRS1523 were shown to be 43.9, 349, and 216 nM at human, mouse, and rat A3ARs, respectively. MRS1191 and MRS1334 showed incomplete inhibition of [125I]I-AB-MECA binding to mouse and rat A3ARs, while potent human A3AR antagonists, MRS1220, MRE3008F20, PSB10, PSB-11, and VUF5574 were largely inactive. Thus, we demonstrated that DPTN and MRS1523 are among the only validated A3AR antagonists that can be possibly used (at an appropriate concentration) in mouse or rat to confirm an A3AR-related mechanism or function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Skin-integrated electronics, also known as electronic skin (e-skin), are rapidly developing and are gradually being adopted in biomedical fields as well as in our daily lives. E-skin capable of providing sensitive and high-resolution tactile sensations and haptic feedback to the human body would open a new e-skin paradigm for closed-loop human–machine interfaces. Here, we report a class of materials and mechanical designs for the miniaturization of mechanical actuators and strategies for their integration into thin, soft e-skin for haptic interfaces. The mechanical actuators exhibit small dimensions of 5 mm diameter and 1.45 mm thickness and work in an electromagnetically driven vibrotactile mode with resonance frequency overlapping the most sensitive frequency of human skin. Nine mini actuators can be integrated simultaneously in a small area of 2 cm × 2 cm to form a 3 × 3 haptic feedback array, which is small and compact enough to mount on a thumb tip. Furthermore, the thin, soft haptic interface exhibits good mechanical properties that work properly during stretching, bending, and twisting and therefore can conformally fit onto various parts of the human body to afford programmable tactile enhancement and Braille recognition with an accuracy rate over 85%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incidence of kidney stones is increasing in the US population. Oxalate, a major factor for stone formation, is degraded by gut bacteria reducing its intestinal absorption. Intestinal O. formigenes colonization has been associated with a lower risk for recurrent kidney stones in humans. In the current study, we used a clinical trial of the eradication of Helicobacter pylori to assess the effects of an antibiotic course on O. formigenes colonization, urine electrolytes, and the composition of the intestinal microbiome. Of 69 healthy adult subjects recruited, 19 received antibiotics for H. pylori eradication, while 46 were followed as controls. Serial fecal samples were examined for O. formigenes presence and microbiota characteristics. Urine, collected serially fasting and following a standard meal, was tested for oxalate and electrolyte concentrations. O. formigenes prevalence was 50%. Colonization was significantly and persistently suppressed in antibiotic-exposed subjects but remained stable in controls. Urinary pH increased after antibiotics, but urinary oxalate did not differ between the control and treatment groups. In subjects not on antibiotics, the O. formigenes-positive samples had higher alpha-diversity and significantly differed in Beta-diversity from the O. formigenes-negative samples. Specific taxa varied in abundance in relation to urinary oxalate levels. These studies identified significant antibiotic effects on O. formigenes colonization and urinary electrolytes and showed that overall microbiome structure differed in subjects according to O. formigenes presence. Identifying a consortium of bacterial taxa associated with urinary oxalate may provide clues for the primary prevention of kidney stones in healthy adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since alterations in the intestinal microbiota may induce systemic inflammation and polarization of macrophages to the M1 state, the microbiome role in atherosclerosis, an M1-driven disease, requires evaluation. We aimed to determine if antibiotic (Abx) induced alterations to the intestinal microbiota interferes with atherosclerotic plaque inflammation resolution after lipid-lowering in mice. Hyperlipidemic Apoe−/− mice were fed a western diet to develop aortic atherosclerosis with aortas then transplanted into normolipidemic wild-type (WT) mice to model clinically aggressive lipid management and promote atherosclerosis inflammation resolution. Gut microbial composition pre and post-transplant was altered via an enteral antibiotic or not. Post aortic transplant, after Abx treatment, while plaque size did not differ, compared to Apoe−/− mice, Abx– WT recipient mice had a 32% reduction in CD68-expressing cells (p = 0.02) vs. a non-significant 12% reduction in Abx+ WT mice. A trend toward an M1 plaque CD68-expresing cell phenotype was noted in Abx+ mice. By 16S rRNA sequence analysis, the Abx+ mice had reduced alpha diversity and increased Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes relative abundance ratio with a correlation between gut Firmicutes abundance and plaque CD68-expressing cell content (p < 0.05). These results indicate that in a murine atherosclerotic plaque inflammation resolution model, antibiotic-induced microbiome perturbation may blunt the effectiveness of lipid-lowering to reduce the content of plaque inflammatory CD68-expressing cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cell-aware test (CAT) explicitly targets faults caused by defects inside library cells to improve test quality, compared with conventional automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) approaches, which target faults only at the boundaries of library cells. The CAT methodology consists of two stages. Stage 1, based on dedicated analog simulation, library characterization per cell identifies which cell-level test pattern detects which cell-internal defect; this detection information is encoded in a defect detection matrix (DDM). In Stage 2, with the DDMs as inputs, cell-aware ATPG generates chip-level test patterns per circuit design that is build up of interconnected instances of library cells. This paper focuses on Stage 1, library characterization, as both test quality and cost are determined by the set of cell-internal defects identified and simulated in the CAT tool flow. With the aim to achieve the best test quality, we first propose an approach to identify a comprehensive set, referred to as full set, of potential open- and short-defect locations based on cell layout. However, the full set of defects can be large even for a single cell, making the time cost of the defect simulation in Stage 1 unaffordable. Subsequently, to reduce the simulation time, we collapse the full set to a compact set of defects which serves as input of the defect simulation. The full set is stored for the diagnosis and failure analysis. With inspecting the simulation results, we propose a method to verify the test quality based on the compact set of defects and, if necessary, to compensate the test quality to the same level as that based on the full set of defects. For 351 combinational library cells in Cadence's GPDK045 45nm library, we simulate only 5.4% defects from the full set to achieve the same test quality based on the full set of defects. In total, the simulation time, via linear extrapolation per cell, would be reduced by 96.4% compared with the time based on the full set of defects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High spatial resolution and high temporal frequency fractional vegetation cover (FVC) products have been increasingly in demand to monitor and research land surface processes. This paper develops an algorithm to estimate FVC at a 30-m/15-day resolution over China by taking advantage of the spatial and temporal information from different types of sensors: the 30-m resolution sensor on the Chinese environment satellite (HJ-1) and the 1-km Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). The algorithm was implemented for each main vegetation class and each land cover type over China. First, the high spatial resolution and high temporal frequency normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was acquired by using the continuous correction (CC) data assimilation method. Then, FVC was generated with a nonlinear pixel unmixing model. Model coefficients were obtained by statistical analysis of the MODIS NDVI. The proposed method was evaluated based on in situ FVC measurements and a global FVC product (GEOV1 FVC). Direct validation using in situ measurements at 97 sampling plots per half month in 2010 showed that the annual mean errors (MEs) of forest, cropland, and grassland were −0.025, 0.133, and 0.160, respectively, indicating that the FVCs derived from the proposed algorithm were consistent with ground measurements [R2 = 0.809, root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) = 0.065]. An intercomparison between the proposed FVC and GEOV1 FVC demonstrated that the two products had good spatial-temporal consistency and similar magnitude (RMSD approximates 0.1). Overall, the approach provides a new operational way to estimate high spatial resolution and high temporal frequency FVC from multiple remote sensing datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid phosphoester hydrolysis of endogenous purine and pyrimidine nucleotides has challenged the characterization of the role of P2 receptors in physiology and pathology. Nucleotide phosphoester stabilization has been pursued on a number of medicinal chemistry fronts. We investigated the in vitro and in vivo stability and pharmacokinetics of prototypical nucleotide P2Y1 receptor (P2Y1R) agonists and antagonists. These included the riboside nucleotide agonist 2-methylthio-ADP and antagonist MRS2179, as well as agonist MRS2365 and antagonist MRS2500 containing constrained (N)-methanocarba rings, which were previously reported to form nucleotides that are more slowly hydrolyzed at the α-phosphoester compared with the ribosides. In vitro incubations in mouse and human plasma and blood demonstrated the rapid hydrolysis of these compounds to nucleoside metabolites. This metabolism was inhibited by EDTA to chelate divalent cations required by ectonucleotidases for nucleotide hydrolysis. This rapid hydrolysis was confirmed in vivo in mouse pharmacokinetic studies that demonstrate that MRS2365 is a prodrug of the nucleoside metabolite AST-004 (MRS4322). Furthermore, we demonstrate that the nucleoside metabolites of MRS2365 and 2-methylthio-ADP are adenosine receptor (AR) agonists, notably at A3 and A1ARs. In vivo efficacy of MRS2365 in murine models of traumatic