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Abstract Lithium metal anode (LMA) emerges as a promising candidate for lithium (Li)‐based battery chemistries with high‐energy‐density. However, inhomogeneous charge distribution from the unbalanced ion/electron transport causes dendritic Li deposition, leading to “dead Li” and parasitic reactions, particularly at high Li utilization ratios (low negative/positive ratios in full cells). Herein, an innovative LMA structural model deploying a hyperporous/hybrid conductive architecture is proposed on single‐walled carbon nanotube film (HCA/C), fabricated through a nonsolvent induced phase separation process. This design integrates ionic polymers with conductive carbon, offering a substantial improvement over traditional metal current collectors by reducing the weight of LMA and enabling high‐energy‐density batteries. The HCA/C promotes uniform lithium deposition even under rapid charging (up to 5 mA cm−2) owing to its efficient mixed ion/electron conduction pathways. Thus, the HCA/C demonstrates stable cycling for 200 cycles with a low negative/positive ratio of 1.0 when paired with a LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 cathode (areal capacity of 5.0 mAh cm−2). Furthermore, a stacked pouch‐type full cell using HCA/C realizes a high energy density of 344 Wh kg−1cell/951 Wh L−1cell based on the total mass of the cell, exceeding previously reported pouch‐type full cells. This work paves the way for LMA development in high‐energy‐density Li metal batteries.

Abstract Electrolyte additives with multiple functions enable the interfacial engineering of Li‐metal batteries (LMBs). Owing to their unique reduction behavior, additives exhibit a high potential for electrode surface modification that increases the reversibility of Li‐metal anodes by enabling the development of a hierarchical solid electrolyte interphase (SEI). This study confirms that an adequately designed SEI facilitates the homogeneous supply of Li+, nonlocalized Li deposition, and low electrolyte degradation in LMBs while enduring the volume fluctuation of Li‐metal anodes on cycling. An in‐depth analysis of interfacial engineering mechanisms reveals that multilayered SEI structures comprising mechanically robust LiF‐rich species, electron‐rich P–O species, and elastic polymeric species enabled the stable charge and discharge of LMBs. The polymeric outer SEI layer in the as‐fabricated multilayered SEI could accommodate the volume fluctuation of Li‐metal anodes, significantly enhancing the cycling stability Li||LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 full cells with an electrolyte amount of 3.6 g Ah−1 and an areal capacity of 3.2 mAh cm−2. Therefore, this study confirms the ability of interfacial layers formed by electrolyte additives and fluorinated solvents to advance the performance of LMBs and can open new frontiers in the fabrication of high‐performance LMBs through electrolyte‐formulation engineering.

Numerous methods for style transfer have been developed using unsupervised learning and gained impressive results. However, optimal style transfer cannot be conducted from a global fashion in certain style domains, mainly when a single target-style domain contains semantic objects that have their own distinct and unique styles, e.g., those objects in the anime-style domain. Previous methods are incongruent because the unsupervised learning can not provide the semantic mappings between the multi-style objects according to their unique styles. Thus, in this paper, we propose a pseudo-supervised learning framework for the semantic multi-style transfer (SMST), which consists of (i) a pseudo ground truth (pGT) generation phase and (ii) a SMST learning phase. In the pGT generation phase, multiple semantic objects of the photo images are separately transferred to the target-domain object styles in an object-oriented fashion. Then the transferred objects are composed back to an image, which is the pGT. In the SMST learning phase, a SMST network (SMSTnet) is trained with the pairs of the photo images and its respective pGT in a supervised manner. From this, our framework can provide the semantic mappings of multi-style objects. Moreover, to embrace the multi-styles of various objects into a single generator, we design the SMSTnet with channel attentions in conjunction with a discriminator dedicated to our pseudo-supervised learning. Our method has been applied and intensively tested for anime-style transfer learning. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method and show its superiority compared to the state-of-the-art methods.

