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Both compounds have host organo–metallophosphate (OMPO) frameworks, whereas the Keggin-type POM as a guest encapsulated in this size-matched framework. More interestingly, compound 2 displays outstanding performance in CO2 photoreduction.

We report an experimental study of the shear-induced migration of flexible fibers in suspensions confined between two parallel plates. Non-Brownian fiber suspensions are imaged in a rheo-microscopy setup, where the top and the bottom plates counter-rotate and create a Couette flow. Initially, the fibers are near the bottom plate due to sedimentation. Under shear, the fibers move with the flow and migrate towards the center plane between the two walls. Statistical properties of the fibers, such as the mean values of the positions, orientations, and end-to-end lengths of the fibers, are used to characterize the behaviors of the fibers. A dimensionless parameter Λeff, which compares the hydrodynamic shear stress and the fiber stiffness, is used to analyze the effective flexibility of the fibers. The observations show that the fibers that are more likely to bend exhibit faster migration. As Λeff increases (softer fibers and stronger shear stresses), the fibers tend to align in the flow direction and the motions of the fibers transition from tumbling and rolling to bending. The bending fibers drift away from the walls to the center plane. Further increasing Λeff leads to more coiled fiber shapes, and the bending is more frequent and with larger magnitudes, which leads to more rapid migration towards the center. Different behaviors of the fibers are quantified with Λeff, and the structures and the dynamics of the fibers are correlated with the migration.

Lactobacillus brevis (L. brevis) is a widely used probiotic with health-promoting properties. Previous studies reported that L. brevis has beneficial impacts on T2DM mice. On the other hand, the differences in effects between live and inactivated L. brevis are still inconclusive. This study aims to evaluate the hypoglycemic effects of inactivated L. brevis YM1301 (YM1301) on T2DM mice induced by a high-fat diet (HFD) combined with streptozocin (STZ). T2DM mice were randomly stratified into four groups and administered either saline (model group), metformin (positive control group), live YM1301 (LB group), or inactivated YM1301 (ILB group). Results demonstrated that inactivated YM1301 reduced serum content of fasting blood glucose, insulin, and glycated hemoglobin, enhanced the level of glucose tolerance, and decreased insulin resistance in T2DM mice. Inactivated YM1301 also decreased fat accumulation in T2DM mice. In addition, inactivated YM1301 effectively promoted serum GLP-1 levels. These results showed that inactivated YM1301 can significantly improve symptoms of T2DM. This study provides theoretical feasibility for the development of low-cost, easy to store, safer, and more effective probiotic products related to L. brevis.

Millimeter-sized porous carbon spheres (MPCS) with both controllable interior architecture and high mechanical strength are highly desired for practical applications, but there is no efficient method to synthesize these materials. Here, we report a strategy to fabricate millimeter-sized porous carbon spheres by harnessing the liquid marble phenomenon. This strategy enables us to obtain a series of MPCS with tunable interior architectures, such as honeycombed MPCS, foam-like MPCS, cavity-containing MPCS and hollow MPCS, which add new members to carbon microsphere family. Crucially, the mechanical strength of MPCS reaches as high as 14.6 N, favoring its practical applications. Moreover, our protocol allows for nitrogen element and metal to be in situ incorporated within the body of MPCS, leading to an efficient catalyst for levulinic acid (LA) hydrogenation or benzene hydrogenation. Impressively, turnover numbers (TONs) of 113000 in the LA hydrogenation and 480 h of continuous benzene hydrogenation with TONs of 116000 are achieved, which highlights the potential in engineering applications of these novel microspheres.

Polygonatum sibiricum (PS) has been used as herbal medicine to treat type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). However, how lactic acid fermentation of PS influences glucose and lipid metabolism remains unclear. The current study was undertaken to evaluate the hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic effects of PS fermented with Lactobacillus brevis YM 1301 (YM 1301) in streptozotocin and high-fat diet-induced T2DM mice. Biochemical analysis revealed that supplementation with metformin, PS, or fermented Polygonatum sibiricum (FPS) lowered the fasting blood glucose, insulin, total cholesterol, triglyceride, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol of diabetic mice. FPS showed relatively more potency to reduce the homeostasis model assessment-insulin resistance and glycated hemoglobin than PS. Moreover, a high dosage of FPS protected against glucose intolerance and insulin resistance by increasing the ratio of phosphor-AKT/AKT. Histological examination and quantitative polymerase chain reaction results showed that dietary FPS ameliorated the lipid accumulation in liver and white adipose tissue (WAT) by inhibiting lipogenesis, enhancing lipolysis, and fatty acid oxidation. FPS exhibited greater efficacy than PS on improving the transcriptional expression of adipose triacylglyceride lipase, carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1, and uncoupling protein 1. In addition, FPS exerted a striking anti-inflammatory effect by suppressing the expression of interleukin 6, interleukin 1β, tumor necrosis factor-α, and transforming growth factor-β in WAT of diabetic C57BL/6 mice. Finally, FPS supplementation enhanced the activation of AMPK. In conclusion, these results suggest that the FPS may be more promising than PS as a potential therapeutic agent for diabetes and obesity.

