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Short-term load forecasting (STLF) plays an important role in the planning and operation of power systems. However, with the wide use of distributed generations (DGs) and smart devices in smart grid environment, it brings new requirements on the accuracy, quickness and intelligence of STLF. To address this problem, a novel short-term load forecasting method based on attention mechanism (AM), rolling update (RU) and bi-directional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) neural network is proposed. Firstly, RU is utilized to update the data in real time, making the input data of the model more effective. Secondly, influence weights are assigned through AM to highlight the effective characteristics of the input variables. Thirdly, a Bi-LSTM is used for model training, and the predicted load values are obtained through the linear transformation layer and softmax layer. Finally, the actual data sets from the New South Wales (NSW) and the Victoria (VIC) in Australia are employed to verify the validity of the method. The results show that the introduction of AM and RU into forecasting model can improve the prediction accuracy. Compared with traditional Bi-LSTM model, both the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and the root mean square error (RMSE) of Bi-LSTM model with AM and RU have declined in the load forecasting for the two data sets. And it proves that the proposed method has higher accuracy, less computation time and better generalization ability.

Endogenous aldehydes (EAs) formed by the free-radical-mediated reaction are regarded as potential biological markers of several diseases. In this work, an automated and solvent-free analytical method was developed for quantitative analysis of seven EAs (C1-C7) in human blood by using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry coupled with a headspace generator sampler (HS-GC-MS). A 1:4 (blood:water) dilution and the 1,2‑dibromopropane internal standard were introduced to reduce the influence of the matrix effect from complex biological fluids. The sample preparation steps were simplified. Various experimental parameters for derivatization and extraction conditions were studied such as HS extraction temperature and time, the amount of derivatization reagent, pH and the salt effect. Under these optimum conditions, seven low-mass aldehydes were separated and analyzed within 10 min. Additionally, this method achieved limits of detection in the range of 0.0692-0.864 μg/L, an excellent linearity with correlation coefficients higher than 0.9996 and appropriate repeatability and reproducibility values (RSD 12% at low, middle and high levels). The HS-GC-MS method was applied to measure the concentrations of the seven aldehydes in blood from bladder cancer patients (n = 15) and control subjects (n = 15). Compared with the control subjects, the levels of butanal (p 0.01), formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, propanal, pentanal, hexanal and heptanal (all p 0.001) were increased significantly, indicating that EAs may be useful as biomarkers in the early diagnosis of bladder cancer.

Clarithromycin (CLA) has been widely used in the treatment of bacterial infection. Research reveals the adverse effects on the central nervous system among patients receiving CLA treatment; whereas, a relevant underlying mechanism remains considerably unclear. According to our research, an integrated lipidomic and transcriptomic analysis was applied to explore the effect of CLA on neurobehavior. CLA treatment caused anxiety-like behaviors dose-dependently during open field as well as elevated plus maze trials on mice. Transcriptomes and LC/MS-MS-based metabolomes were adopted for investigating how CLA affected lipidomic profiling as well as metabolic pathway of the cerebral cortex. CLA exposure greatly disturbed glycerophospholipid metabolism and the carbon chain length of fatty acids. By using whole transcriptome sequencing, we found that CLA significantly downregulated the mRNA expression of CEPT1 and CHPT1, two key enzymes involved in the synthesis of glycerophospholipids, supporting the findings from the lipidomic profiling. Also, CLA causes changes in neuronal morphology and function in vitro, which support the existing findings concerning neurobehavior in vivo. We speculate that altered glycerophospholipid metabolism may be involved in the neurobehavioral effect of CLA. Our findings contribute to understanding the mechanisms of CLA-induced adverse effects on the central nervous system. 1. Clarithromycin treatment caused anxiety-like behavior with dose-dependent response both in the open field and elevated plus maze test in mice; 2. Clarithromycin exposing predominately disturbed the metabolism of glycerophospholipids in the cerebral cortex of mice; 3. Clarithromycin application remarkably attenuated CEPT1 and CHPT1 gene expression, which participate in the last step in the synthesis of glycerophospholipids; 4. The altered glycerophospholipid metabolomics may be involved in the abnormal neurobehavior caused by clarithromycin.

Cefepime exhibits a broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity and thus is widely used for severe bacterial infection. Adverse effects on the central nervous system (CNS) have been reported in the patients treated with cefepime. Current explanation for the neurobehavioral effect of cefepime mainly attributes to its ability to across blood-brain barrier and to competitively bind to GABAergic receptor; however, the underlying mechanism is largely unknown. In this study, mice were intraperitoneally administered 80 mg/kg cefepime for different time period, including 1 day, 3 days, 5 days, 7 days and 10 days, and then LC/MS-MS-based metabolomics was used to investigate the effect of cefepime on the brain lipidomic profiling and metabolic pathway. Repeated cefepime treatment time-dependently caused anxiety-like behavior accompanied with the reduced locomotor activity in the open field test. Cefepime profoundly altered the lipid profile in the corpus striatum, and glycerophospholipid contributed to a large proportion among those significantly modified lipids. Cefepime also significantly modified acyl chain length and unsaturation of fatty acids. In addition, cefepime obviously altered the morphology of neurite, mitochondria and synaptic vesicles of striatal neuron in vitro. Collectively, our results show that cefepime reprograms glycerophospholipid metabolism of corpus striatum, which may underly its neurobehavioral effect.

