Search

Background and Aims: Few studies have focused on the outcomes of Wilson's disease (WD) diagnosed before age of 5 years. This study aimed to summarize the clinical features of early diagnosed WD and analyse treatment outcomes and the risk factors associated with treatment failure. Methods: A total of 139 children confirmed with WD before 5 years were enrolled in this study. Only patients with follow‐up over 1 year were analysed with Kaplan–Meier survival analysis. The composite outcomes included death, progression to liver failure or acute hepatitis, development of renal or neurological symptoms and persistent elevation of alanine aminotransferase (ALT). The treatment failure was defined as occurrence of at least one of above outcomes. Results: Among 139 WD patients at diagnosis, two (1.4%) WD patients presented with symptomatic liver disease, whereas 137 (98.6%) were phenotypically asymptomatic, including 135 with elevated ALT and 2 with normal liver function. Median serum ceruloplasmin (Cp) was 3.1 mg/dL, and urinary copper excretion was 87.4 μg/24‐h. There were 71 variants identified in the the copper‐transporting ATPase beta gene, and 29 were loss of function (LOF). 51 patients with LOF variant were younger at diagnosis and had lower Cp than 88 patients without LOF. Among 93 patients with over 1 year of follow‐up, 19 (20.4%) received zinc monotherapy, and 74 (79.6%) received a zinc/D‐penicillamine combination therapy. 14 (15.1%) patients underwent treatment failure, and its occurrence was associated with poor compliance (p <.01). Conclusions: Cp is a reliable biomarker for early diagnosis, and zinc monotherapy is an effective treatment for WD during early childhood. Good treatment compliance is critical to achieve a favourable outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hard carbon is regarded as a promising anode candidate for sodium‐ion batteries due to its low cost, relatively low working voltage, and satisfactory specific capacity. However, it still remains a challenge to obtain a high‐performance hard carbon anode from cost‐effective carbon sources. In addition, the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) is subjected to continuous rupture during battery cycling, leading to fast capacity decay. Herein, a lignin‐based hard carbon with robust SEI is developed to address these issues, effectively killing two birds with one stone. An innovative gas‐phase removal‐assisted aqueous washing strategy is developed to remove excessive sodium in the precursor to upcycle industrial lignin into high‐value hard carbon, which demonstrated an ultrahigh sodium storage capacity of 359 mAh g−1. It is found that the residual sodium components from lignin on hard carbon act as active sites that controllably regulate the composition and morphology of SEI and guide homogeneous SEI growth by a near‐shore aggregation mechanism to form thin, dense, and organic‐rich SEI. Benefiting from these merits, the as‐developed SEI shows fast Na+ transfer at the interphases and enhanced structural stability, thus preventing SEI rupture and reformation, and ultimately leading to a comprehensive improvement in sodium storage performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glycosylation and phosphorylation rank as paramount post‐translational modifications, and their analysis heavily relies on enrichment techniques. In this work, a facile approach was developed for the one‐step simultaneous enrichment and stepwise elution of glycoproteins and phosphoproteins. The core of this approach was the application of the novel titanium (IV) ion immobilized poly(glycidyl methacrylate) microparticles functionalized with dendrimer polyethylenimine and phytic acid. The microparticles possessed dual enrichment capabilities due to their abundant titanium ions and hydroxyl groups on the surface. They demonstrate rapid adsorption equilibrium (within 30 min) and exceptional adsorption capacity for β‐casein (1107.7 mg/g) and horseradish peroxidase (438.6 mg/g), surpassing that of bovine serum albumin (91.7 mg/g). Furthermore, sodium dodecyl sulfate‐polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis was conducted to validate the enrichment capability. Experimental results across various biological samples, including standard protein mixtures, non‐fat milk, and human serum, demonstrated the remarkable ability of these microparticles to enrich low‐abundance glycoproteins and phosphoproteins from biological samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary bottleneck hindering the application of hard carbon in sodium‐ion batteries (SIBs) anodes lies in its inadequate initial Coulombic efficiency (ICE). Unclear causes of capacity loss at the microscopic level restrict the improvement of hard carbon anodes. Here, two pivotal stages that influence the structure and composition of hard carbon, namely synthesis, and storage are evaluated; subsequently identifying crucial determinants contributing to irreversible capacity