brain injury and stroke can be attributed to AR activation by its nucleoside metabolite AST-004, rather than P2Y1R activation. This research suggests the importance of reevaluation of previous in vitro and in vivo research of P2YRs and P2XRs as there is a potential that the pharmacology attributed to nucleotide agonists is due to AR activation by active nucleoside metabolites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study was to investigate effects of asafoetida (Ferula sinkiangensis K. M. Shen) powder on feeding attraction activity (FAA), growth performance, healthiness, and digestive enzyme activity of juvenile Lateolabrax japonicus. Six concentration levels (0, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 g/kg diets) were formulated for luring and feeding experiment. Results showed that asafoetida could stimulate the appetite of L. japonicus at the dietary levels from 10 to 25 g/kg; reduce the feed conversion ratio (FCR) and feed intake (FI) at 10–20 g/kg; increase the weight gain (WG) and specific growth rate (SGR) at 5–10 g/kg; increase the hepatosomatic index (HSI), body crude lipid content, serum total protein (TP) content, and lysozyme activity at 10–15 g/kg; decrease the moisture at 10–15 g/kg; and increase the serum total superoxide dismutase (T-SOD) activity at 5–15 g/kg, when compared with the control group (p < 0.05). Digestive enzyme activities including amylase (AMS) and trypsin in the intestine were significantly affected by the asafoetida powder (p < 0.05). Regression analyses between the FAA, FCR, WG, SGR, HSI, LZM, T-SOD, AMS, trypsin, and the dietary asafoetida powder levels showed that the optimal additional amount was 16.95, 13.65, 8.36, 8.15, 15.45, 9.94, 8.75, 11.77, and 7.07 g/kg, respectively, indicating that the optimal amount of asafoetida powder was located in 7.07–16.95 g/kg diet. However, combined with the significant difference analyses obtained from the current study, we would suggest the additive suitable dosage was 10 g/kg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Marc-145 cells (monkey embryonic kidney epithelial cells) play a critical role in the biotechnology industry as certain virus host cells. To investigate the expression of enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) gene as a foreign gene in Marc-145 cells, which we developed an approach of foreign gene site-specific knock-in into Marc-145 cells by clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated 9 (Cas9) and putatively explored appropriate genomic recombination sites in Marc-145 cells. Results: Our study demonstrated that the specific homologous recombination (HR) site between the Rac GTPase activating protein 1 (RACGAP1) and the acid-sensing ion channel subunit 1 (ASIC1) genes of the 11th chromosome could be used as the target site of Cas9 for the generation of target gene knock-in into Marc-145 cells, by the insertion of the eGFP cassette into the specific HR site and subsequent expression. Conclusions: Junction PCR, sequencing, Southern blot and fluorescence assay determined eGFP gene-specific knock-in HR site between the RACGAP1 and ASIC1 genes of the 11th chromosome, which was identified by the genomic safe harbours in Marc-145 cells. Our study encouraged a broader range of applications, such as Marc-145 cells development and engineering for virus adaption and yield increase in the vaccine biotechnology industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the brake light (BL) model, Knospe et al. proposed a symmetric two-lane cellular automaton (BL-STCA) model, which could reproduce various empirically observed two-lane phenomena. In real traffic, the effect of brake light on the lane-changing behavior cannot be ignored. Therefore, BL-STCA model is interesting. However, there are two problems with BL-STCA model, too strong exchange of vehicles between lanes and unreasonable phenomenon in some special scenarios, such as a broken-down vehicle parked on one lane due to traffic accident. In order to solve the problems, we introduce the dynamic lane-changing probability and proposed an improved BL-STCA model with modification of lane-changing rules. The simulation results show as below. (1) Our new model effectively solves the above two problems of BL-STCA model. In addition, the lane-changing frequency is consistent with the real traffic data, which means the validity of our new model. (2) Compared with single-lane scenario, the lane-changing behaviors in two-lane scenario can effectively suppress the emergence of wide moving jam. (3) From the microcosmic level, the lane-changing behaviors can well explain the moving blank phenomenon within wide moving jam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the hypothesis that all vehicles on roads are floating vehicles equipped with vehicular terminals and upload their traffic information to the traffic control center in real time, many traffic flow guidance algorithms are proposed in order to improve the road capacity in Intelligent Transportation System. Based on this complete information scenario, the traffic control center can obtain all traffic information on roads and compute the guidance metrics according to the traffic flow guidance algorithm. The vehicle therefore can select the route with