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In order to understand the reaction kinetics of HMX/AP/Al ternary system, the different distribution of AP in HMX/AP/Al explosives was realized by two different preparation techniques. Detonation test results show that the detonation velocity, explosion heat and detonation pressure of HAP samples are higher than those of HAl samples, but the extent of improvement is not high, not more than 5 %. The results of scanning electron microscopy showed that AP in HAP samples was distributed on the surface of HMX crystal. AP were dispersed around HMX crystals in HAl samples. The experimental results of explosive fireball performance show that the fireball expansion speed of HAP samples is better than that of HAl samples, demonstrating a good fireball effect. Underwater test results show that the shock wave peak pressure and bubble pulsation period of HAP samples increase by 3.06 % and 7.95 % respectively, and shock wave energy and bubble energy increase by 9.8 % and 25.42 % compared with bubble energy. The experimental results show that HAP samples are superior to HAl samples in accelerating ability of Al flies. The dispersion of AP on the HMX crystal surface promotes the energy release of HMX/AP/Al explosives more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technologies are reshaping the landscape of agriculture. In 2021, around 10% of agricultural products in China were distributed through the Internet. As small farmers are traditionally subsumed by commercial capital in the sphere of circulation, this article investigates what difference online marketing has made to this relationship. Using qualitative data collected from a county in China, we examine the experiences of small farmer e‐tailers. We find that agricultural e‐commerce provides them with an alternative marketing channel and a larger customer base, increases the efficiency of product distribution and allows them to retain a greater share of the value they produce. However, while extant literature suggests that agricultural e‐commerce has increased farmers' autonomy and income, we find that small farmers' vertical expansion into e‐commerce by becoming agricultural e‐tailers fails to alleviate their subsumption by commercial capital and subjects them to more oppressive forms of commercial capital in three ways. First, small farmer e‐tailers are controlled by agricultural e‐commerce platforms, as their transactions rely on these platforms that are quasi‐monopolies in China. Second, these e‐tailers are increasingly exploited by platforms and other cybermediaries whom they are forced to pay for Internet traffic. Finally, small farmers are being excluded from being e‐tailers as platforms are becoming e‐tailers and they cannot compete with corporate e‐tailers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micro/nano energetic materials with regular morphologies exhibit high energy release efficiency, superior charge performance, and low mechanical sensitivity. Exploring dihydroxylammonium 5,5′‐bistetrazole‐1,1′‐diolate (TKX‐50) with spherical microstructures and excellent comprehensive properties is of great significance for potential applications. In this work, a kind of superfine spherical TKX‐50 was fabricated by spray drying method. The as‐prepared TKX‐50 had a narrow particle size distribution with d50=3.14 μm, high sphericity of 0.944 with hollow structure and bulk density of 1.851 g/cm3. And its formation mechanism was proposed. The results of XRD and FT‐IR demonstrated that spray drying would not change the crystal structure of TKX‐50. TG‐DSC results showed that the initial decomposition and the peak temperature of superfine spherical TKX‐50 was about 10 °C lower than raw TKX‐50, and the apparent activation energy was 4.584 kJ ⋅ mol−1 lower than raw TKX‐50, due to the dramatic change in morphology. TG‐DSC‐FTIR‐MS provided a new understanding of decomposition process of TKX‐50, and the results illustrated that the main gas products were N2, H2O, N2O, NH3, NO, NH2, CO2, and HCN. Superfine spherical TKX‐50 underwent similar decomposition path as raw TKX‐50 but stood out in its larger occupation of the first decomposition which meant a more complete decomposition and its faster rate of the whole decomposition process. More importantly, the impact sensitivity (H50) increased from 50.1 cm to 70.8 cm, and the friction sensitivity (P) decreased from 24 % to 0 %, showing improved safety performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1‐year mortality and health consequences of COVID‐19 in cancer patients are relatively underexplored. In this multicenter cohort study, 166 COVID‐19 patients with cancer were compared with 498 non‐cancer COVID‐19 patients and 498 non‐COVID cancer patients. The 1‐year all‐cause mortality and hospital mortality rates in Cancer COVID‐19 Cohort (30% and 20%) were significantly higher than those in COVID‐19 Cohort (9% and 8%, both P <.001) and Cancer Cohort (16% and 2%, both P < 0.001). The 12‐month all‐cause post‐discharge mortality rate in survival discharged Cancer COVID‐19 Cohort (8%) was higher than that in COVID‐19 Cohort (0.4%, P <.001) but similar to that in Cancer Cohort (15%, P =.084). The incidence of sequelae in Cancer COVID‐19 Cohort (23%, 26/114) is similar to that in COVID‐19 Cohort (30%, 130/432, P =.13). The 1‐year all‐cause mortality was high among patients with hematologic malignancies (59%), followed by those who have nasopharyngeal, brain, and