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With the development of Internet of Things (IoT) technology, massive heterogeneous equipment involving all walks of life has been connected to networks. However, many current authentication methods have poor robustness and cannot ensure the safety of access equipment due to the complexity and uncertainty of the network environment. To deal with this problem, a hierarchical authentication system was proposed in this paper. First, an equipment identification method (EIM), using stack denoising autoencoders (SDAs), is developed to weaken the uncertainty to recognize the type of access equipment. Second, an equipment authentication method (EAM), based on the identification result and similarity theory, is designed to improve the verification accuracy to guarantee the credibility of access equipment. Third, the proposed hierarchical authentication system was tested in a real access platform. The experimental results demonstrated the satisfactory performance of this proposed hierarchical authentication system.

Oxidative stress (OS) induced activation of p38 mitogen-activated kinase (MAPK) and cell fate from p38 signaling was tested using the human fetal membrane’s amnion epithelial cells (AEC). We created p38 KO AEC using the CRISPR/Cas9 approach and tested cell fate in response to OS on an AEC-free fetal membrane extracellular matrix (ECM). Screening using image CyTOF indicated OS causing epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT). Further testing revealed p38 deficiency prevented AEC senescence, EMT, cell migration, and inflammation. To functionally validate in vitro findings, fetal membrane-specific conditional KO (cKO) mice were developed by injecting Cre-recombinase encoded exosomes intra-amniotically into p38αloxP/loxP mice. Amnion membranes from p38 cKO mice had reduced senescence, EMT, and increased anti-inflammatory IL-10 compared with WT animals. Our study suggested that overwhelming activation of p38 in response to OS inducing risk exposures can have an adverse impact on cells, cause cell invasion, inflammation, and ECM degradation detrimental to tissue homeostasis.

Supplementary Materials and Methods

Supplementary Figure 1. Time-course analysis of the development of lung tumors induced by urethane in BALB/C mice and MS/MS analysis of destrin identified. Supplementary Figure 2. Validation of targeted proteins chosen by immunohistochemistry analysis. Supplementary Figure 3. Protein expression levels of Prdx5, Ctsd, Ctsh, Ctnna1, and Jup with reference to GAPDH (internal control), examined by immunoblot in the lung tissues of normal control mice and the mice at week 16 and 32 after Urethane treatment. Supplementary Figure 4. The effect of DSTN knockdown or overexpression on colony formation and migration in BEAS-2B cells. Supplementary Figure 5. Representative images of IHC staining using Ki67. Supplementary Figure 6. DSTN knockdown induces G2/M phase arrest in A549 and H1299 cells. Supplementary Figure 7. DSTN knockdown promotes apoptosis in A549 and H1299 cells. Supplementary Figure 8. The effect of DSTN knockdown or overexpression on the migration of A549 and H1299 in vitro. Supplementary figure 9. The effect of DSTN knockdown or overexpression on anchorage-independent growth of A549 and H1299 in vitro. Supplementary figure 10. The effect of DSTN knockdown or overexpression on EMT marker expression. Supplementary Figure 11. The effect of DSTN knockdown or overexpression on the adhesive ability of the A549 and H1299 cells. Supplementary Figure 12. DSTN knockdown or overexpression affects the sub-cellular localization of β-catenin in A549 and H1299 cells. Supplementary figure 13. The interaction between DSTN and β-catenin was assessed by Co-immunoprecipitation.

Supplementary Table 1. The differentially expressed proteins of normal and early - stage lung cancer tissues identified by LC-MS/MS analysis (N: normal; T: tumor).

Supplementary Table 2.Proteins chosen for immunohistochemistry and Western blot validation. Supplementary Table 3. Correlations between clinicopathologic factors and destrin expression. Supplementary Table 4. Multivariate Cox regression analysis of survival rate in 86 lung. Supplementary Table 5. The primers used in this study for plasmid construction. Supplementary Table 6. The primers used in this study for reverse transcription-quantitative polymerasechain reaction analysis.