the guidance. However, due to the cost and technology limits, in short time, some vehicles cannot be equipped with vehicular terminals, which are non-floating vehicles and cannot upload their traffic information to the traffic control center. In this incomplete information scenario, the guidance effect will be affected by non-floating vehicles. In this paper, the method of estimating non-floating vehicles' driving information according to floating vehicles' information is introduced. With the estimation method, a new traffic flow guidance algorithm, Estimated Weighted Vehicle Density Feedback Strategy based on Weighted Vehicle Density Feedback Strategy (WVDFS) is proposed. In the simulation, the guidance effect of the new algorithm is performed based on the two-route scenario, which is the simplified model of traffic network. NaSch model is also used as the vehicle mobility model, which can simulate the vehicle motion. The simulation results show that non-floating vehicles have great negative influence on the performance of WVDFS, and the applicability of our algorithm is validated to have better performance in incomplete information scenarios. Our algorithm can provide solutions for current traffic flow guidance with incomplete information scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relaxin, an emerging biomarker in heart failure, is involved in fibrosis and inflammation. The value of relaxin in predicting recurrence of atrial fibrillation (AF) after radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFCA) is unknown and the subject of this study. We prospectively enrolled 248 consecutive patients with AF (paroxysmal in 127 and persistent in 121) who underwent RFCA at our center after measurement of circulating levels of relaxin by ELISA. Kaplan–Meier analysis with log-rank test and multivariate analysis were used to assess the association between pre-RFCA relaxin levels and post-RFCA AF recurrence at 18 months follow-up. At mean 16.3 ± 3.8 months post-RFCA, 195 (78.6%) patients maintained sinus rhythm, and their pre-RFCA relaxin level was lower than that in patients with AF recurrence (P < 0.001). From lowest to highest pre-RFCA relaxin level tertiles (T1; 82.10–< 234.36; T2; 234.36–< 342.26; and T3; 342.26–740.63 ng/L), AF recurrence rate increased significantly (8.5%, 20.5% and 34.9%, respectively; Kaplan–Meier analysis with log-rank test, χ2 = 18.44, P < 0.001). Using a cutoff of 285.4 ng/L, pre-RFCA relaxin level predicted AF recurrence during follow-up with sensitivity of 77.4% and specificity of 55.9% (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve = 0.71). On multivariate Cox proportional hazard model, relaxin level by tertile (T2, hazard ratio 2.678; 95% confidence interval 1.110–6.460; P = 0.028, and T3, hazard ratio 4.745; 95% confidence interval 2.075–10.854; P < 0.001, respectively compared with the T1) was the independent factor predicting recurrence. Elevated pre-RFCA relaxin level is associated with post-RFCA AF recurrence. A simple measurement of relaxin level therefore might help identify patients at high risk of AF recurrence after RFCA. Clinical Trial Registration chictr.org.cn identifier: ChiCTR-OOC-15006130. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Klotho, a putative aging suppressor, shares sequence similarity with members of the glycosidase family 1. It has been identified in several vertebrate species, but only mouse Klotho has so far been proven to exhibit β-glucuronidase activity. Thus, the argument that Klotho from animals other than mouse has glycosidase activity remains open. Moreover, little information is available regarding the structure-activity relationship of Klotho. Here, we demonstrate the presence of a single klotho gene in the amphioxus Branchiostoma japonicum, Bjklotho, which possesses two tandem domains named BjKL1 and BjKL2, and each of them has two glutamic acid residues that have been shown to be involved in the catalytic activity of family 1 glycosidase. Enzymatic activity assays of the recombinant proteins BjKL1 and BjKL2 revealed that only BjKL2 displayed β-glucosidase activity, but BjKL1 did not. Structural analysis showed that there existed nine consecutive but not conserved residues in the β6α6 loop, which affects the conformational form in the entrance to the catalytic pocket of BjKL1 and BjKL2, thereby leading to a subtle difference in the enzyme-substrate binding and interaction. Furthermore, the substitution of the nine residues 354QNRVDPNDT362 in BjKL1 by the residues 884EDNVVVGAA892 in BjKL2 resulted in significant increase in β-glucosidase activity in the BjKL1 mutant. Our results indicate that BjKL2 possesses β-glucosidase, the first data as such in invertebrates. We also identify, for the first time, the residues 884EDNVVVGAA892 in BjKL2 a sequence critical and indispensable for glucosidase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Palladium nanocatalysts supported on commercial fumed silica were synthesized via a convenient liquid method without any external reductant or surfactants. The catalysts were characterized by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, X-ray powder diffraction and the transmission electron microscope analysis. Then it was applied for Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reactions. It was found that a number of aryl halides were efficiently catalyzed using these catalysts in aqueous-ethanol under relatively mild condition within 0.5h. Further study showed that the catalyst could be recycled up to 10 times without loss of activity.Palladium nanocatalysts supported on commercial fumed silica were synthesized and applied for Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reactions. A number of aryl halides were efficiently catalyzed using these catalysts in aqueous-ethanol under relatively mild condition within 0.5h. Further study showed that the catalyst could be recycled up to 10 times without loss of activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using stable inorganic solid electrolyte to replace organic liquid electrolyte could significantly reduce potential safety risks of rechargeable batteries. Na-superionic conductor (NASICON)-structured solid electrolyte is one of the most promising sodium solid electrolytes and can be employed in solid-state sodium batteries. In this work, a NASICON-structured solid electrolyte Na3.1Zr1.95Mg0.05Si2PO12 was synthesized through a facile solid-state reaction, yielding high sodium-ionic conductivity of 1.33 × 10−3 S·cm−1 at room temperature. The results indicate that Mg2+ is a suitable and economical substitution ion to replace Zr4+, and this synthesis route can be scaled up for powder preparation with low cost. In addition to electrolyte material preparation, solid-state batteries with Na3.1Zr1.95Mg0.05Si2PO12 as electrolyte were assembled. A specific capacity of 57.9 mAh·g−1 is maintained after 100 cycles under a current density of 0.5C rate at room temperature. The favorable cycling performance of the solid-state battery suggests that Na3.1Zr1.95Mg0.05Si2PO12 is an ideal electrolyte candidate for solid-state sodium batteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lithium-zinc ferrite hollow microspheres (LiZn FHMs) containing special surface crystals were synthesized by self-reactive quenching technology. The samples were heat-treated at 1200 °C and held for 4 h. The influence of the heat-treatment on LiZn FHMs was studied. The results show that the surface of hollow microspheres is smooth without heat-treatment. The phase components are Fe2O3, Fe3O4, Li0.435Zn0.195Fe2.37O4, and Li0.5Fe2.5O4. The minimum reflectivity is −13.5 dB, and the corresponding frequency is 7.5 GHz. The effective absorption band lower than −10 dB is 6.2-8.5 GHz, and the bandwidth is 2.3 GHz. After heat-treatment, crystals on the surface of hollow microspheres grow significantly. Multiple-shape micro-nano crystals containing triangular, polygonal, and irregular crystal are generated. However, the phase composition does not change. The real part of the permittivity (ε′), the imaginary part of permittivity (ε″), the real part of permeability (μ′), and the imaginary part of permeability (μ″) all increase, and the microwave absorption properties at low frequency are significantly increased, with the absorption peak moving to a lower frequency range. The minimum reflectivity is −26.5 dB, and the corresponding frequency changes to 3.4 GHz. The effective absorption band is 2.6-4 GHz, and the bandwidth is 1.4 GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activity of the A3 adenosine receptor (AR) allosteric modulators LUF6000 (2-cyclohexyl-N-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1H-imidazo [4,5-c]quinolin-4-amine) and LUF6096 (N-{2-[(3,4-dichlorophenyl)amino]quinolin-4-yl}cyclohexanecarbox-amide) was compared at four A3AR species homologs used in preclinical drug development. In guanosine 5′-[γ-[35S]thio]triphosphate ([35S]GTPγS) binding assays with cell membranes isolated from human embryonic kidney cells stably expressing recombinant A3ARs, both modulators substantially enhanced agonist efficacy at human, dog, and rabbit A3ARs but provided only weak activity at mouse A3ARs. For human, dog, and rabbit, both modulators increased the maximal efficacy of the A3AR agonist 2-chloro-N6-(3-iodobenzyl)adenosine-5′-N-methylcarboxamide as well as adenosine > 2-fold, while slightly reducing potency in human and dog. Based on results from N6-(4-amino-3-[125I]iodobenzyl)adenosine-5′-N-methylcarboxamide ([125I]I-AB-MECA) binding assays, we hypothesize that potency reduction is explained by an allosterically induced slowing in orthosteric ligand binding kinetics that reduces the rate of formation of ligand-receptor complexes. Mutation of four amino acid residues of the human A3AR to the murine sequence identified the extracellular loop 1 (EL1) region as being important in selectively controlling the allosteric actions of LUF6096 on [125I]I-AB-MECA binding kinetics. Homology modeling suggested interaction between species-variable EL1 and agonist-contacting EL2. These results indicate that A3AR allostery is species-dependent and provide mechanistic insights into this therapeutically promising class of agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tantalum disulfide nanosheets have attracted great interest due to its electronic properties and device applications. Traditional solution-ased ultrasonic process is limited by ultrasound which may cause the disintegration into submicron-sized flake. Here, an