Multi-energy load forecasting (MELF) is the premise of regional integrated energy systems (RIES) production planning and energy dispatch. The key of MELF is the consideration of multi-energy coupling and the improvement of prediction accuracy. Therefore, a MELF method considering the multi-energy coupling of variation characteristic curves (MELF_MECVCC) for RIES is proposed. The novelty of MELF_MECVCC lies in the following three aspects: (1) For the trend stripping and volatility extraction of multi-energy load time series, the extreme-point symmetric mode decomposition-sample entropy (ESMD-SE) method is introduced to decompose and reconstruct the variation characteristic curves of multi-energy, including trend curve and fluctuation curve. (2) The multi-energy coupling of the variation characteristic curves is considered to reflect the variation characteristics of the multi-energy loads. (3) Different methods are applied according to different variation characteristics, i.e., the combined method based on multi-task learning and long short-term memory network (MTL-LSTM) is applied to predict the trend curve with strong correlation and the least square support vector regression (LSSVR) method is applied to predict the fluctuation curve with strong volatility and high complexity. Based on the actual data set of the University of Texas in Austin, the MELF_MECVCC model is simulated and verified, which shows that the MELF_MECVCC model reduces the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and the root mean square error (RMSE) , and fits better with the original load, and has higher prediction accuracy, compared with current advanced algorithms.

The medium term load forecasting is the basis of power grid planning and electricity transaction in power market. Current medium term load forecasting researches mainly focus on point forecasting, whereas with the development of smart grid and energy interconnection, numerous stochastic factors are emerging which affect the preciseness of deterministic point method. This paper proposes a combined probability density model for medium term load forecasting based on Quantile Regression (QR). The combined model combines three individual models of Random Forest Regression(RFR), Gradient Boosting Decision Tree(GBDT) and Support Vector Regression (SVR). Then a Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) method is used to achieve the load probability density distribution. The model is testified by an actual monthly data set from United States, and it proves that the proposed combined model can not only achieve more accurate point forecast result than individual models, but also effectively obtain the probabilistic result of load forecasting.

Porous α-Ni(OH)2 nanosheets are of special interest for many promising applications, while their large-scale green synthesis is still a considerable challenge. In this work, hierarchical porous α-Ni(OH)2 nanosheets were prepared using NiCl2 and NaBH4 as raw materials via a green and facile aqueous co-precipitation reaction followed by a spontaneous ageing treatment at room temperature. No surfactant, organic solvent or template was used in the process. The morphology and structure of resultant samples were fully characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), N2 sorption and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and their electrochemical and catalytic properties were tested. The results showed that the prepared α-Ni(OH)2 sample has a high specific surface area of 393.4 m2 g−1, large pore volume of 1.02 m3 g−1 and hierarchical pores centered at micropores of about 1 nm and mesopores/macropores of about 3–100 nm. The intriguing structural feature endows α-Ni(OH)2 with superior electrochemical performance such as a large specific capacitance of 2378.7 F g−1 at a current density of 1 A g−1, a high rate performance with a specific capacitance retention of 70% from 1 to 10 A g−1 and good cycle stability with 71.7% retention after 3000 cycles at 10 A g−1. Moreover, the hierarchical porous α-Ni(OH)2 nanosheets also exhibited excellent catalytic performance in the reduction of 4-nitrophenol with a reaction rate constant (k) of 0.33 min−1. Additionally, the formation mechanism for porous α-Ni(OH)2 nanosheets was proposed based on SEM and TEM observations with different NiCl2/NaBH4 ratios.

The notch stress method is often recommended for fatigue assessment of complex welded joints as it can consider the influence of weld toe geometric parameters on local stress. However, the application of the notch stress method is still in the exploratory stage in multiaxial fatigue compared with the traditional nominal stress method and structural stress method. Considering the geometric effect at the weld toe, the notch stress method describes the local stress with an accurate geometry model and the complex stress states at the damage point under multiaxial loading are determined in the local coordinate system. Using the notch stress method, six classical multiaxial fatigue criteria are re-evaluated for a series of typical welded joints in the literatures under both proportional and non-proportional loads. In order to evaluate the different criteria quantitatively, a statistical analysis is performed and the probability of non-conservative prediction is determined for each multiaxial fatigue criterion. The results show that the S-N curve for notch stress under multiaxial loading has a lower inclination and higher fatigue class compared with the uniaxial curve recommended by IIW.

In this work, we report on the green synthesis of a self-mixing nanocatalyst based on Pd nanoparticles on polydopamine-coated Fe-Fe2O3 magnetic nanochains (Fe-Fe2O3@PDA@Pd), which were obtained using core@shell structured Fe-Fe2O3@PDA magnetic nanochain as carrier and palladium chloride as metal precursor through in situ galvanic replacement reaction between catechol groups of PDA and palladium ions in aqueous solution at room temperature. In this process, palladium ions were directly reduced to ultrafine metallic Pd (0) by catechol groups of PDA, which was oxidized to quinone groups. No any external reductant or surfactant were added. Characterization results shows the Fe-Fe2O3@PDA@Pd nanocatalysts can self-rotate as nano-sized stirring bar to boost the reaction rate under magnetic stirrer due to its high saturation magnetization (Ms = 105 emu g−1). For the 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) reduction and methylene blue hydrogenation in presence of NaBH4, the rate constants of Fe-Fe2O3@PDA@Pd were up to 0.55 min−1 and 0.90 min−1 respectively, which are far higher than those of the contrast sample Fe-Fe2O3@Pd. Moreover, the nanocatalysts can be reused at least 6 runs with excellent yields for both the reactions. These facilitate the practical application of the Fe-Fe2O3@PDA@Pd nanocatalyst in reduction of nitroaromatic compounds and other hydrogenation processes.