Lung cancer, especially lung adenocarcinoma, is one of the most common neoplasms worldwide. However, the mechanisms underlying its initiation, development, and metastasis are still poorly understood. Destrin (DSTN) is a member of ADF/cofilin family. Its detailed biological function remains unknown, although it is reported that DSTN is involved in cytoskeleton remodeling and regulation of actin filament turnover. Recent evidence has shown that high expression of cofilin-1 is associated with invasion and poor prognosis of several types of human tumors, but the detailed mechanism is still entirely unclear, particularly in lung cancer tumorigenesis and malignancy. Here, we report that DSTN was highly expressed in a mouse lung cancer model induced by urethane and in clinical lung adenocarcinoma tissue samples. Its expression level was positively correlated with cancer development, as well as metastasis to the liver and lymph nodes. Consistently, it was directly associated with the poor prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma patients. Furthermore, we also found that DSTN promotes cell proliferation, invasion, and migration in vitro, and facilitates subcutaneous tumor formation and lung metastasis via intravenous injection in vivo. Mechanically, DSTN associates with and facilitates nuclear translocation of β-catenin, which promotes epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Taken together, our results indicated that DSTN enhances lung cancer malignancy through facilitating β-catenin nuclear translocation and inducing EMT. Combined with multivariate analyses, DSTN might potentially serve as a therapeutic target and an independent prognostic marker of lung adenocarcinoma.Implications:This finding indicates that DSTN facilitates β-catenin nuclear translocation and promotes malignancy in lung adenocarcinoma.

Liver fibrosis is a global health problem caused by a number of diseases related to liver damage. 6-Shogaol is a biologically active substance derived from the rhizome of Zingiber officinale Roscoe with anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties. To explore the effects of 6-Shogaol on liver fibrosis, we used a mouse model of the condition in which mice were injected intraperitoneally with carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) at a dose of 2 mL/kg three times per week for a period of 4 weeks. 6-Shogaol was administered orally at two different doses (5 mg/kg, 20 mg/kg) 30 min before CCl4 injection. CCl4 induced severe liver injury and fibrosis, as indicated by significant inflammatory cell infiltration, disordered liver structure, increased activities of aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase (liver damage markers) in serum, elevated collagen deposition, and overexpressed alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA, marker of hepatic stellate cells activation) in liver tissues, whereas 6-Shogaol administration rescued those alterations dose-dependently. We found that 6-Shogaol suppressed CCl4-induced inflammatory response by inhibiting macrophage recruitment, release of pro-inflammatory factors, and activation of the NOD-like receptor family pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome in liver tissues. Additionally, we demonstrated that 6-Shogaol blocked CCl4-induced activation of the nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) pathway, which is a vital transcriptional regulator of the inflammatory response. Altogether, this study demonstrates that 6-Shogaol can prevent CCl4-induced liver fibrosis by suppressing inflammatory response through the NF-κB pathway and suggests that 6-Shogaol can be used for liver fibrosis prevention.

Inhibition of the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6-retinoblastoma (Rb) pathway is an effective therapeutic strategy against cancer. Here, we report a novel CDK4/6 inhibitor, BPI-16350, identified from comprehensive screening of a large panel of kinases. A series of investigations to evaluate anti-tumor activity show that BPI-16350 exhibits potent antiproliferative activities by inducing G1 arrest in a wide range of human Rb-positive tumor cells. Multiple carcinoma xenografts reveal that BPI-16350 has equivalent or improved anti-tumor efficacy compared with palbociclib or abemaciclib, and achieves obvious tumor regression without body weight loss in experimental animals, where pharmacokinetic study in SD rats indicates a longer half-life of BPI-16350 with once daily. Furthermore, BPI-16350 achieves excellent brain penetration with a nearly sixfold brain-to-plasma ratio in mice, suggesting the potential of treating tumor brain metastasis. Taken together, our findings indicate that BPI-16350 is a novel CDK4/6 inhibitor with favorable pharmaceutical properties as an anti-cancer agent.

