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Developing new energy, reducing fossil energy consumption, and building a green and low-carbon energy system are important strategies to achieve carbon neutrality. To realize the grid connection of new energy generation, rechargeable potassium-ion batteries (KIBs) are expected to be used in large-scale energy storage, considering sufficient potassium resources and potential high-energy density. Anode, an essential battery component, directly determines the battery safety, cycle life, and energy density. Among various anodes, alloys can provide high theoretical specific capacity based on the multi-electron reaction mechanism, which is promising in terms of improving the energy density of a full battery. Their K-storage voltages also stay away from the deposition/stripping potentials of metallic K, thereby enhancing battery safety. However, the dramatic volume variation upon alloying and dealloying leads to electrode pulverization and capacity fading in traditional carbonate-based electrolytes. An effective method for stabilizing an alloy-based anode structure is the construction of a stable electrode–electrolyte interface by electrolyte optimization, which has the advantages of a simple process and low cost. Accordingly, the utilization of interfacial engineering to achieve stable alloy anodes has been frequently reported in the past few years. This topic includes the following: (1) regulation of the components of solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layers to improve mechanical strength and ionic conductivity, buffer volume fluctuation, and reduce electrode corrosion; (2) adjustment of the solvated structure of K+ to enhance the diffusion rate and inhibit the electrolyte decomposition; and (3) utilization of solvent molecular chemisorption on the electrode to induce its microstructure change, improve the electrolyte wetting ability, and relieve volume change. The SEI is a passivation film generated on the electrode surface at the initial battery operation stage. Research on its structure, component, and formation mechanism is still basic due to its instability and complexity and limited research methods. Whether the solvated structure of cation and electrolyte adsorption affect the SEI structure and composition remains unclear. How the solvated structure and the electrolyte adsorption improve the electrode stability must also be further studied. This review covers recent research progress on the interfacial interaction between alloy anodes and electrolytes in KIBs, summarizes the electrolyte optimization strategies, analyzes the potassium storage mechanisms and electrochemical performance of alloy anodes, and highlights the interfacial interaction mechanisms. More importantly, this paper provides new insights for the future development of KIB electrolytes.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has become one of the four major chronic diseases that threaten people′s health around the world. Strengthening the integration between prevention and treatment is crucial to slow the disease progression and reduce the risk of acute exacerbation of COPD. Based on the Innovative Care for Chronic Conditions Framework (ICCC) proposed by World Health Organization (WHO), we, in this paper, conducted a systematic review on the integration between prevention and treatment of COPD among typical countries and districts with different health systems from three levels and four aspects: policy environment at macro-level, health care organization and community at meso-level, and patient interaction at micro-level; we also summarized the practical experiences which could be used as references for China and proposed some policy recommendations according to actual situation of China.