The direct connection between a photosensitizer and an electron mediator, achieved by a precise arrangement based on chlorosome, provides photosynthetic bacteria the maximum efficiency in solar energy conversion. Herein, this study reports the fabrication of a biomimicking chlorosome for biocatalyzed artificial photosynthesis through self-assembly of simple molecules to functional systems. TCPP/EYx/Rh8–x macromolecules, synthesized through a sequential amidation reaction of porphyrin (TCPP), eosin Y (EY), and [Cp*RhCl2]2, were found to self-assemble into chlorosome-mimicking supramolecular assemblies through noncovalent interactions. Intra- and intermolecular dual channels for enhancing electron transfer were constructed in TCPP/EYx/Rh8–x supramolecular assemblies. In addition, the energy band structure of TCPP/EY4/Rh4 supramolecular assemblies also made a perfect coordination with oxidation and reduction potentials of an electron donor and NAD+, which led to a fast and oriented electron transfer along th...

The conventional stirring method cannot be employed for chip-on-lab reactions such as microfluidic and microdroplet reactions as well as nanoscale reactions. Therefore, it is necessary to design a nanoscale magnetic stirrer with a high magnetic response towards the external magnetic field. In this work, one dimentional core@shell structured Fe-Fe2O3@poly(cyclotriphosphazene-co-4,4′-sulfonyldiphenol) magnetic nanochains modified by nickel hydroxide (denoted as Fe-Fe2O3@PZS@Ni(OH)2 NCs) as nanoscale magnetic stirrer and recyclable self-mixing nanocatalysts are successfully prepared through three steps: synthesis of Fe-Fe2O3 nanochains (NCs) with high saturation magnetization, coating with poly (cyclotriphosphazene-co-4,4′-sulfonyldiphenol) (PZS), and nickel hydroxide’s anchoring on the surface of Fe-Fe2O3@PZS NCs. The cross-linked polymer PZS is used to protect Fe-Fe2O3 NCs from chemical corrosion and as a platform for subsequent immobilization of nickel hydroxide. Characterization results show that the Fe-Fe2O3@PZS@Ni(OH)2 NCs own chainlike structure and high saturation magnetization of 103 emu g−1 at room temperature, exhibiting high magnetic response to the external rotating magnetic field. In the macro-reaction system for 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) reduction, the as-prepared Fe-Fe2O3@PZS@Ni(OH)2 NCs show an apparent rate constant of about 0.60 min−1. Furthermore, the Fe-Fe2O3@PZS@Ni(OH)2 catalyst is reused ten times while no obvious loss of catalytic activity was observed. In the micro-reaction system, the Fe-Fe2O3@PZS@Ni(OH)2 NCs also display good magnetic response and favorable catalytic activity for the hydrogenation of methylene blue. These results indicate that the bifunctional Fe-Fe2O3@PZS@Ni(OH)2 NCs with high saturation magnetization have great potential as excellent nanocatalysts and as promising nanoscale magnetic stirrers.

Development of facile and cost-effective routes to achieve hierarchical porous and heteroatoms-doped carbon architectures is urgently needed for high-performance supercapacitor application. In our study, ternary-doped (nitrogen, phosphorus and oxygen) hollow carbon microspheres (NPO-HCSs) are fabricated by one-step pyrolysis of single poly(cyclotriphosphazene-co-phloroglucinol) (PCPP) microsphere, which is generated through a facile polymerization between hexachlorocyclotriphosphazene and phloroglucinol at mild conditions. The whole preparation process is not used any additional template or activating agent. The obtained NPO-HCS-950 with average diameter of 580 nm and shell thickness of about 80 nm have a high specific surface area (2390 m2 g−1), a large pore volume (1.35 cm3 g−1), hierarchically interconnected pore texture, and uniform ternary heteroatom doping (O: 3.04 at%; N: 1.33 at% and P: 0.67 at%). As an electrode material for supercapacitors, the specific capacitance of the NPO-HCS-950 reaches 253 F g−1 of 1 A g−1 and 176 F g−1 at 20 A g−1, revealing superior rate performance. The capacity retention after 10,000 consecutive charge-discharge cycles at 20 A g−1 is up to 98.9%, demonstrating excellent cycling stability. Moreover, the assembled symmetric supercapacitor using NPO-HCS-950 exhibits a relatively high energy density of 17.6 W h kg−1 at a power density of 800 W kg−1. Thus, a promising electrode material for high-performance supercapacitors is obtained through a facile, green and scalable synthesis route.

High adsorption ability and good separation functionality are necessary to an excellent adsorbent for organic dye removal from wastewater. In this study, core@shell nanostructured magnetic Fe-Fe2O3@polydopamine (PDA) nanochains (defined as Fe-Fe2O3@PDA NCs) were facilely synthesized through self-polymerization of dopamine on the surface of Fe-Fe2O3 NCs. The dye adsorption performance, recyclability and magnetic separability of the Fe-Fe2O3@PDA NCs were investigated through selecting malachite green (MG) as a model organic dye. The effects of initial MG concentration, initial solution pH, temperature, and contact time on dye adsorption were systematically studied. Results show that the adsorption capacity of the Fe-Fe2O3@PDA NCs for MG was 61.22 mg/g at 25 °C. Both π-π stacking and electrostatic interactions might be responsible for the adsorption of MG on Fe-Fe2O3@PDA NCs. The adsorption kinetic follows both pseudo-second-order kinetic and Weber’s intraparticle diffusion models. And the adsorption isothermal models fit Langmuir well. Besides, the Fe-Fe2O3@PDA NCs exhibit good recyclable adsorption property towards MG dye.