loss. The results suggest that undergrown carbon layers allowing the intrusion of solvent molecules into the interior of the hard carbon is a key factor during the synthesis stage, while the gradual formation of oxygen‐containing functional groups on the surface of the hard carbon is another factor leading to irreversible loss of capacity during storage stage. This research microscopically clarifies the irreversible capacity loss mechanism on hard carbon and provides guidelines for designing and applying high ICE hard carbon for SIBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs) are potential prognostic indicators. Radiomics may help reduce unnecessary invasive operations. Purpose: To analyze the association between TLSs and prognosis, and to establish a nomogram model to evaluate the expression of TLSs in breast cancer (BC) patients. Study Type: Retrospective. Population: Two hundred forty‐two patients with localized primary BC (confirmed by surgery) were divided into BC + TLS group (N = 122) and BC − TLS group (N = 120). Field Strength/Sequence: 3.0T; Caipirinha‐Dixon‐TWIST‐volume interpolated breath‐hold sequence for dynamic contrast‐enhanced (DCE) MRI and inversion‐recovery turbo spin echo sequence for T2‐weighted imaging (T2WI). Assessment: Three models for differentiating BC + TLS and BC − TLS were developed: 1) a clinical model, 2) a radiomics signature model, and 3) a combined clinical and radiomics (nomogram) model. The overall survival (OS), distant metastasis‐free survival (DMFS), and disease‐free survival (DFS) were compared to evaluate the prognostic value of TLSs. Statistical Tests: LASSO algorithm and ANOVA were used to select highly correlated features. Clinical relevant variables were identified by multivariable logistic regression. Model performance was evaluated by the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC), and through decision curve analysis (DCA). The Kaplan–Meier method was used to calculate the survival rate. Results: The radiomics signature model (training: AUC 0.766; test: AUC 0.749) and the nomogram model (training: AUC 0.820; test: AUC 0.749) showed better validation performance than the clinical model. DCA showed that the nomogram model had a higher net benefit than the other models. The median follow‐up time was 52 months. While there was no significant difference in 3‐year OS (P = 0.22) between BC + TLS and BC − TLS patients, there were significant differences in 3‐year DFS and 3‐year DMFS between the two groups. Data Conclusion: The nomogram model performs well in distinguishing the presence or absence of TLS. BC + TLS patients had higher long‐term disease control rates and better prognoses than those without TLS. Evidence Level: 2 Technical Efficacy: Stage 2 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The determination of molecular and assembly structure of small clusters is a key step toward understanding the complicated nanostructures or even bulk materials. We report herein the synthesis, molecular structure, and assembly structure of novel copper clusters with seven nuclei. The clusters, with the total molecular formula of [Cu7Cl6(PPh3)7]+, has been obtained by (PPh3)2CuBH4‐mediated reduction of CuCl2 in one pot. Molecular structure of the clusters has been determined by X‐ray single crystal analysis, revealing a Cu7Cl6 metal core protected by phosphine ligands. Interestingly, the clusters are assembled as dimers in the unit cell, in which the cluster interacts with each other via π⋅⋅π interaction from the phenyl groups of the phosphine ligands. This work not only provides an atomically precise copper cluster that may find applications in future, but also reveals the assembly structure of the cluster at the atomic level thus shedding light on the structural dedication of larger nanostructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CD80 is an important co‐stimulatory molecule that participates in the immune response. Soluble CD80 can induce T cell activation and overcome PDL1‐mediated immune suppression. In this study, we aimed to construct recombinant Lactococcus lactis for oral delivery of the soluble CD80 (hsCD80) protein or the fusion protein containing the cholera toxin B subunit (CTB) and hsCD80 (CTB‐hsCD80) under the control of the nisin‐inducible expression system. The recombinant L. lactis expressed and secreted hsCD80 or CTB‐hsCD80 fusion proteins after induction by nisin in vitro and in the enteric cavity. Additionally, the CTB‐hsCD80 fusion protein showed uptake by intestinal epithelial cells, was cleaved by the furin protease, and was released as free hsCD80 protein into the blood circulation. Orally administered hsCD80 and CTB‐hsCD80 containing L. lactis increased the proportion of activated T cells in the spleen and intestinal epithelium, inhibited tumor growth, and prolonged the survival of tumor‐bearing mice. The hsCD80‐containing L. lactis showed greater therapeutic effects on primary colonic adenoma in APCmin/− mice and