Due to the emergence of various new technologies, Internet of things (IoT) is gradually becoming one of the most valued technologies at present. The IoT makes our life more and more convenient through the interconnection of everything, but the IoT brings many advantages and also raises some security issues, such as the IoT perception layer as the main means of sensing data delivery, due to the limited resources of sensing nodes and their vulnerability, the diversity of sensing data, and the heterogeneity of the sensing network, making the IoT perception layer more vulnerable to various malicious attacks. Therefore, guaranteeing the trustworthy source of sensing data is the cornerstone to guarantee the secure operation of the sensing layer. In this paper, we investigate the remote proof scheme applicable to the IoT perception layer and propose a remote attestation mechanism using a threshold ring signature for a perception layer of distributed networking, which realizes the trusted proof of a data source and thus can effectively discern the trusted status of the data source, and prove that the proposed scheme in this paper outperforms other remote proof schemes through efficiency analysis and verify the correctness as well as the effectiveness of the scheme in this paper.

Background The purpose of this phase II study was to evaluate the feasibility of hypofractionated radiotherapy (HFRT) with a dose of 36.5 Gy in 10 fractions in postmastectomy patients. Methods From March 2014 to December 2015, 85 patients with locally advanced breast cancer were eligible to participate in this study with a schedule of 36.5 Gy in 10 fractions. Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) was delivered to the chest wall with or without the supraclavicular region. The primary endpoint was radiation-related toxicities. The secondary endpoints were locoregional failure-free survival (LRFFS), disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). And the outcomes were compared with our retrospective study of 72 patients with 42.5 Gy in 16 fractions. Results The median follow-up was 69.0 (range 66.5-71.5) months in the 36.5 Gy group and 93.0 (range 91.9-94.1) months in the 42.5 Gy group, respectively. Radiation-related toxicities were mainly grade 1, although a few patients had grade 2 plexopathy (1.2%) and acute skin toxicity (1.2%) in the 36.5 Gy group, and grade 2 acute skin toxicity (5.6%) and lymphedema (4.2%) in the 42.5 Gy group. There were no significant differences between the groups in acute and late toxicities. For all the patients, the 5-year LRFFS, DFS and OS were 97.7 and 100.0%, 93.1 and 90.3%, 98.8 and 97.2%, respectively, without significant differences between the groups. Conclusion Postmastectomy HFRT with a schedule of 36.5 Gy in 10 fractions was feasible, with mild toxicities and excellent 5-year clinical outcome. Trial registration Trial registration number: ChiCTR-ONRC-14004391. Date of registration: 9/3/2014.

Neural indicators of pain discriminability have far-reaching theoretical and clinical implications but have been largely overlooked previously. Here, to directly identify the neural basis of pain discriminability, we apply signal detection theory to three EEG (Datasets 1-3, total N = 366) and two fMRI (Datasets 4-5, total N = 399) datasets where participants receive transient stimuli of four sensory modalities (pain, touch, audition, and vision) and two intensities (high and low) and report perceptual ratings. Datasets 1 and 4 are used for exploration and others for validation. We find that most pain-evoked EEG and fMRI brain responses robustly encode pain discriminability, which is well replicated in validation datasets. The neural indicators are also pain selective since they cannot track tactile, auditory, or visual discriminability, even though perceptual ratings and sensory discriminability are well matched between modalities. Overall, we provide compelling evidence that pain-evoked brain responses can serve as replicable and selective neural indicators of pain discriminability.