efficient multi-step intercalation and ultrasound-free process has been successfully used to exfoliate 1T-TaS. The obtained TaS nanosheets reveal an average thickness of 3 nm and several micrometers in size. The formation of few-layer TaS nanosheets as well as monolayer TaS sheets is further confirmed by atomic force microscopy images. The few-layer TaS nanosheets remain the 1T structure, whereas monolayer TaS sheets show lattice distortion and may adopt the 1H-like structure with trigonal prism coordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variational wavefunction including the breather, dipole and scissor modes simultaneously is constructed to investigate the collective-excitation dynamics of spin-1 $$^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$$ condensates driven by a space- and time-dependent magnetic field. When the Dirac point never enters the condensate, it is shown that the dipole, breather and scissor modes will be all excited driven by the sinusoidal oscillation of the Dirac point, due to the coupling of different collective modes from the inhomogeneity of the magnetic field. A resonance-driving phenomenon is observed. If the Dirac point passes through the condensate, our numerical results agree with most experimental observations (Ray et al. in Nature 505:657, 2014) and find that the center of mass of the condensate does not follow the zero point of the magnetic field. Hopefully, our method can be extended to study the similar dynamics for the other spinor condensates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We simulate the dynamics of spin-2 R b condensate in a time and space-dependent magnetic field with a time-dependent variational approach. The topological Hall effect is observed, which has been realized in the experiment of spin-1 N a condensate [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 245301 (2013)]. A driving-induced resonance behavior is observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We simulate numerically the dynamics of $$^{23}$$ Na condensate in a time- and space-dependent magnetic field with a variational approach. It is shown to be an efficient method to describe the complex dynamics of the system, which may excite the breather mode, the scissor mode, and the dipole mode simultaneously. Our results agree with the experimental observations of Choi et al. (Phys Rev Lett 111:245301, ). We reproduce qualitatively the geometric Hall effect and resonance behavior. We also find that the condensate shows a scissor-mode-like motion, which may play the shearing force to deform the condensate and consequently leads to the dynamical nucleation of quantized vortices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Titanium oxyhydroxy-fluoride, TiO(OH)F · 0.59HO rods with a hexagonal tungsten bronze (HTB) structure, was synthesized via a facile one-step solvothermal method. The structure, morphology, and component of the products were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetry (TG), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution TEM (HRTEM), inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), ion chromatograph, energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analyses, and so on. Different rod morphologies which ranged from nanoscale to submicron scale were simply obtained by adjusting reaction conditions. With one-dimension channels for Li/Na intercalation/de-intercalation, the electrochemical performance of titanium oxyhydroxy-fluoride for both lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) was also studied. Electrochemical tests revealed that, for LIBs, titanium oxyhydroxy-fluoride exhibited a stabilized reversible capacity of 200 mAh g at 25 mA g up to 120 cycles in the electrode potential range of 3.0-1.2 V and 140 mAh g at 250 mA g up to 500 cycles, especially; for SIBs, a high capacity of 100 mAh g was maintained at 25 mA g after 115 cycles in the potential range of 2.9-0.5 V. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to investigate the correlation between serum homocysteine (Hcy) levels and the pathogenesis of cerebral infarction (CI). Relevant studies involving serum Hcy levels and the pathogenesis of CI were identified using electronic database search supplemented with manual search. The search result studies were screened in accordance with our strict inclusion and exclusion criteria. Statistical analyses were conducted with Comprehensive Meta Analysis 2.0 (CMA 2.0) software. A total of 13 studies were eligible for our meta-analysis and included 1206 patients with CI and 1202 healthy controls. Our meta-analysis revealed that the serum Hcy levels in CI patients were significantly higher than those in healthy controls. Subgroup analysis based on ethnicity showed that Caucasians and Asians had significantly higher serum Hcy levels in CI patients compared to healthy controls and Africans showed no significant differences in serum Hcy levels between CI patients and controls. In conclusion, our meta-analysis reveals a strong correlation between elevated serum Hcy levels and the pathogenesis of CI, suggesting that serum Hcy levels may be an important biomarker for the early diagnosis and treatment assessment of CI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]