completely suppressed tumor growth. Further, recombinant CTB‐hsCD80 in L. lactis was more efficient than hsCD80‐containing bacteria in inhibiting the growth of xenografted colon cancer and melanoma cells. hsCD80 engineered probiotics may serve as a promising new approach for antitumor immunotherapy, especially for colorectal cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The single nitrogen‐vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are shown as a quantum sensor with broad applications in nanoscale sensing of magnetic field, electric field, temperature, and strain. However, the basic technique, namely, optically detected magnetic resonance to manipulate and measure single NV centers needs to be highly sped up for broad and practical applications. Here, this work shows a parallel optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) platform of single NV centers including the programmable excitation laser spots generated by a digital micromirror device, a four‐channel uniform microwave delivery, and the fluorescence detector based on scientific complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor camera. In the viewing field of 26 µm, hundreds of distinguishable fluorescent spots are addressed and 413 NV center spots are recognized. The magnetic resonance spectrum, Rabi oscillation, and spin echo of each NV center spot are measured in parallel. As a result, a preliminary speedup of ≈20‐fold is achieved compared to the confocal‐based ODMR and can be further extended to thousands of folds after updating the digital micromirror device and camera. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: Salt stress is one of the major causes of reduced crop production, limiting agricultural development globally. Plants have evolved with complex systems to maintain the balance between growth and stress responses, where signaling pathways such as hormone signaling play key roles. Recent studies revealed that hormones are modulated by microRNAs (miRNAs). Previously, two sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) inbred lines with different salt tolerance were identified: the salt‐tolerant M‐81E and the salt‐sensitive Roma. The levels of endogenous hormones in M‐81E and Roma varied differently under salt stress, showing a different balance between growth and stress responses. miRNA and degradome sequencing showed that the expression of many upstream transcription factors regulating signal transduction and hormone‐responsive genes was directly induced by differentially expressed miRNAs, whose levels were very different between the two sweet sorghum lines. Furthermore, the effects of representative miRNAs on salt tolerance in sorghum were verified through a transformation system mediated by Agrobacterium rhizogenes. Also, miR‐6225‐5p reduced the level of Ca2+ in the miR‐6225‐5p‐overexpressing line by inhibiting the expression of the Ca2+ uptake gene SbGLR3.1 in the root epidermis and affected salt tolerance in sorghum. This study provides evidence for miRNA‐mediated growth and stress responses in sweet sorghum. Significance Statement: The interactions between plant hormones, miRNAs, and key transcription factors form a complex response network that balances the growth and stress responses in sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Step‐scheme (S‐scheme) heterojunctions have been extensively studied in photocatalytic carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction due to their excellent charge separation and high redox ability. The built‐in electric field at the interface of a S‐scheme heterojunction serves as the driving force for charge transfer, however, the poor interfacial contact greatly restricts the carrier migration rate. Herein, we synthesized the g‐C3N4/Bi19Br3S27 S‐scheme heterostructure through in situ deposition of Bi19Br3S27 (BBS) on porous g‐C3N4 (P‐CN) nanosheets. The C−S bonds formed at the interface help to enhance the built‐in electric field, thereby promoting the charge transfer and separation. As a result, the CO2 reduction reaction performance of 10 %Bi19Br3S27/g‐C3N4 (BBS/P‐CN) reaches 32.78 μmol g−1h−1, which is 341.4 and 18.7 times higher than that of pure BBS and P‐CN, respectively. X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) prove the presence of chemical bonds (C−S) between the P‐CN and BBS. The S‐scheme charge‐transfer mechanism was analyzed via XPS and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. This work provides a new idea for designing heterojunction photocatalysts with interfacial chemical bonds to achieve high charge‐transfer and catalytic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formaldehyde (HCHO) is a crucial C1 building block for daily‐life commodities in a wide range of industrial processes. Industrial production of HCHO today is based on energy‐ and cost‐intensive gas‐phase catalytic oxidation of methanol, which calls for exploring other and more sustainable ways of carrying out this