N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is the most prevalent type of RNA modification, and we hypothesized that patterns of m6A-related genes may be useful for estimating risk of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). An m6A-related gene set variation score (m6A-GSVS) was generated using RNA-sequencing data from LUAD patients in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We investigated the association of m6A-GSVS with stemness, tumor mutational burden (TMB), expression of three immune checkpoints, levels of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), and patient prognosis. We found that m6A-GSVS was higher in LUAD than in healthy lung tissue, and it strongly correlated with stemness and TMB. Activated CD4 + T cells were more numerous in LUAD samples that had higher m6A-GSVS than in those with lower scores. Biological processes and pathways, including “Cell cycle,” “DNA replication,” and “RNA degradation,” were significantly enriched in samples with high scores. Furthermore, m6A-GSVS was an independent prognostic indicator in LUAD. In conclusion, we proposed an m6A-GSVS in LUAD. It is a putative indicator for evaluating the ability to RNA m6A, an independent prognostic indicator and associated with tumor stemness.

Non-precious metal catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) are urgently needed in clean energy conversion systems, such as fuel cells and metal-air batteries. Cobalt nanoparticles supported on nitrogen, sulfur and fluorine tri-doped carbon (Co/NSF-C) is a new class of non-precious metal materials, which exhibit ORR catalysis in alkaline media. These catalysts are prepared by pyrolyzing cobalt chloride and melamine sulfuric acid hydrogen fluoride with carbon black in a nitrogen atmosphere at temperatures from 600 °C to 900 °C with Co content from 0 to15wt%. The electrochemical performance of the catalysts shows hat the best temperatures and the best cobalt contents in descending order are 700 °C > 600 °C > 800 °C > 900 °C and 10 wt% ≈ 5 wt% > 15 wt% > 0 wt%, respectively. The catalyst with cobalt content of 10 wt% and prepared at 700 °C (Co/NSF-C700) has a mesopore surface with high heteroatom defect density and a specific surface area of 875 m2 g−1. Co/NSF-C700 exhibits the best ORR catalytic performance with a mainly 4-electron reaction pathway, an ORR peak potential of 0.856 V and the half-wave potential of 0.855 V, as well as a good stability in 0.1 M KOH.

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of azithromycin (AZI) combined with glucocorticoid (GC) in the treatment of children with refractory Mycoplasma pneumoniae. METHODS Computer search for PubMed, EMbase, Cochrane Library, China Biomedical Literature Database (CBMdisc), China Knowledge Network (CNKI), Wanfang, VIP (VIP), and a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of AZI combined with GC in the treatment of children with refractory Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia test (RCT), the search time limit is built until March 20, 2019. Two researchers independently performed literature screening, data extraction, and literature risk bias, and meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3 software. RESULTS A total of 12 RCTs were included, including 1130 patients. Meta-analysis showed that AZI combined with GC therapy significantly improved the total effective rate of the disease compared with the conventional treatment group (odds ratio [OR] = 6.37; 95% confidence interval [CI] 4.03, 10.07; P

Lung cancer, especially lung adenocarcinoma, is one of the most common neoplasms worldwide. However, the mechanisms underlying its initiation, development, and metastasis are still poorly understood. Destrin (DSTN) is a member of ADF/cofilin family. Its detailed biological function remains unknown, although it is reported that DSTN is involved in cytoskeleton remodeling and regulation of actin filament turnover. Recent evidence has shown that high expression of cofilin-1 is associated with invasion and poor prognosis of several types of human tumors, but the detailed mechanism is still entirely unclear, particularly in lung cancer tumorigenesis and malignancy. Here, we report that DSTN was highly expressed in a mouse lung cancer model induced by urethane and in clinical lung adenocarcinoma tissue samples. Its expression level was positively correlated with cancer development, as well as metastasis to the liver and lymph nodes. Consistently, it was directly associated with the poor prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma patients. Furthermore, we also found that DSTN promotes cell proliferation, invasion, and migration in vitro, and facilitates subcutaneous tumor formation and lung metastasis via intravenous injection in vivo. Mechanically, DSTN associates with and facilitates nuclear translocation of β-catenin, which promotes epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Taken together, our results indicated that DSTN enhances lung cancer malignancy through facilitating β-catenin nuclear translocation and inducing EMT. Combined with multivariate analyses, DSTN might potentially serve as a therapeutic target and an independent prognostic marker of lung adenocarcinoma. Implications: This finding indicates that DSTN facilitates β-catenin nuclear translocation and promotes malignancy in lung adenocarcinoma.

Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA) associated vasculitis (AAV) is a systemic autoimmune disease characterized by leukocytoclastic inflammation of small blood vessels. Commonly detected autoantibodies include anti-protease 3 (PR3) and anti-myeloperoxidase (MPO). Although cell necrosis plays an important role in the production of autoantibodies and the pathogenesis of AAV, the correlation between their titers and disease activity remains elusive. As improved detection techniques facilitate early diagnosis, a satisfactory efficacy can be achieved in patients with mild to medium severe AAV treated with glucocorticoids and immunosuppressants. However, resistant and relapsing AAV, sometimes life-threatening, do exist in clinical practice. In-depth understanding of pathogenesis of AAV may lend novel insight into the mechanism responsible for its formation and help find effective targeted therapies for refractory patients.

Background: The incidence of cryptococcal meningitis among immunocompetent patients increases, especially in China and imaging plays an important role. The current study was to find the correlation between magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) manifestation and clinical severity in nonhuman immunodeficiency virus patients with cryptococcal infection of central nervous system (CNS). Methods: A total of 65 patients with CNS cryptococcal infection from August 2014 to October 2016 were retrospectively included in this study. All the patients had MRI data and clinical data. The patients were divided into two groups according to whether the patients were confirmed with identifiable underlying disease. Comparison and correlation of MRI and clinical data in both groups were investigated using independent sample t-test, Chi-square test, Mann-Whitney test and Spearman rank correlation analysis. Results: In all 65 patients, 41 cases (41/65, 63.1%; Group 1) had normal immunity and 24 cases (24/65, 36.9%; Group 2) had at least one identifiable underlying disease. Fever, higher percentage of neutrophil (NEUT) in white blood cell (WBC), and increased cell number of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) were much common in patients with underlying disease (Group 1 vs. Group 2: Fever: 21/41 vs. 21/24, χ2 = 8.715, P = 0.003; NEUT in WBC: 73.15% vs. 79.60%, Z = −2.370, P= 0.018; cell number of CSF: 19 vs. 200, Z = −4.298, P < 0.001; respectively). Compared to the patients with normal immunity, the lesions are more common in the basal ganglia among patients with identifiable underlying disease (Group 1 vs. Group 2: 20/41 vs. 20/24, χ2 = 7.636, P = 0.006). The number of the involved brain areas in patients with identifiable underlying disease were well correlated with the number of cells and pressure of CSF (r = −0.472, P = 0.031; r = 0.779, P = 0.039; respectively). Conclusions: With the increased number of the involved brain areas in patients with identifiable underlying disease, the body has lower immunity against the organism which might result in higher intracranial pressure and more severe clinical status. Key words: Central Nervous System; Clinical Status; Cryptococcal Meningitis; Immunity; Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Objective: To study the correlation of body mass index with Th1/Th2 balance, adhesion molecules and insulin signal transduction in infertile patients. Methods: A total of 132 patients who received diagnostic curettage due to infertility in Tangshan Maternal and Child Health Hospital between June 2015 and March 2016 were selected as the research subjects and divided into the normal group with BMI 30 kg/m 2 according to BMI, and the levels of Th1/ Th2 cytokines in serum as well as the expression of Th1/Th2 transcription factors, adhesion molecules and insulin signal pathway molecules in endometrial tissue were detected. Results: IFN-γ and TNF-α levels in serum of obesity group and overweight group were significantly higher than those of control group while IL-4, IL-5 and IL-13 levels in serum as well as CD44V6, N-cadherin, FAK, ICAM-1, GLUT-4, IRS-1, PI3K and AKT mRNA expression in endometrial tissue were significantly lower than those of control group; IFN-γ and TNF-α levels in serum of obesity group were significantly higher than those of overweight group while IL-4, IL-5 and IL-13 levels in serum as well as CD44V6, N-cadherin, FAK, ICAM-1, GLUT-4, IRS-1, PI3K and AKT mRNA expression in endometrial tissue were significantly lower than those of overweight group. Conclusion: Weight gain can aggravate the Th1/Th2 disorder, reduce the adhesion molecule expression and hinder the insulin signal transduction in infertile patients.