Highly dispersed Au-Ag bimetallic nanoparticles were facilely synthesized on the multi-amino poly(cyclotriphosphazene-co-polyethyleneimine) (PCP) microspheres through in situ co-reduction method and then used as catalysts for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP). Characterization results showed that the as-synthesized PCP microspheres possessed regular spherical morphology and relatively smooth surface, which could be well modified by highly dispersed Au-Ag bimetallic nanoparticles with size of 2–4 nm. For the reduction of 4-NP, it was found that the as-synthesized PCP@Au-Ag composites showed much better catalytic activity than PCP microspheres supported monometallic counterparts, which could be ascribed to a synergistic effect between Au and Ag in Au-Ag bimetals. For the PCP@Au-Ag catalysts, the rate constant k and intrinsic activity parameter κ of the reaction could be up to 2.87 × 10−3 s−1 and 144 s−1 g−1, respectively, and the conversion of the 4-NP could still reach 83% after six cycles. In addition, the possible catalytic mechanism of PCP@Au-Ag composites towards the reduction of 4-AP was also proposed.

The core@shell structured Fe@Fe 2 O 3 nanoscale stirring bars (denoted as Fe@Fe 2 O 3 NSBs) were facilely synthesized through the injection of ferric chloride solution into sodium borohydride solution at mild condition in one pot. The Fe@Fe 2 O 3 NSBs were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and vibrating sample magnetometer. Results showed that the Fe@Fe 2 O 3 NSBs owned lengths of several micrometers, diameters of 40–60 nm, and ultrahigh saturation magnetization of 130.1 emu/g at room temperature, exhibiting high magnetic response to the external rotating magnetic field. More interestingly, the Fe@Fe 2 O 3 NSBs display excellent peroxidase enzyme-mimicking activity for the oxidation of 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB). Meanwhile, in microscopic catalytic systems, the Fe@Fe 2 O 3 NSBs have been proved to accelerate mass transfer for the hydrogenation of methylene blue.

Heteroatom-containing porous carbon nanospheres with a high surface area were firstly fabricated by pyrolysis of poly(cyclotriphosphazene-co-4,4′-sulfonyldiphenol) (PZS) nanospheres which were fabricated by a facile polycondensation between hexachlorocyclotriphosphazene and 4,4′-sulfonydiphenol. Then the porous carbon nanosphere-supported Pt nanoparticles (Pt NPs@C-PZS) were synthesized by a simple microwave reduction method, during which Pt NPs were highly dispersed on the surface of carbon supports. The surface morphologies and chemical composition of the as-obtained C-PZS and Pt NPs@C-PZS nanocomposites were characterized by SEM, TEM, XRD, XPS, and Raman spectroscopy. Characterization results showed that the Pt NPs with an average diameter of 2 nm was well anchored onto the surface of C-PZS nanospheres. In addition, the as-prepared Pt NPs@C-PZS nanocomposites exhibited an excellent catalytic capability towards the reduction of 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol by excessive sodium borohydride (NaBH4) at room temperature.

Background Congenital thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) is rare and is prone to misdiagnosis or missed diagnosis in clinical. The relationship between genotype and phenotype needs further study. Methods A 15-hour-old Chinese girl develops jaundice. Her platelet counts suddenly decreases with bleeding spots on the left side of chest, upper abdomen, and bilateral groin on the fourth day after birth. The plasma ADAMTS13 activity and inhibitor are detected by residual collagen binding assay. ADAMTS 13 gene is detected by next generation sequencing. Results The plasma ADAMTS13 activity of the patient is shown to be severely deficient, but without inhibitor. Gene sequencing analysis shows that the patient carries a compound heterozygote mutation of ADAMTS13 gene, one is c.1564T>C, p.(Cys522Arg) on exon 13 of the ADAMTS13 gene, a heterozygote missense mutation. It is identified as a de novo suspected pathological variation. The other is c.330+1G>A on intron 3 of the ADAMTS13 gene, a heterozygote splicing mutation. Her father and elder sister carry c.1564T>C, p.(Cys522Arg) on exon 13 of the ADAMTS13 gene, a heterozygote missense mutations. Her mother carries c.330+1G>A on intron 3 of the ADAMTS13 gene, a heterozygote splicing mutation. Conclusions The deficiency of ADAMTS13 caused by one heterozygote missense mutation and the other heterozygote splicing mutation are responsible for the episode of this congenital TTP patient.