process. Utilization of carbon dioxide (CO2) as precursor presents a promising strategy to simultaneously mitigate the carbon footprint and alleviate environmental issues. This Minireview summarizes recent progress in CO2‐to‐HCHO conversion using hydrogenation, hydroboration/hydrosilylation as well as photochemical, electrochemical, photoelectrochemical, and enzymatic approaches. The active species, reaction intermediates, and mechanistic pathways are discussed to deepen the understanding of HCHO selectivity issues. Finally, shortcomings and prospects of the various strategies for sustainable reduction of CO2 to HCHO are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex bacterial communities in the rhizosphere play a crucial role in plant growth and stress tolerance. These communities vary across cultivars and external environments. However, the influences of salt stress on the structural composition of bacterial microbiome and gene expression of salt‐sensitive and salt‐tolerant sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) cultivars have not been studied sufficiently. Here, we employed a combination of 16S rRNA gene profiling and RNA‐seq analysis to characterize changes in root‐associated microbiomes and determine differentially expressed genes (DEG) in the roots of salt‐tolerant M‐81E and salt‐sensitive 'Roma' var. sweet sorghum cultivars under soil conditions with/without salinity. Results revealed that the two contrasting sweet sorghum genotypes selectively filtered and recruited distinct root microbiota in response to salt stress. M‐81E‐enriched bacterial taxa were more diverse and exhibited a higher abundance of metabolic functions than Roma‐enriched taxa. M‐81E‐associated bacterial co‐occurrence networks were more complex and harboured more positive links than Roma‐associated bacterial networks. Furthermore, nine DEG were identified as core salt‐responsive genes and were central to the salt tolerance of sweet sorghum. Correlation analysis revealed that the expression of HSP70, a molecular chaperone, is linked to the recruitment of numerous M‐81E‐enriched bacteria; their relationship needs further exploration. The study supplements the comprehension of the potential role of host–microbe interactions in the response of sweet sorghum to salt stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intensification of global soil salinization has seriously decreased crop yield. At the same time, the rapid increase in population has raised the demand for crop yields. Reasonable use of saline‐alkali land and cultivation of salt‐tolerant crops through transgenic technology becomes more important. Sweet sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.)], as an important energy crop, resists abiotic stress effectively. In our previous salt tolerance gene‐screening experiment of sweet sorghum, it was found that applying calcium ions could alleviate salt stress of sweet sorghum to some extent. Therefore, 10 and 20 mM CaCl2 were applied to explore the effect of exogenous calcium application on salt stress. Compared with the sweet sorghum treated by salt stress, the dry and fresh weight of the plants were significantly increased, and the content of malondialdehyde (MDA) was decreased after applying calcium ions. At the same time, diaminobenzidine and nitro blue tetrazolium chloride monohydrate staining results showed that the contents of H2O2 and O2−• in the plants after calcium application were lower than those only treated with salt stress. To investigate the regulation mechanism of exogenous calcium application alleviating salt stress, RNA‐seq analysis was performed using libraries established in Roma roots under normal and NaCl treatment. Combined with Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopaedia of Genes and Genomes analysis, we found that calcium‐related genes were more involved in the oxidation‐reduction process and carbohydrate metabolism pathway. Among all differentially expressed genes, 12 known functional genes were further explored based on functional annotations and existing studies. To detect whether these 12 genes are related to salt response, we treated the Arabidopsis mutants of their homologous genes with 150 mM NaCl for 7 days. Among them, atglr3.5, atgad4, atiqm4, atglr2.8 and annat7 showed worse growth, lower survival rate and higher MDA content than WT under salt stress. This indicates that applying exogenous calcium can affect the expression of SbGR3.4, SbGADX1, SbIQM4, SbGR2.8 and SbAnnD7, which can regulate the expression of genes related to the lignin degradation, absorption of NH4+, and ubiquitination‐proteasome pathway, energy metabolism and cleaning of ROS accumulation in sweet sorghum under salt stress, so as to enhance the salt tolerance of plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Quantitative MRI (qMRI) is of great importance to clinical medicine and scientific research. However, most qMRI techniques are time‐consuming and sensitive to motion, especially