BackgroundThe worldwide spread of monkeypox (mpox) has witnessed a significant increase, particularly in nonendemic countries. ObjectiveWe aimed to investigate the changing clinical symptoms associated with mpox from 1970 to 2023 and explore their interrelations. MethodsIn this systematic review and meta-analysis, 3 electronic databases were searched for English peer-reviewed studies conducted from January 1970 to April 2023 that reported any symptoms among confirmed mpox cases. We categorized the mpox epidemics into 3 periods: 1970-2002 (period 1, within the African region), 2003-2021(period 2, epidemics outside Africa), and 2022-2023 (period 3, worldwide outbreak). Following PRISMA guidelines, a meta-analysis was performed to estimate the pooled prevalence for each symptom. The correlation among symptoms was analyzed and visualized using network analysis. ResultsThe meta-analysis included 61 studies that reported 21 symptoms in 720 patients from period 1, 39 symptoms in 1756 patients from period 2, and 37 symptoms in 12,277 patients from period 3. The most common symptom among patients from all 3 periods was rash (period 1: 92.6%, 95% CI 78.2%-100%; period 2: 100%, 95% CI 99.9%-100%; and period 3: 94.8%, 95% CI 90.9%-98.8%), followed by lymphadenopathy (period 1: 59.8%, 95% CI 50.3%-69.2%; period 2: 74.1%, 95% CI 64.2%-84.1%; and period 3: 61.1%, 95% CI 54.2%-68.1%). Fever (99%, 95% CI 97%-100%), enlarged lymph nodes (80.5%, 95% CI 75.4%-85.0%), and headache (69.1%, 95% CI 4%-100%) were the main symptoms in period 1, with a significant decrease in period 3: 37.9%, 31.2%, and 28.7%, respectively. Chills/rigors (73.3%, 95% CI 60.9%-85.7%), fatigue (68.2%, 95% CI 51.6%-84.8%), and dysphagia/swallowing difficulty (61.2%, 95% CI 10.5%-100%) emerged as primary new symptoms in period 2 and decreased significantly in period 3. Most other symptoms remained unchanged or decreased in period 3 compared to the former 2 periods. Nausea/vomiting had the highest degree of correlation (with 13 symptoms) and was highly positively correlated with lymphadenopathy (r=0.908) and conjunctivitis (r=0.900) in period 2. In contrast, rash and headache were 2 symptoms with the highest degree of correlation (with 21 and 21 symptoms, respectively) in period 3 and were highly positively correlated with fever (r=0.918 and 0.789, respectively). ConclusionsThe manifestation of symptoms in patients with mpox has become more diverse, leading to an increase in their correlation. Although the prevalence of rash remains steady, other symptoms have decreased. It is necessary to surveil the evolving nature of mpox and the consequential changes in clinical characteristics. Epidemic countries may shift their focus on the potential association among symptoms and the high synergy risk. Trial RegistrationPROSPERO Registration: CRD42023403282; http://tinyurl.com/yruuas5n

This work investigated the aging effects on the rheological properties of high viscosity modified asphalt (HVMA). First, the high- and low-temperature rheological properties were measured by a dynamic shear rheometer and a bending beam rheometer, respectively. The aging mechanism was then tested using an Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and a scanning electron microscope. Besides, a study was performed to compare the aging effects on the rheological properties of HVMA, crumb rubber modified asphalt (CRMA), and neat asphalt (SK-90). The experimental results showed that the effects of the long-term aging on HVMA exceeded those of short-term aging. The complex shear modulus of the HVMA was improved by the aging in the whole frequency range. The complex shear modulus of the HVMA after the long-term aging was larger than after the short-term aging. Thus, the aging improved the high-temperature viscoelastic performance of HVMA. With a decrease in temperature from −12 °C to −24 °C, the low-temperature viscoelastic performance of HVMA decreased since its stiffness modulus and low continuous grading temperature increase. Both of the short- and long-term aging of HVMA were caused by an oxidation reaction, while modifier swelling also happened after long-term aging. Compared to CRMA and SK-90, aging had a limited influence on the high- and low-temperature rheological properties of HVMA.

This article summarized the observation on the effect of using the self prepared Sanse formula to treat patients with upper extremity edema. The mechanism and consequence of upper extremity edema, prescription composition of Sanse formula and procedure of external application were summarized. On the basis of routine nursing, the application of Sanse formula to the local affected part can improve the symptoms of patients with upper extremity edema, without adverse reactions, and has a positive meaning for promoting the rehabilitation of patients. (本文总结1例ICU患者肢端水肿的护理体会, 包括肢端水肿的发生机制以及不良影响、中药三色方的药方组成和外敷方法等。在常规护理的基础上应用三色方外敷, 能有效缓解患者上肢水肿症状, 对促进患者康复具有积极意义。)

Crowd counting is an important task that serves as a preprocessing step in many applications. Despite obvious improvement reported by various convolutional-neural-network-based approaches, they only focus on the role of deep feature maps while neglecting the importance of shallow features for crowd counting. In order to surmount this issue, a dilated convolutional-neural-network-based cross-level contextual information extraction network is proposed in this work, which is abbreviated as CL-DCNN. Specifically, a dilated contextual module (DCM) is constructed by importing cross-level connection between different feature maps. It can effectively integrate contextual information while conserving the local details of crowd scenes. Extensive experiments show that the proposed approach outperforms state-of-the-art approaches using five public datasets, i.e., ShanghaiTech part A, ShanghaiTech part B, Mall, UCF_CC_50 and UCF-QNRF, achieving MAE 52.6, 8.1, 1.55, 181.8, and 96.4, respectively.