The development of novel large-scale synthesis protocols for heteroatom-doped porous carbon nanosheets is highly imperative for wastewater purification and high-performance electrode materials. In the present work, we propose a simple and feasible explosion-assisted activation strategy to fabricate a kind of N-doped porous carbon nanosheet (N-PCNS) at a large scale, in which only lactose and zinc nitrate were used as raw materials. The obtained N-PCNS possesses hierarchical micro- and mesopore nanostructures with a high specific surface area of 879 m2 g−1 while keeping a high nitrogen content of 3.73 at%. The adsorption properties of the N-PCNS were systematically evaluated through adsorption of neutral red (NR) dye. The adsorption capacity of the N-PCNS was as high as 439.6 mg g−1, meanwhile the adsorption process exhibited fine correlation with the Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second-order kinetic models. As an electrode material for supercapacitors, the specific capacitance of the N-PCNS is up to 263 F g−1 at 1 A g−1 and 194 F g−1 at 20 A g−1, revealing superior rate performance. The capacitance retention after 10 000 cycles at 20 A g−1 is 96%, demonstrating excellent cycling stability. Our work provides an effective approach to achieve the large-scale preparation of high-performance doped carbon materials.

Integrated energy system is receiving extensive attention. In order to solve the problem of economic operation caused by uncertainty of renewable energy generation in integrated energy system, a distributed robust optimization method considering integrated demand response is proposed. Firstly, the optimization model of integrated energy system is established by taking the minimum total cost of system operation as the objective function. Secondly, the probability distribution of the random vector of power prediction error is described in the form of set, which does not need to limit the probability distribution form of the random vector, but describes all possible probability distribution of the random variable by moment uncertainty ambiguity sets. Thirdly, the demand response is considered to alleviate the economic growth of integrated energy system in response to uncertainty. Finally, the effectiveness of proposed method is proved by a simple integrated energy system.

Chondrosarcoma is the 2nd most frequent bone sarcoma. In this study, the metabolic profiling of human chondrosarcoma SW-1353 cell line was investigated for the first time. To obtain more precise information about the metabolites from chondrosarcoma cells, pretreatment methods including washing steps/solvents, harvesting conditions, and extraction protocols for chondrosarcoma SW-1353 cells were evaluated in the context of metabolite profiling by GC-MS technique. In addition, a total of 32 representative metabolites (related to amino acid metabolism, TCA cycle, glycolysis, and fatty acid metabolism) were quantitatively determined. We found that a fast water rinse step before metabolic quenching, may reduce the contaminants and improve sensitivity. Trypsin/ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid treatment led to a large amount of metabolite leakage, which was not suitable for metabolomics research. Methanol was selected as a more suitable extraction solvent among four extraction approaches applied to SW-1353 cells. The final protocol can provide a simple, robust, and reproducible method to obtain precise information about the metabolites from chondrosarcoma cells, which is helpful to further understand the chondrosarcoma cell physiology and the mechanism of drug resistance in this disease, from the perspective of metabolomics.

Inspired by the superwettability peculiarities of cactus spines and pitcher plants, a unique three-dimensional (3D) superhydrophobic liquid-infused (SHBL) frame is designed by both etching nanospines and infusing liquid lubricant into the nanotextures. On the SHBL frame, the liquid-infused interface could effectively capture the tiny droplet and then accelerate the growth, coalescence and transport of the droplet. Moreover, the presence of the nanospines increases the capillary force, which can effectively lock the lubricant on the SHBL frame. Hence, the 3D SHBL frame achieves the high fog harvesting rate (e) of 15.2 g cm-3h−1 and efficiency (η) of 25.3%, and exhibits the excellent cycling stability of the fog harvesting. This study opens up a way to design the novel materials that would be expended into some application realms, e.g., fog/water harvesting engineering in industry, forest, etc.

Understanding the molecular mechanism by which epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT)-mediated cancer metastasis and how microRNA (miRNA) regulates lung cancer progression via Twist1-activated EMT may provide potential therapeutic targets for cancer therapy. Here we found that miR-33a, an intronic miRNA located within the sterol regulatory element-binding protein 2 (SREBP-2) gene, is expressed at low levels in metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells and is inversely correlated with Twist1 expression. Conversely, miR-33a knockdown induces EMT and miR-33a overexpression blocks EMT by regulating of Twist1 expression in NSCLC cells. Bioinformatical prediction and luciferase reporter assay confirm that Twist1 is a direct target of miR-33a. Additionally, Twist1 knockdown blocks EMT-related metastasis and forced expression of miR-33a inhibits lung cancer metastasis in a xenograft animal model. Clinically, miR-33a is found to be at low levels in NSCLC patients and down-regulation of miR-33a predicts a poor prognosis. These findings suggest that miR-33a targets Twist1 and inhibits invasion and metastasis in NSCLC. Thus, miR-33a might be a potential prognostic marker and of therapeutic relevance for NSCLC metastasis intervention.

Aroma is an important factor affecting pear fruit quality. This study was undertaken to assess whether pre-harvest calcium sprays (15 d before harvest, applications at 4%, w/v, 120 d after full bloom) could improve aroma of Pyrus ussuriensis ‘Nanguoli’ pear fruit at harvest and post-harvest, and analyse the mechanism of metabolic regulation. Most compounds contributing to overall flavor in ripe ‘Nanguoli’ fruit at harvest and post-harvest were enhanced in response to pre-harvest calcium applications. Ester, especially acetyl ester, content was enhanced by calcium treatment; however, contents of alcohols, aldehydes and hydrocarbons were little affected. These effects were consistent with higher pyruvate decarboxylase and alcohol dehydrogenase activities in treated fruit, suggesting that calcium treatment increased supply of alcohols and acyl CoAs for ester biosynthesis. We also found that activities of β-glucosidases (involved in the emission of bound volatile compounds) were improved and the contents of bound volatiles were reduced by calcium treatment. At the same time, relative contents of linoleic and linolenic acids were improved by calcium treatment, expression of genes encoding fatty acid desaturase involved in the biosynthesis of unsaturated fatty acid precursors (linoleic and linolenic acids) for volatile aroma were improved. Calcium treatment increased content of volatile aromatic substances, both because calcium promoted the decomposition of bound aroma substances to free aromatic forms, and also promoted the synthesis of volatile aromatic substances in pear fruit.