when a large 3D volume is imaged. To accelerate the acquisition, a framework is proposed to realize reliable simultaneous multi‐slice T2 mapping. Methods: The simultaneous multi‐slice T2 mapping framework is based on overlapping‐echo detachment (OLED) planar imaging (dubbed SMS‐OLED). Multi‐slice overlapping‐echo signals were generated by multiple excitation pulses together with echo‐shifting gradients. The signals were excited and acquired with a single‐channel coil. U‐Net was used to reconstruct T2 maps from the acquired overlapping‐echo image. Results: Single‐shot double‐slice and two‐shot triple‐slice SMS‐OLED scan schemes were designed according to the framework for evaluation. Simulations, water phantom, and in vivo rat brain experiments were carried out. Overlapping‐echo signals were acquired, and T2 maps were reconstructed and compared with references. The results demonstrate the superior performance of our method. Conclusion: Two slices of T2 maps can be obtained in a single shot within hundreds of milliseconds. Higher quality multi‐slice T2 maps can be obtained via multiple shots. SMS‐OLED provides a lower specific absorption rate scheme compared with conventional SMS methods with a coil with only a single receiver channel. The new method is of potential in dynamic qMRI and functional qMRI where temporal resolution is vital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An ultra‐wideband 3D‐printed dielectric reflectarray antenna (DRA) is proposed in this letter. The dielectric reflectarray unit (DRU) adopts the photosensitive resin therm1220, which dielectric constant of 3.97 is conducive to improving the bandwidth. Through adjusting the size of the DRU, the reflection phase can be adjusted. The dielectric reflectarray is 23 × 23 element which printed by stereo lithography apparatus (SLA) and is realized by installing a metal plate with four resin screws. The measured of the gain covers 25.8–28.9 dBi from 27.5 to 38 GHz. And the 3‐dB gain bandwidth of measured is 32.1%. The measured aperture efficiency is basically above 30% from 28 to 35 GHz. The maximum gain is 28.1 dBi at 30 GHz, and the aperture efficiency is 39% during measurement. The 3 dB beam width of the E‐plane and H‐plane are both about 5.4° in Ka‐band. A good agreement can be observed between measurement and simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of low‐cost hyper‐crosslinked polymers were prepared by an easy one‐step Friedel‐Crafts reaction. The synthesized hyper‐crosslinked polymers exhibited remarkably porous structure, large surface area, and hydroxyl groups, which can be employed as an ideal adsorbent material for novel sorbent‐phase extraction techniques. Based on this, using hyper‐crosslinked polymers as sorbent and coating, three novel extraction methods, including micro‐solid‐phase extraction, dispersive solid‐phase extraction, and solid‐phase microextraction, were explored and evaluated for simultaneous measurement of five endocrine‐disrupting compounds (triclosan and bisphenol A, tetrabromobisphenol A, tetrabromobisphenol A bisallylether, and tetrabromobisphenol A bis(2,3‐dibromopropyl ether)) in environment water prior to high‐performance liquid chromatography–ultraviolet. The influence of experimental parameters on three extraction techniques such as extraction time, the amount of hyper‐crosslinked polymers, extraction temperature, ionic strength, and desorption conditions were optimized. Three previously mentioned methods provided limits of detection ranging from 0.01 to 0.05 μg/L, and high recoveries (85–99%) with relative standard deviations of 1.7–5.6%. This study presented the merits and disadvantages of three proposed extraction methods and their potential for effective monitoring of hazardous pollutants in real water samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Diabetes is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A nitrogen‐stabilized single‐atom catalyst containing low‐valence zinc atoms (Znδ+‐NC) is reported. It contains saturated four‐coordinate (Zn‐N4) and unsaturated three‐coordinate (Zn‐N3) sites. The latter makes Zn a low‐valence state, as deduced from X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X‐ray absorption spectroscopy, electron paramagnetic resonance, and density functional theory. Znδ+‐NC catalyzes electrochemical reduction of CO2 to CO with near‐unity selectivity in water at an overpotential as low as 310 mV. A current density up to 1 A cm−2 can be achieved together with high CO selectivity of >95 % using Znδ+‐NC in a flow cell. Calculations suggest that the unsaturated Zn‐N3 could dramatically reduce the energy barrier by stabilizing the COOH* intermediate owing to the electron‐rich environment of Zn. This work sheds light on the relationship among coordination number, valence state, and catalytic performance and achieves high current densities relevant for industrial applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrochemical CO2 reduction to