Abstract Clostridioides difficile spores are considered as the major source responsible for the development of C. difficile infection (CDI), which is associated with an increased risk of death in patients and has become an important issue in infection control of nosocomial infections. Current treatment against CDI still relies on antibiotics, which also damage normal flora and increase the risk of CDI recurrence. Therefore, alternative therapies that are more effective against C. difficile bacteria and spores are urgently needed. Here, we designed an oxidation process using H2O2 containing PBS solution to generate Cl− and peroxide molecules that further process Ag and Au ions to form nanoboxes with Ag–Au peroxide coat covering Au shell and AgCl core (AgAu‐based nanoboxes). The AgAu‐based nanoboxes efficiently disrupted the membrane structure of bacteria/spores of C. difficile after 30–45 min exposure to the highly reactive Ag/Au peroxide surface of the nano structures. The Au‐enclosed AgCl provided sustained suppression of the growth of 2 × 107 pathogenic Escherichia coli for up to 19 days. In a fecal bench ex vivo test and in vivo CDI murine model, biocompatibility and therapeutic efficacy of the AuAg nanoboxes to attenuate CDI was demonstrated by restoring the gut microbiota and colon mucosal structure. The treatment successfully rescued the CDI mice from death and prevented their recurrence mediated by vancomycin treatment. The significant outcomes indicated that the new peroxide‐derived AgAu‐based nanoboxes possess great potential for future translation into clinical application as a new alternative therapeutic strategy against CDI.

BackgroundThe incidence of thyroid carcinoma (THCA), the most common endocrine tumor, is continuously increasing worldwide. Although the overall prognosis of THCA is good, patients with distant metastases exhibit a mortality rate of 5-20%.MethodsTo improve the diagnosis and overall prognosis of patients with thyroid cancer, we screened specific candidate neoantigen genes in early- and late-stage THCA by analyzing the transcriptome and somatic cell mutations in this study.ResultsThe top five early-stage neoantigen-related genes (NRGs) were G protein-coupled receptor 4 [GPR4], chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan 4 [CSPG4], teneurin transmembrane protein 1 [TENM1], protein S 1 [PROS1], and thymidine kinase 1 [TK1], whereas the top five late-stage NRGs were cadherin 6 [CDH6], semaphorin 6B [SEMA6B], dysferlin [DYSF], xenotropic and polytropic retrovirus receptor 1 [XPR1], and ABR activator of RhoGEF and GTPase [ABR]. Subsequently, we used machine learning models to verify their ability to screen NRGs and analyze the correlations among NRGs, immune cell types, and immune checkpoint regulators. The use of candidate antigen genes resulted in a better diagnostic model (the area under the curve [AUC] value of the early-stage group [0.979] was higher than that of the late-stage group [0.959]). Then, a prognostic model was constructed to predict NRG survival, and the 1-, 3- and 5-year AUC values were 0.83, 0.87, and 0.86, respectively, which were closely related to different immune cell types. Comparison of the expression trends and mutation frequencies of NRGs in multiple tumors revealed their potential for the development of broad spectrum therapeutic drugs.ConclusionIn conclusion, the candidate NRGs identified in this study could potentially be used as therapeutic targets and diagnostic biomarkers for the development of novel broad spectrum therapeutic agents.