The search for an economical electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is a worldwide issue for fuel cells and metal–air batteries. Herein, we used cheap and available high-sulfur inferior coal as the single precursor to synthesize an N, S dual-doped carbon (NSC) metal-free electrocatalyst for the ORR. The N, S dual-doped carbon (NSC), prepared at 800 °C (NSC800), possessed a large specific surface area of 942 m2 g−1, with an amorphous carbon structure and more defects than the others. Furthermore, it contains 1.06 at% N and 2.24 at% S, where N is resolved into pyridinic-N, pyrrolic-N, and graphitic-N. For the electrochemical behavior, NSC800 displayed a good ORR electrocatalytic activity, with the ORR peak potential at −0.245 V (vs. SCE) and half-wave potential (E1/2) at −0.28 V (vs. SCE) in an alkaline solution. This study not only gives an original and facile method to prepare an economical ORR electrocatalyst but also provides a novel clean-use of high-sulfur inferior coal.

Renewable energy technologies are essential contributors to sustainable energy including renewable energy sources. Wind energy is one of the important renewable energy resources. Therefore, efficient and consistent utilization of wind energy has been an important issue. The wind speed has the characteristics of intermittence and instability. If the wind power is directly connected to the grid, it will impact the voltage and frequency of the power system. Short-term wind power prediction can reduce the impact of wind power on the power grid and the stability of power system operation is guaranteed. In this study, the improved chicken swarm algorithm optimization support vector machine (ICSO-SVM) model is proposed to predict the wind power. The traditional chicken swarm optimization algorithm (CSO) easily falls into a local optimum when solving high-dimensional problems due to its own characteristics. So the CSO algorithm is improved and the ICSO algorithm is developed. In order to verify the validity of the ICSO-SVM model, the following work has been done. (1) The particle swarm optimization (PSO), ICSO, CSO and differential evolution algorithm (DE) are tested respectively by four standard testing functions, and the results are compared. (2) The ICSO-SVM and CSO-SVM models are tested respectively by two sets of wind power data. This study draws the following conclusions: (1) the PSO, CSO, DE and ICSO algorithms are tested by the four standard test functions and the test data are analyzed. By comparing it with the other three optimization algorithms, the ICSO algorithm has the best convergence effect. (2) The number of training samples has an obvious impact on the prediction results. The average relative error percentage and root mean square error (RMSE) values of the ICSO model are smaller than those of CSO-SVM model. Therefore, the ICSO-SVM model can efficiently provide credible short-term predictions for wind power forecasting.

Objective High prepregnancy body mass index (BMI), excessive gestational weight gain (GWG), and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are associated with the risk of childhood obesity. This study aims to examine the extent to which these effects may be mediated through the placenta. Methods Data included 33,893 mothers and their singleton infants from birth to 7 years old (total 154,590 visits) in the Collaborative Perinatal Project, a U.S. multicenter prospective cohort study from 1959 to 1976. The placentas were weighed after removing cord and membranes. We performed sequential generalized estimating equation-linear models excluding and including placental weight to evaluate its mediation effect. Results In this population, 21.7% of mothers had overweight or obesity, 17.3% had excessive GWG, and 350 (1%) had diagnosed GDM; in addition, 7.2% children had obesity. After adjustment for prepregnancy BMI and other covariates, childhood BMI was 0.23 (95% CI: 0.05, 0.40) kg/m2 higher for children born to mothers with GDM versus those without GDM. Inclusion of placental weight in the model attenuated the association by 52% to 0.11 (95% CI: −0.06, 0.28) and similarly attenuated the associations with childhood BMI for GWG by 25% and maternal prepregnancy BMI by 17%. Conclusions Placental weight partly mediates the effects of prepregnancy BMI, excessive GWG, and GDM on childhood BMI.