valuable chemicals represents a green and sustainable approach to close the anthropogenic carbon cycle, but has been impeded by low efficiency and high cost of electrocatalysts. Here, a cost‐effective hybrid catalyst consisting of hemin (chloroprotoporphyrin IX iron(III)), a product recovered from bovine blood, adsorbed onto commercial Vulcan carbon is reported. Upon heat treatment, this material shows significantly improved activity and selectivity for CO2 reduction in water while exhibiting good stability for more than 10 h. The heat treatment leads to consecutive removal of the axial chlorine atom and decomposition of the iron porphyrin ring, restructuring to form atomic Fe sites. The optimized hybrid catalyst obtained at 900 °C shows near‐unity selectivity for reduction of CO2 to CO at a small overpotential of 310 mV. The insight into transformation of adsorbed Fe complexes into single Fe atoms upon heat treatment provides guidance for development of single atom catalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cartoon is highly abstracted with clear edges, which makes it unique from the other art forms. In this paper, we focus on the essential cartoon factors of abstraction and edges, aiming to cartoonize real‐world photographs like an artist. To this end, we propose a two‐stage network, each stage explicitly targets at producing abstracted shading and crisp edges respectively. In the first abstraction stage, we propose a novel unsupervised bilateral flattening loss, which allows generating high‐quality smoothing results in a label‐free manner. Together with two other semantic‐aware losses, the abstraction stage imposes different forms of regularization for creating cartoon‐like flattened images. In the second stage we draw lines on the structural edges of the flattened cartoon with the fully supervised line drawing objective and unsupervised edge augmenting loss. We collect a cartoon‐line dataset with line tracing, and it serves as the starting point for preparing abstraction and line drawing data. We have evaluated the proposed method on a large number of photographs, by converting them to three different cartoon styles. Our method substantially outperforms state‐of‐the‐art methods in terms of visual quality quantitatively and qualitatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radar is the only sensor that can realize target imaging at all time and all weather, which would be a key technical enabler for future intelligent society. Poor resolution and large size are the two critical issues for radar to gain ground in civil applications. Conventional electronic radars are difficult to address due to both issues, especially in the Ka band or lower. In this work, a chip‐based microwave‐photonic radar based on silicon photonic platform, which can implement high‐resolution imaging with very small footprint, is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Both the wideband signal generator and the de‐chirp receiver are integrated on the chip. A broadband microwave‐photonic imaging radar occupying the full Ku band is experimentally established. A high‐precision range measurement with a resolution of 2.7 cm and an error of less than 2.75 mm is obtained. Inverse synthetic aperture imaging of multiple targets with complex profiles is also implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new water‐soluble, hydrolyzable polyethylene glycol di‐mercaptoacetate (PGM) was synthesized as a chain transfer agent. Subsequently, an early‐strength polycarboxylate superplasticizer (ESPC) was successfully prepared by using PGM as a chain transfer agent, along with acrylic acid, sodium methylallyl sulfonate (SMAS), and isoprene oxy poly(ethylene glycol) as comonomers. The effect of the ESPC on cement particles was systematically investigated. The fluidity, setting time, and compressive strength were measured to evaluate the performance of the ESPC and compared with those of a conventional polycarboxylate superplasticizer (PCE). The setting time of the ESPC can be shortened by 40 min in comparison with the PCE, and the compressive strength at 24 hr of setting time is increased by 5 MPa. In addition, X‐ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, and scanning electron microscopy characterization were performed to investigate the effect of the ESPC on cement hydration from a microscopic level. Furthermore, the hydration heat was determined to investigate the interactions between the ESPC with the cement particles. It was found that if ester groups were introduced into the backbone chain of the ESPC and subsequently hydrolyzed, the ESPC was readily adsorbed onto cement particles. This enhanced adsorption improved the microstructure of the cement hydrate and accelerated the cement hydration process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objective: Primary research concerning molecular pathways that link rheumatoid arthritis with periodontitis is limited. Biomedical literature data mining