The mechanism of interactions between a flavonoid glycoside (linarin) and 6 flavonoids with various hydroxyl and methoxyl substituents (luteolin, apigenin, acacetin, tricin, 5,3',4'-trihydroxy-6,7-dimethoxyflavone, and 5,7,4'-trihydroxy-6,3',5'-trimethoxyflavone) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) were investigated by multi-spectroscopy, molecular docking, and quadrupole (Q)-time of flight (TOF) high resolution (HR) mass spectrometry (MS). Fluorescence spectra and molecular docking predicted that each of the flavonoids had only one probable binding site inside the hydrophobic cleft of BSA. The binding constants appeared to correlate positively with the number of hydroxyl groups, and negatively with the number of methoxyl groups. In addition, hydroxyls on ring B bound more easily with BSA than those on ring A. The change in conformation of BSA after binding suggested that the quenching mechanism was static quenching combined with nonradiative energy transfer. The results of Q-TOF HR-MS were consistent with fluorescence quenching and molecular docking.

Aroma is an important factor affecting pear fruit quality. However, the molecular basis for the development of aroma metabolites and their emission is poorly understood. Unripe ‘Nanguoli’ pear fruit has poor aroma, while the ripe fruit has an intense aroma, and calcium treatment can enhance the aroma, providing good material for transcriptome analysis. Digital gene expression (DGE) analysis of ‘Nanguoli’ fruit was performed at three important developmental stages, with and without calcium treatment, six libraries in total. Of the total number of mapped reads (11.4–13.6 million), an average of 69.81% could be mapped to the pear genome. A total of 10,776 differentially expressed genes between the poor aroma and intense aroma were categorized into 36 functional groups and 37 pathways according to GO and KEGG databases, respectively. Genes more highly expressed in the more aromatic fruit include some from the fatty acid pathway such as FAD, ADH, PDC, LOX, and lipase genes. Some transcription factors were identified with high correlation to aroma biosynthesis in pear. Also, ABA may play an important role in the calcium-triggered improvement of ‘Nanguoli’ aroma. In addition, candidate genes were verified with quantitative real-time PCR.

Considering that different energy subsystems have different control characteristics in equipment operations, an optimal multi-time scale coordination method for electricity-heating integrated system scheduling is proposed. It merges three optimal scheduling models based on three-time scales of day-ahead, rolling, and real-time. The coordinated optimization of electricity and heating energies with the same dispatch instruction is fulfilled in day-ahead scheduling. And all feasible scheduling instruction cycles are traversed in the rolling stage to improve the stability of system economic operation. The calculation examples show that the proposed overall strategy for multi-time scale scheduling can achieve multi-energy complementarity, and the optimization results have less deviation from the actual load.

Inorganic arsenic is an environmental carcinogen that poses a major global public health risk. A high percentage of drinking water from wells in the U.S. contains higher-than-normal levels of arsenic, suggesting an increased risk of arsenic-induced deleterious effects. In addition to primary preventive measures, therapeutic strategies need to effectively address and integrate multiple molecular mechanisms underlying arsenic-induced carcinogenesis. We previously showed that the loss of miR-199a-5p in arsenic-transformed cells is pivotal to promote arsenic-induced angiogenesis and tumor growth in lung epithelial cells. In this study, we further showed that subacute or chronic exposure to arsenic diminished miR-199a-5p levels largely due to DNA methylation, which was achieved by increased DNA methyltransferase-1 (DNMT1) activity, mediated by the formation of specific protein 1 (Sp1)/DNMT1 complex. In addition to the DNA hypermethylation, arsenic exposure also repressed miR-199a transcription through a transcriptional repressor Sp1. We further identified an association between miR-199a-5p repression and the arsenic-mediated energy metabolic shift, as reflected by mitochondria defects and a switch to glycolysis, in which a glycolytic enzyme pyruvate kinase 2 (PKM2) was a functional target of miR-199a-5p. Taken together, the repression of miR-199a-5p through both Sp1-dependent DNA methylation and Sp1 transcriptional repression promotes an arsenic-mediated metabolic shift from mitochondria respiration to aerobic glycolysis via PKM2.

Organic dye pollution in the water environment is a problem of global concern. Adsorption is demonstrated as a promising technology to remove organic dyes from wastewater, in which the development of highly-efficient adsorbents is still the challenging task. Herein, we reported the facile fabrication of polyamine-based cyclophosphazene hybrid (PCP-NH2) hollow microcapsules with cross-linked structure, generated by one-step precipitation polymerization between hexachlorocyclotriphosphazene and branched polyethyleneimine, and subsequent acetone treatment. Their morphology, composition and structure were confirmed by SEM, TEM, FTIR, TGA, and XPS. The endowment of hollow PCP-NH2 microcapsules as potential adsorbents were thoroughly evaluated using eight organic dyes with different surface charges. The adsorption action of hollow PCP-NH2 microcapsules highly depends on the surfaces charges, exhibiting highly-efficient and selective adsorption behavior towards anionic dyes. Especially, The adsorption capacity of the hollow PCP-NH2 microcapsules towards anionic dyes of EY, ACBK, MO and EB reaches up to 1196.36, 1190.65, 1142.77 and 1040.92 mg/g at 25 °C, respectively. The adsorption kinetics shows a better fit to pseudo second-order kinetic model, compared to pseudo-first-order kinetic and Weber’s intraparticle diffusion models. The adsorption equilibrium data followed the Langmuir isotherm well. The adsorption thermodynamic experiments demonstrated that adsorption was a physisorption process with endothermic and spontaneous characteristic.