Jamestown Canyon virus (JCV), a negative-sense arbovirus, is increasingly common in the upper Midwest of the USA. Transmitted by a range of mosquito genera, JCV's primary amplifying host is white-tailed deer. Aedes aegypti is responsible for transmitting various positive-sense viruses globally including dengue (DENV), Zika, chikungunya, and Yellow Fever. Ae. aegypti's distribution, once confined to the tropics, is expanding, in part due to climate change. Wolbachia, an insect endosymbiont, limits the replication of co-infecting viruses inside insects. The release and spread of the symbiont into Ae. aegypti populations have been effective in reducing transmission of DENV to humans, although the mechanism of Wolbachia-mediated viral blocking is still poorly understood. Here we explored JCV infection potential in Ae. aegypti, the nature of the vector's immune response, and interactions with Wolbachia infection. We show that Ae. aegypti is highly competent for JCV, which grows to high loads and rapidly reaches the saliva after an infectious blood meal. The mosquito immune system responds with strong induction of RNAi and JAK/STAT. Neither the direct effect of viral infection nor the energetic investment in immunity appears to affect mosquito longevity. Wolbachia infection blocked JCV only in the early stages of infection. Wolbachia-induced immunity was small compared to that of JCV, suggesting innate immune priming does not likely explain blocking. We propose two models to explain why Wolbachia's blocking of negative-sense viruses like JCV may be less than that of positive-sense viruses, relating to the slowdown of host protein synthesis and the triggering of interferon-like factors like Vago. In conclusion, we highlight the risk for increased human disease with the predicted future overlap of Ae. aegypti and JCV ranges. We suggest that with moderate Wolbachia-mediated blocking and distinct biology, negative-sense viruses represent a fruitful comparator model to other viruses for understanding blocking mechanisms in mosquitoes.

BackgroundWhether familial thyroid cancer is more aggressive than sporadic thyroid cancer remains controversial. Additionally, whether the number of affected family members affects the prognosis is unknown. This study focused mainly on the comparison of the clinicopathological characteristics and prognoses between papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) patients with and without family history.MethodsA total of 626 familial papillary thyroid cancer (FPTC) and 1252 sporadic papillary thyroid cancer (SPTC) patients were included in our study. The clinical information associated with FPTC and SPTC was recorded and analyzed by univariate analysis.ResultsPatients in the FPTC group had a higher rate of multifocality (p=0.001), bilaterality (p=0.000), extrathyroidal invasion (p=0.000), distant metastasis (p=0.012), lymph node metastasis (p=0.000), recurrence (p=0.000), a larger tumor size (p=0.000) and more malignant lymph nodes involved (central: p=0.000; lateral: p=0.000). In addition, our subgroup analysis showed no significant difference (p>0.05) between patients with only one affected family member and those with two of more group in all clinicopathological characteristics. In papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC) subgroup analysis, we found that FPTMC patients harbored significantly larger tumors (p=0.000), higher rates of multifocality (p=0.014), bilaterality (p=0.000), distant metastasis (p=0.038), lymph node metastasis (p=0.003), greater numbers of malignant lymph nodes (central: p=0.002; lateral: p=0.044), higher rates of I-131 treatment (p=0.000) and recurrence (p=0.000) than SPTMC patients.ConclusionOur results indicated that PTC and PTMC patients with a positive family history had more aggressive clinicopathological behaviors, suggesting that more vigilant screening and management for FPTC may be helpful.

Abstract Background Circulating long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are considered a new class of biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of various malignancies. We aimed to identify circulating lncRNAs as biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods The expression of 14 candidate lncRNAs was measured in matched cancer and ipsilateral normal lung tissues of 20 patients with NSCLC using quantitative reverse‐transcription PCR. In plasma samples from training and testing sets, significantly and aberrantly expressed lncRNAs, TA73‐AS1 and CRNDE, were further analyzed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were constructed, and the areas under the ROC curves (AUC) were obtained to assess diagnostic performance. The Kaplan–Meier survival analysis was used to assess the impact of plasma TA73‐AS1 and CRNDE expression on tumor‐free survival (TFS) of patients with NSCLC. The effect of TP73‐AS1 expression on NSCLC cells was investigated in vitro. Results AUC values of plasma TA73‐AS1 and CRNDE were 0.822 and 0.815 in the training set and 0.843 and 0.804 in the testing set, respectively, to distinguish NSCLC from healthy controls. The combination of plasma TP73‐AS1, CRNDE, and two classical tumor markers, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and cytokeratin 19 fragment (CYFRA21‐1), showed excellent diagnostic performance for NSCLC (AUC =0.927 in the training set; AUC = 0.925 in the testing set). Furthermore, the high expression of the two plasma lncRNAs correlated with worse TFS in patients with NSCLC. In vitro cell model studies revealed that TP73‐AS1 overexpression facilitated NSCLC cell survival, invasion, and migration. Conclusion Circulating TP73‐AS1 and CRNDE could be potential biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognostic prediction of NSCLC.