can offer insights into putative linkage mechanisms toward hypothesis development, based on information discovery. The aim of this study was to explore potential Periodontitis‐Rheumatoid Arthritis biological links by analysing "overlapping" genes reported in biomedical abstracts. Material and Methods: PubMed abstracts for terms: (a) "Periodontitis" or "Periodontal Diseases" (PD), (b) "Rheumatoid arthritis" (RA), and (c) their combination with "AND" (RA+PD), were each text‐mined to extract genes using "Human Genome Nomenclature Committee" (HGNC) symbols. A gene‐set common to RA and PD abstracts was determined (RA∩PD). Gene ontology (GO) profiles of RA∩PD and RA+PD were compared using "GoProfiler." Minimum order protein‐protein interaction (PPI) and gene‐miRNA networks of "differential genes" between RA∩PD and RA+PD were constructed with "networkAnalyst." Results: Among 1676 genes documented in RA (10 5241 abstracts), and 893 genes in PD (80 982 abstracts), 535 genes were common (RA∩PD), from which 35 genes were also documented in RA+PD (415 abstracts). 41 GO‐terms significantly different between RA∩PD and RA+PD GO profiles represented 38 biological processes including; nitric oxide metabolism, immunoglobulin production, hormonal regulation, catabolic process down‐regulation, and leukocyte proliferation. The 500 differential genes' PPI and gene‐miRNA networks showed REL, TRAF2, AQP1 genes, and miRNAs 335‐5p, 17‐5p, 93‐5p with genes HMOX1 and SP1 as hub nodes. Conclusions: Text‐mining biomedical abstracts revealed potentially shared but un‐investigated links between PD and RA, meriting further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel ultra‐small cavity‐backed sector antenna with fractal transmission lines (FTLs) and negative refractive index transmission lines (NRI‐TLs) is proposed in this paper. The proposed antenna comprises three parts. The first one is a U‐shaped cavity‐backed antenna composed of a planar double‐sector patch and a U‐shaped backed‐cavity. The other two parts are FTLs and NRI‐TLs, respectively, both of which are used to achieve bandwidth enhancement and size reduction for the U‐shaped cavity‐backed antenna. Although the U‐shaped cavity‐backed antenna and the proposed antenna have the same size of 36 cm × 40 cm × 25 cm, the proposed antenna can operate in a lower frequency band. Due to the introduction of the negative refractive index transmission lines, the overall size reduction is up to 12.3%. With features such as ultra‐small size, moderate bandwidth and good radiation property, the proposed antenna can meet the demanding requirements to the application of UAV airborne system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Histone H3 lysine 4 methylation (H3K4 methylation), including mono‐methylation (H3K4me1), di‐methylation (H3K4me2), or tri‐methylation (H3K4me3), is one of the epigenetic modifications to histone proteins, which are related to the transcriptional activation of genes. H3K4 methylation has both tumor inhibiting and promoting effects, and the prognostic value of H3K4 methylation in cancer remains controversial. Therefore, we performed a systematic review and meta‐analysis to examine the association between H3K4 methylation and cancer prognosis. Methods: A comprehensive search of PubMed, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Embase, and Ovid databases was conducted to identify studies investigating the association between H3K4 methylation and prognosis of patients with malignant tumors. The data and characteristics of each study were extracted, and the hazard ratio (HR) at a 95% confidence interval (CI) was calculated to estimate the effect. Results: A total of 1474 patients in 10 studies were enrolled in this meta‐analysis. The pooled HR of 1.52 (95% CI 1.02–2.26) indicated that patients with a lower level of H3K4me2 expression were expected to have shorter overall survival, while the pooled HR of 0.45 (95% CI 0.27–0.74) indicated that patients with a lower level of H3K4me3 expression were expected to have longer overall survival. Conclusion: This meta‐analysis indicates that increased H3K4me3 expression and decreased H3K4me2 expression might be predictive factors of poor prognosis in cancer. Further large cohort studies are needed to confirm these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Antimony holds a high‐specific capacity as a promising anode material for Na‐ion batteries (SIBs) and much research is focused on solving the poor cycling stability issue associated with its large volume expansion during alloying/dealloying processes. Here, self‐thermal‐reduction method is successfully applied to prepare antimony/carbon rods (Sb/C rods) utilizing potassium antimony(III)‐tartrate (C8H10O15Sb2K2) as a dual source of carbon matrix and metallic antimony. According to theory calculations and experiment results, the formation process is explicitly explored as follows: C8H10O15Sb2K2 → Sb2O3/C → Sb2O3/Sb/C → Sb/C rods. Notably, organic ligands in