Membrane fouling has become a serious issue for the safe operation of wastewater treatment process (WWTP). To deal with this problem, this paper proposes a data-driven decision-making method to reduce the incidence of membrane fouling in WWTP. The main novelties of this proposed data-driven decision-making method are threefold. First, a long-term prediction method, based on a self-organizing deep belief network (SDBN) and the multi-step prediction strategy, is developed to predict the membrane permeability. Second, a multi-warning method, based on an independent component analysis-principal component analysis (ICA-PCA) algorithm, is proposed to detect and warn membrane fouling with multiple indicators. Third, a multi-category diagnosis method, based on the kernel function, is designed to diagnose membrane fouling for providing the decision support. Finally, an intelligent decision-making system, consisting the above methods and required sensors, is developed for some real wastewater treatment plants. The experimental results demonstrated the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed data-driven decision-making method.

In this study, we successfully demonstrate an efficient, metal-free nitrogen, fluoride-codoped carbon (NFC) oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalyst, which is produced by directly pyrolyzing melamine hydrogen fluoride salt (using as a single N and F precursor for the first time) mixed with carbon black BP2000 in a N2 atmosphere. The ORR electrocatalytic performances are evaluated by rotating ring disk electrode experiments in 0.1 M KOH. The NFC electrocatalyst prepared at the optimized temperature of 1000 °C (NFC1000) demonstrates a high ORR electrocatalytic activity with a peak potential of 0.82 V (vs. RHE), half-wave potential of 0.82 V (vs. RHE), predominant direct 4-electron reaction pathway, and good durability and methanol tolerance. Transmission electron microscopy equipped with mapping, X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results indicate that NFC1000 possesses an amorphous carbon structure with a homogenous codoped distribution of N and F at 2.25 at% and 1.52 at%, respectively. N2 adsorption-desorption analysis reveals that the as-prepared NFC1000 has a high surface area of 1169 m2 g−1. This study provides a feasible approach to synthesize low-cost and highly efficient metal-free heteroatom-doped carbon-based electrocatalysts.

Gestational trophoblastic disease (GTD) encompasses a range of trophoblast-derived disorders. The most common type of GTD is hydatidiform mole (HM). Some of HMs can further develop into malignant gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN). Aberrant expression of microRNA (miRNA) is widely reported to be involved in the initiation and progression of cancers. MiRNA expression profile also has been proved to be the useful signature for diagnosis, staging, prognosis, and response to chemotherapy. Till now, the profile of miRNA in the progression of GTD has not been determined. In this study, a total of 34 GTN and 60 complete HMs (CHM) trophoblastic tissues were collected. By miRNA array screening and qRT-PCR validating, six miRNAs, including miR-370-3p, -371a-5p, -518a-3p, -519d-3p, -520a-3p, and -934, were identified to be differentially expressed in GTN vs. CHM. Functional analyses further proved that miR-371a-5p and miR-518a-3p promoted proliferation, migration, and invasion of choriocarcinoma cells. Moreover, we demonstrated that miR-371a-5p was negatively related to protein levels of its predictive target genes BCCIP, SOX2, and BNIP3L, while miR-518a-3p was negatively related to MST1 and EFNA4. For the first time, we proved that miR-371a-5p and miR-518a-3p directly targeted to 3′-UTR regions of BCCIP and MST1, respectively. Additionally, we found that miR-371a-5p and miR-518a-3p regulated diverse pathways related to tumorigenesis and metastasis in choriocarcinoma cells. The results presented here may offer new clues to the progression of GTD and may provide diagnostic biomarkers for GTN.