The previous counting methods trained by the density map regression scheme fail to precisely count the number of birds in crowded bird images of various scales. This is due to the coarseness of the manually created target density maps. In this paper, we propose a new counting scheme, called DAM counting, which generates our-first-proposed density activation map (DAM). DAM is a CNN perspective density map that has high activation values where the network focuses on for precise counting of birds. The network is trained to autonomously learn where and how much the DAM should be activated so that the sum of all values in the DAM estimates the number of birds. Moreover, our DAM counting scheme incorporates two segmentation regularizers that enable precise counting of birds with various scales and appearance. Our DAM counting scheme can effectively substitute the existing density map regression scheme, bringing in a remarkable increase of 45% in the counting accuracy. We also propose the first crowded bird dataset, called CBD-6000, which is very valuable for crowded bird counting research.

Whey protein is a by-product of cheese and casein manufacturing processes. It contains highly bioactive molecules, such as epidermal growth factor, colony-stimulating factor, transforming growth factor-α and -β, insulin-like growth factor, and fibroblast growth factor. Effects of whey protein on immune responses after antigen (hemagglutinin peptide) injection were evaluated in rats. Experimental diets were formulated based on NIH-31M and supplemented with 1% amino acids mixture (CON) or 1% whey protein concentrate (WPC) to generate isocaloric and isonitrogenous diets. Rats were fed the experimental diets for two weeks and then exposed to antigen two times (Days 0 and 14). Blood was collected on Days 0, 7, 14, and 21 for hematological analysis. The WPC group showed decreased IgA and cytotoxic T cells before the antigen injection (Day 0) but increased IgG, IL-2, and IL-4 after antigen injection due to increased B cells and T cells. Helper T cells were increased at Days 14 and 21, but cytotoxic T cells were not affected by WPC. WPC may activate adaptive immunity (IgG) against antigen by modulating helper T cells. Bioactive molecules might contribute to the immune-enhancing effects of whey protein concentrate.

The role of periplasmic disulfide oxidoreductase DsbA in Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 (STEC) was investigated. Deletion of dsbA (Δ dsbA) significantly decreased cell motility and alkaline phosphatase activity in STEC. STEC Δ dsbA also showed greater sensitivity to menadione and under low pH conditions. Significant reductions in surface attachment to both biotic (HT-29 epithelial cells) and abiotic (polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride) surfaces were observed in STEC Δ dsbA. In addition, no biofilm formation was detected in STEC Δ dsbA compared to wild-type cells in glass capillary tubes under continuous flow-culture system conditions. In the nematode model Caenorhabditis elegans-killing assay, the deletion of dsbA in STEC resulted in attenuated virulence compared to wild-type cells. STEC Δ dsbA was also found to have a reduced ability to colonize the nematode gut. These results suggest that DsbA plays important roles in biofilm formation and virulence in STEC cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the results of a study of the expression and functions of serum amyloid A (SAA) isoforms during apoptosis of HC11 mammary gland epithelial cells. A description of the experimental set-up and measurement methods is presented. The study concluded that the induction of SAA genes is associated with growth and apoptosis of HC11 mammary epithelial cells.

One strain of Lactobacillus salivarius, two strains of Lactobacillus reuteri and Lactobacillus amylovorus, and two strains of Bifidobacterium thermacidophilum with antagonistic effect against Clostridium perfringens were isolated from porcine gastrointestinal tract. Isolates were assayed for their ability to survive in synthetic gastric juice at pH 2.5 and were examined for their ability to grow on agar plate containing porcine bile extract. There was a large variation in the survival of the isolates in gastric juice and growth in the medium containing 0.3% ( w/ v) bile. L. salivarius G11 and L. amylovorus S6 adhered to the HT-29 epithelial cell line. Cell-free supernatant of L. amylovorus S6 showed higher antagonistic activity as effective as the antibiotics such as neomycin, chlortetracycline, and oxytetracycline against bacterial pathogens including C. perfringens, Salmonella typhimurium, Staphylococcus aureus, Vibrio cholerae, Edwardsiella tarda, and Aeromonas salmonicida subsp. salmonicida. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lactobacillus acidophilus 30SC has been isolated from swine intestines and considered a probiotic strain for dairy products because of its ability to assimilate cholesterol and produce bacteriocins. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of Lactobacillus acidophilus 30SC (2,078,001 bp) exhibiting strong acid resistance and enhanced bile tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]