skin tumors (45%), digestive system neoplasm (43%), and lung cancers (32%). The rate was moderate among patients with genitourinary (14%), female genital (13%), breast (11%), and thyroid tumors (0). COVID‐19 patients with cancer showed a high rate of in‐hospital mortality and 1‐year all‐cause mortality, but the 12‐month all‐cause post‐discharge mortality rate in survival discharged cancer COVID‐19 patients was similar to that in Cancer Cohort. Comparing to COVID‐19 Cohort, risk stratification showed that hematologic, nasopharyngeal, brain, digestive system, and lung tumors were high risk (44% vs 9%, P < 0.001), while genitourinary, female genital, breast, and thyroid tumors had moderate risk (10% vs 9%, P =.85) in COVID‐19 Cancer Cohort. Different tumor subtypes had different effects on COVID‐19. But if cancer patients with COVID‐19 manage to survive their COVID‐19 infections, then long‐term mortality appears to be similar to the cancer patients without COVID‐19, and their long‐term clinical sequelae were similar to the COVID‐19 patients without cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory, metabolic, and epigenetic disease, which leads to the life-threatening coronary artery disease. Emerging studies from bench to bedside have demonstrated the pivotal role of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) oxidation in the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis. This article hereby reviews oxidation mechanism of LDL, and the pro-atherogenic and biomarker role of oxidized LDL in atherosclerosis. We also review the pharmacological effects of several representative natural products (vitamin E, resveratrol, quercetin, probucol, tanshinone IIA, epigallocatechin gallate, and Lycopene) in protecting against LDL oxidation and atherosclerosis. Clinical and basic research supports the beneficial effects of these natural products in inhibiting LDL oxidation and preventing atherosclerosis, but the data are still controversial. This may be related to factors such as the population and the dosage and time of taking natural products involved in different studies. Understanding the mechanism of LDL oxidation and effect of oxidized LDL help researchers to find novel therapies against atherosclerosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Exosomes, naturally derived nanovesicles secreted from various cell types, can serve as an effective platform for the delivery of various cargoes, because of their intrinsic ability such as long blood circulation and immune escapinge. However, unlike conventional synthetic nanoparticles, drug release from exosomes at defined targets is not controllable. Moreover, endowing exosomes with satisfactory cancer‐targeting ability is highly challenging. Here, for the first time, a biological and synthetic hybrid designer exosome is described with photoresponsive functionalities based on a donor cell‐assisted membrane modification strategy. Practically, the designer exosome effectively accumulates at target tumor sites via dual ligand‐mediated endocytosis. Then the localized hyperthermia induced by the conjunct gold nanorods under near‐infrared irradiation impacts the permeability of exosome membrane to enhance drug release from exosomes, thus inhibiting tumor relapse in a programmable manner. The designer exosome combines the merits of both synthetic materials and the natural nanovesicles. It not only preserves the intrinsic functionalities of native exosome, but also gains multiple abilities for efficient tumor targeting, controlled release, and thermal therapy like synthetic nanocarriers. The versatile designer exosome can provide functional platforms by engineering with more multifarious functionalities from synthetic materials to achieve individualized precise cancer therapy in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid and precise assembly of functional nanoparticles into well-defined structures in large scale is motivated by broad fields. In this study, large-scale transparent conductive circuit arrays are rapidly self-assembled by simply pipetting a gold nanoparticles suspension onto a PDMS nanofilm patterned substrate with distinct hydrophilic/hydrophobic areas. The solution firstly self-confines into predefined hydrophilic geometries, followed by assembly of nanoparticles into well-defined circuits with 1D patterns by coffee ring effect. Submicrometer height and submicrometer- to micrometer-width circuit arrays with various shapes are precisely generated by varying the PDMS nanofilm patterns. Thousands of circuits with different geometries are self-assembled simultaneously within 1 min. The conductive circuits show good optical transparency up to 95%. After being transferred into PDMS elastomer sheet by encapsulating, the circuits remain highly conductive during bending and stretching. With the advantages of high-throughput, equipment-free, scalability, and precise control, this technique will open an avenue for fabricating large-scale functional materials for applications in electronics, optoelectronics, and healthcare devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) on ovarian reserve in patients with diminished ovarian reserve undergoing in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer. Material and Methods: A total of 240 patients were randomly divided into the Han's acupoint nerve stimulator TEAS treatment (TES), comforting false Han's placebo (FHP), artificial endometrial cycle treatment (AEC), and control (CON) groups. Results: Fifty-six patients in TES, 56 in FHP, 54 in AEC, and 60 in CON fulfilled the study, respectively. Antral follicle count and anti-Müllerian hormone levels were increased, whereas the estradiol level, follicle-stimulating hormone level, and follicle-stimulating hormone/luteinizing hormone ratio were significantly decreased after treatment in the TES and AEC groups. After treatment, the number of oocytes retrieved and average number of embryos transferred were higher in the TES and AEC than in the CON and FHP groups. Clinical pregnancy rate in the TES group was markedly higher than values obtained for the other three groups. Conclusion: TEAS and AEC treatments could improve basal endocrine levels in patients, and increase the number of oocytes retrieved and high-quality embryos. TEAS treatment could improve the clinical pregnancy rate in patients with decreased ovarian reserve during in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microfluidic technology has shown advantages of low sample consumption, reduced analysis time, high throughput, and potential for integration and automation. Coupling microfluidic chips to mass spectrometry (Chip-MS) can greatly improve the overall analytical performance of MS-based approaches and expand their potential applications. In this article, we review the advances of Chip-MS in the past decade, covering innovations in microchip fabrication, microchips coupled to electrospray ionization (ESI)-MS and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI)-MS. Development of integrated microfluidic systems for automated MS analysis will be further documented, as well as recent applications of Chip-MS in proteomics, metabolomics, cell analysis, and clinical diagnosis. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Mass Spec Rev 34: 535-557, 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Receptor-interacting protein 140 (RIP140) is a multifunctional coregulator of lipid metabolism and inflammation. However, the potential role of RIP140 in atherosclerosis remains unknown. The present study investigated the impact of RIP140 on foam cell formation, a critical step in pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. The expression of RIP140 was increased in foam cells. RIP140 overexpression resulted in decreased cholesterol efflux in macrophages and their concomitant differentiation into foam cells. Moreover, RIP140 negatively regulated the macrophage expression of ATP-binding cassette transporters A1 and G1 (ABCA1/G1), by suppressing the expression and activity of liver X receptor (LXR). These findings shed light onto the contribution of RIP140 to the development and progression of atherosclerosis, and suggest a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of atherosclerosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a novel single-cell chemical proteomics (SCCP) strategy to profile low-abundance membrane proteins in single cells. In this approach, the membrane protein GB1 and its splicing variants were targeted on cultured cell lines and primary neurons using a specifically designed activity-based probe. The functionally labeled single cells were encapsulated in individual buffer droplets on a PDMS microwell array, and were further picked up one at a time and loaded into a capillary electrophoresis system for cell lysis, separation, and laser-induced fluorescence detection of the targeted proteins. The results revealed the expression of GB1 splicing variants in HEK and MEF cells, which was previously only suggested at the transcriptional level. We further applied this method to investigate single primary cells and observed significant heterogeneity among individual mouse cerebellar granule neurons. Interference experiments with GB1 antagonist and agonist validated this observation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In microbiological research, traditional methods for bacterial screening and antibiotic susceptibility testing are resource‐intensive. Microfluidics offers an efficient alternative with rapid results and minimal sample consumption, but the demand for cost‐effective, user‐friendly platforms persists in communities and hospitals. Inspired by the Magdeburg hemispheres, the strategy adapts to local conditions, leveraging omnipresent atmospheric pressure for self‐sealing of Rotation‐SlipChip (RSC) equipped with a 3D circular Christmas tree‐like microfluidic concentration gradient generator. This innovative approach provides an accessible and adaptable platform for microbiological research and testing in diverse settings. The RSC can avoid leakage concerns during multiple concentration gradient generation, chip‐rotating, and final long‐term incubation reaction (≥24 h). Furtherly, RSC subtypes adapted to different reactions can be fabricated in less than 15 min with cost less than $1, the result can be read through designated observational windows by naked‐eye. Moreover, the RSC demonstrates its capability for evaluating bacterial biomarker activity, enabling the rapid assessment of β‐galactosidase concentration and enzyme activity within 30 min, and the limit of detection can be reduced by 10‐fold. It also rapidly determines the minimum antibiotic inhibitory concentration and antibiotic combined medications results within 4 h. Overall, these low‐cost and user‐friendly RSC make them invaluable tools in determinations at previously impractical environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]