C8H10O15Sb2K2 can be gradually turned into amorphous carbon with simultaneous reduction of Sb3+ to metal Sb. Moreover, potassium chloride acts as an activator and a template during the course of carbonization, and synchronous reduction is introduced. Consequently, an antimony/carbon electrode material denoted as SbOC/C is formed, exhibiting a unique dual‐carbon‐modified structure and extensive SbOC bridge bonds that give rise to outstanding cycling performance and rate capacity. Specifically, the capacity is maintained at 404 mA h g−1 with 89% retention after 700 cycles at 500 mA g−1. The low‐cost, self‐thermal‐reduction method and excellent electrode performances of electrode material make it attractive for large‐scale energy storage systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have already reported that the inactivated Sendai virus (hemagglutinating virus of Japan; HVJ) envelope ( HVJ-E) has multiple anticancer effects, including induction of cancer-selective cell death and activation of anticancer immunity. The HVJ-E stimulates dendritic cells to produce cytokines and chemokines such as β-interferon, interleukin-6, chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 5, and chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 10, which activate both CD8+ T cells and natural killer ( NK) cells and recruit them to the tumor microenvironment. However, the effect of HVJ- E on modulating the sensitivity of cancer cells to immune cell attack has yet to be investigated. In this study, we found that HVJ- E induced the production of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 ( ICAM-1, CD54), a ligand of lymphocyte function-associated antigen 1, in several cancer cell lines through the activation of nuclear factor-κB downstream of retinoic acid-inducible gene I and the mitochondrial antiviral signaling pathway. The upregulation of ICAM-1 on the surface of cancer cells increased the sensitivity of cancer cells to NK cells. Knocking out expression of ICAM-1 in MDA- MB-231 cells using the CRISPR/Cas9 method significantly reduced the killing effect of NK cells on ICAM-1-depleted MDA- MB-231 cells. In addition, HVJ-E suppressed tumor growth in MDA- MB-231 tumor-bearing SCID mice, and the HVJ-E antitumor effect was impaired when NK cells were depleted by treatment with the anti-asialo GM1 antibody. Our findings suggest that HVJ-E enhances NK cell sensitivity against cancer cells by increasing ICAM-1 expression on the cancer cell surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An automatic on-line solid-phase extraction with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry method was developed for the simultaneous determination of ten antipsychotics in human plasma. The plasma sample after filtration was injected directly into the system without any pretreatment. A Shim-pack MAYI-C8 (G) column was used as a solid-phase extraction column, and all the analytes were separated on a Shim-pack XR-ODS III column with a mobile phase consisting of 0.1% v/v formic acid in water with 5 mM ammonium acetate and acetonitrile. The method features were systematically investigated, including extraction conditions, desorption conditions, the equilibration solution, the valve switching time, and the dilution for column-head stacking. Under the optimized conditions, the whole analysis procedure took only 10 min. The limits of quantitation were in the range of 0.00321-2.75 μg/L and the recoveries ranged from 75.9 to 122%. Compared with the off-line ultra-high performance liquid chromatography and the reported methods, this validated on-line method showed significant advantages such as minimal pretreatment, shortest analysis time, and highest sensitivity. The results indicated that this automatic on-line method was rapid, sensitive, and reliable for the determination of antipsychotics in plasma and could be extended to other target analytes in biological samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: As one of the most important research problems of data analytics and data mining, outlier detection from large datasets has drawn many research attentions in recent years. In this paper, we investigate the interesting research problem of summarizing large datasets for supporting efficient local outlier detection. To summarize large datasets, efficient summarization algorithms are proposed that produce a highly compact summary of the original dataset, which can be applied to detect local outliers from future similar datasets. A novel automatic parameter optimization method is proposed to produce the optimal setup of the key parameters used in the summarization algorithm. Parallel processing methods are also proposed to accelerate significantly the summarization process. The experimental evaluation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithms are highly scalable for large datasets and effective in producing dataset summary for local outlier detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]