Fe(II) and α-ketoglutarate-dependent fat mass and obesity associated protein (FTO)-dependent demethylation of m⁶A is important for regulation of mRNA splicing and adipogenesis. Developing FTO-specific inhibitors can help probe the biology of FTO and unravel novel therapeutic targets for treatment of obesity or obesity-associated diseases. In the present paper, we have identified that 4-chloro-6-(6'-chloro-7'-hydroxy-2',4',4'-trimethyl-chroman-2'-yl)benzene-1,3-diol (CHTB) is an inhibitor of FTO. The crystal structure of CHTB complexed with human FTO reveals that the novel small molecule binds to FTO in a specific manner. The identification of the novel small molecule offers opportunities for further development of more selective and potent FTO inhibitors.

The development of rapid, sensitive methods for α-fetoprotein and telomerase is significant because their blood concentrations are related to hepatocellular carcinoma. Therefore, the determination of α-fetoprotein and telomerase may allow the detection of liver cancer. A novel method for the high-yield synthesis of gold-silica alloy core-shell nanoparticles is reported. Gold-silica core-shells prepared by a convenient reduction provided good stability, served as immobilization carriers for the antibodies, and facilitated electron transfer. A simple label-free, three-dimensional hierarchical plasmonic nanoarchitecture was designed for the sensitive surface-enhanced Raman scattering determination of α-fetoprotein and telomerase. The active groups of the gold-silica nanoparticles allowed 4-mercaptobenzoic acid and Nile blue to absorb antibodies and generate a signal. Gold-silica@4-mercaptobenzoic acid and gold-silica@Nile blue were employed in the surface-enhanced Raman scattering immunosensor. When ...

As one of crucial epigenetic modification, DNA methylation plays an important role during the carcinogenesis of colorectal cancer (CRC). In the current study, we used a human genome methylation array to detect the aberrant methylation genes in CRC. We further identified the hypermethylation of claudin-11 (CLDN11) and proved inverse correlation between CLDN11 methylation and its expression in CRC. In vitro experiments showed debased migration ability of colonic cancer cells in accompany with the converted methylation of CLDN11 after colonic cancer cells treated with demethylation agent, 5-aza-2’-deoxycytidine. Besides, our results also represented that hypermethylation of CLDN11 was associated with increased metastatic potential of CRC and with low progression free survival (PFS) of CRC. In conclusion, our findings supported that the hypermethylated CLDN11 is associated with metastasis of CRC and prognosis of poor survival of CRC.

In this work, the commercial silicon on insulator (SOI) wafers irradiated by 0.5 MeV electrons with a fluence of 1.5⨯1014 ~ 2.3⨯1015 cm−2 and annealed among 150 °C and 300 °C have been studied in detail. The performances of SOI samples are investigated by Geant4, Capacitance - Voltage (C–V), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Photoluminescence (PL). The C–V measurements indicate that capacitance decrease under positive voltage bias with increasing fluence. The free carrier concentration decreases with increasing fluence and increases with rising annealing temperature, which can be attributed to the traps induced by electron irradiation on Si/SiO2 interface. There is only the presence of Si–O bonding from the FTIR absorption peaks exhibiting at ~940, ~960, and ~1170 cm−1. The relative intensity of three peaks become weaker with higher irradiation fluence and annealing under 150 °C, which is in good agreement with the Monte Carlo numerical simulation (Geant4). The PL spectra reveals that there is a strong photoluminescence emission at about 420 nm (2.95 eV), which is ascribed to the radiative recombination centers in SiO2 layer. In addition, weaker peaks of PL emission at 720 nm (1.72 eV) and 835 nm (1.49 eV) are also discussed in this paper.

—Accurate multi-energy load forecasting (MELF) is the key to realize the balance between supply and demand in regional integrated energy systems (RIES). To this end, a hybrid MELF method for RIES considering temporal dynamic and coupling characteristics (MELF_TDCC) is proposed. The novelty of MELF_TDCC lies in the following three aspects: 1) considering the high-dimensional temporal dynamic characteristic, an encoder-decoder model based on long-short term memory network (LSTMED) is proposed, which can extract the high dimensional potential feature, and reflect the temporal dynamic characteristics of historical load sequence effectively; 2) considering the cross-coupling characteristic, a coupling feature matrix of multi-energy load is constructed, which reflects the cross-influence of electricity, cooling and heating loads; 3) with the feature fusion layer of the hybrid model being built by gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT), the extended feature matrix for each class of load is constructed considering the intra-class inherent characteristics and inter-class coupling characteristic of loads, and the GBDT model is trained on the extended feature matrix, which provides multi-dimensional perspective for researching load essential characteristics. MELF_TDCC is verified on the ultra-short-term and short-term MELF scenarios based on an actual dataset. The simulation result shows that the proposed MELF_TDCC outperforms the current advanced methods.

The rational microstructure design and general synthesis of multiple heteroatoms co-doped carbon materials for effective and selective capture of CO2 is highly imperative in terms of mitigating CO2 emissions. Here, novel quaternary (N, S, O, P)-doped porous carbon microspheres with high surface area and large volume of ultramicropores were prepared facilely for the first time through directly pyrolyzing an organic-inorganic hybrid polyphosphazene. Through adjusting the pyrolysis temperature (750–950 °C), the resultant carbon materials could possess variable surface area (342–653 m2 g−1) and pore volume (0.17–0.32 cm3 g−1), and a tunable content of heteroatoms including N, S, O and P distributed homogeneously in the carbon framework. As CO2 adsorbents, the heteroatoms quaternary-doped porous carbons show a significant amount of CO2 adsorption capacity at 760 mmHg, almost 3 mmol g−1 at 25 °C and 4.3 mmol g−1 at 0 °C, respectively. Also, the as-prepared sorbent exhibits good CO2/N2 selectivity, high isosteric heat and stable cycling ability. The good CO2 capture performance could be ascribed to its high microporosity and multiple heteroatom doping in the carbon framework. When combined with the low cost of the polyphosphazene precursor, these features make the novel quaternary-doped carbon materials a promising adsorbent candidate for highly effective and selective capture of CO2.

In thermochemical water-splitting iodine–sulfur cycle, concentrating hydrogen iodine in the HI–H2O–I2 solution is crucial for the efficient hydrogen production. Electro-electrodialysis (EED) is a very promising HI concentrating method. In this paper, EED experiments were carried out using stacked cells, aiming at the scale up of EED equipment. Compared with the single-unit EED cell, the multi-cell EED stacks could concentrate HI in catholyte much more rapidly. During the EED process, the cell voltages increased gradually with the expansion of the concentration difference between catholyte and anolyte. For the stacks with more EED cells, the voltage increased much more steeply. High operating temperature ensured EED process carried out under low cell voltages and avoided voltage swelling. The apparent transport number (t+) of all the experiments were very close to 1, while the ratio of permeated quantities of water to H+ (β) changed in a range of 1.79–3.05, influenced by temperature, I2 content and current density.

The popularity of smart meters makes it possible to carry out “bottom-up” load forecasting, so as to achieve more refined load forecasting by aggregating users of a certain scale. In this paper, a day-ahead aggregated load forecasting method based on two-terminal sparse coding and deep neural network fusion is proposed. Two-terminal coding is implemented by a sparse auto-encoder. At the feature input terminal, historical power curves are transformed into a sparse vector by the encoder. At the output terminal, the sparse vector is used as an intermediate result of the deep neural network (DNN), and it can be transformed into the day-ahead predicted power curve by the decoder. Two-terminal sparse coding can achieve feature extraction and dimensionality reduction in an unsupervised way, which overcomes the challenge caused by high-dimensional data. In the prediction process, the aggregated load is clustered into different prediction groups. Then for each group, DNNs with different structures are used to predict the load of the same group. Then a concatenated layer is added to fuse these DNNs. So structural advantages of different networks are exploited. Case study shows that the two-terminal sparse coding and DNN fusion can effectively improve the accuracy of day-ahead load forecasting.

Developing excellent dye adsorbent with high adsorption capability and good reusability and clarifying the interaction mechanism between adsorbent and adsorbate are highly desired for eliminating water pollution. Herein, we present a novel magnetic adsorbent Fe3O4/poly(cyclotriphosphazene-co-4,4′-sulfonyldiphenol) nanotube modified by glacial acetic acid (defined as Gl-PZSNTs-Fe3O4) to remove cationic dye methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solution. Compared with the unmodified magnetic PZSNTs-Fe3O4, the Gl-PZSNTs-Fe3O4 exhibits rapid adsorption rate and high adsorption capacity. The adsorption equilibrium data was fitted well with Langmuir model, and the adsorption kinetics obeyed the pseudo-second-order kinetics model and Elovich model. Thermodynamic analysis showed that the MB adsorption onto the Gl-PZSNTs-Fe3O4 was endothermic and spontaneous. Especially, through contrasting the adsorption behavior of Gl-PZSNTs-Fe3O4 and PZSNTs-Fe3O4 towards MB dye, we highlighted the importance of glacial acetic acid modification for enhancing the adsorption capacity of the Gl-PZSNTs-Fe3O4. Meanwhile, we also proposed the adsorption mechanism of the Gl-PZSNTs-Fe3O4 towards MB dye.

In this paper, the ring-opening reaction of 2,5-dioctyldithieno[2,3-b:3',2'-d]thiophene with aryllithium in THF at low temperature to generate 2'-arylthio-3,3'-bithiophene-2-carbaldehydes is studied. Nine examples are explored and all the products are characterized by 1H NMR, 13C NMR and HRMS. The relative relationship between the structures of aryl groups and the efficiency of ring-opening reactions are discussed.

In order to complete nonlinear path following smoothly and accurately, this paper proposes a method utilizing the Serret-Frenet Line-of-Sight (LOS) guidance with adaptive compensation in the horizontal plane. All regular paths are feasible. Our method takes three steps to accomplish the path following. First, the guidance law calculates the desired yaw angle. Then an adaptive compensation is added on the desired yaw which considering uncertainty and input saturation. Last, the PID controller is extended to cope with the yaw tracking and velocity control. Simulations and outfield experiments are conducted to verify the feasibility and superiority of the novel approach.