Clinical reports of multiple primary malignant tumors (MPMTs) in the digestive system are increasing. In China, although the survival rate of patients with MPMTs is increasing, the quality of life is very low. Many patients have reached the advanced stage when the second primary tumor is found, resulting in no early intervention and treatment. This is due to the misunderstanding of MPMTs by clinicians, who treat such tumors as metastases. Therefore, before a patient has a second primary tumor, doctors should understand some common combinations of digestive system MPMTs to provide clinical guidance to the patient.To explore the high incidence combination of digestive system MPMTs under heterochronism and synchronization.A total of 1902 patients with MPMTs at Peking Union Medical College Hospital were analyzed retrospectively. They were divided into metachronous MPMT and synchronous MPMT groups, and then the high incidence combinations of the first primary cancer and the second primary cancer in metachronous cancer and synchronous cancer were sorted. Sex and age differences between metachronous and synchronous tumors were tested by the chi square test andAmong the 1902 patients with MPMTs confirmed by pathology, 1811 (95.2%) cases were secondary primary cancers, 89 (4.7%) cases were tertiary primary cancers, and 2 (0.1%) cases were quaternary primary cancers. Most (88.2%) of the secondary primary cancers were identified as metachronous multiple primary cancers six months after diagnosis of the first primary cancer. The top ten most common MPMTs in the first primary cancer group ranged from high to low as follows: Breast cancer, thyroid cancer, nonuterine cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, kidney cancer, uterine cancer, bladder cancer, rectal cancer, and gastric cancer. The highest incidence rate of the first primary cancer in male metachronous cancer was lung cancer (11.6%), the highest incidence rate of the second primary cancer was still lung cancer (24.9%), the highest incidence rate of the first primary cancer in female metachronous cancer was breast cancer (32.7%), and the highest incidence rate of the second primary cancer was lung cancer (20.8%). Among them, breast cancer, nonuterine cancer and uterine cancer were female-specific malignant tumor types, and thyroid cancer also accounted for 79.6% of female patients. The top five metachronous cancer combinations, independent of female-specific malignant tumor types and thyroid cancer, were colon cancer and lung cancer (26 cases), kidney cancer and lung cancer (25 cases), rectal cancer and lung cancer (20 cases), gastric cancer and lung cancer (17 cases), and bladder cancer and lung cancer (17 cases). The most common synchronous cancer combination was colon cancer and rectal cancer (15 cases).Screening for lung cancer should be performed six months after the detection of colon cancer while rectal cancer screening should be performed within six months.

For most organisms, molecular oxygen is indispensable for normal physiological metabolism; in humans, prolonged hypoxia in tissues can induce many diseases, exemplified by cardiovascular disease, chronic wounds, and tissue necrosis. Therefore, the oxygen in our environment is vital for life. As a main source of oxygen in the natural world that transforms light energy into chemical energy and oxygen, photosynthesis has been widely studied in scientific research and used in production of food, fuel, and medicine. In recent years, photosynthesis has become more closely involved in biomedicine and has been widely used in photodynamic therapy, tissue regeneration, transplantation, and in treatment of specific diseases. This review summarizes innovative applications of photosynthesis in biomedical research and highlights the theory and implications of clinical treatment for specific diseases.

The design and development of efficient adsorbents for CO2 capture is of paramount importance. Herein, we report a novel Pickering emulsion templating strategy to prepare a hierarchically structure...

Abstract Embedding thread lift rhytidectomy, also known as “thread lifting” in China, with the natures of simple operation, less trauma and quick recovery, is progressively used in clinical practice as a new technology of face lifting. Herewith, a brief introduction of the previous advances of thread lifting techniques and materials in the facial beauty industry, combined with the discussion on various types of sutures, common complications, and the site of actions were provided. The main limitations of present thread lifting material include: (1) the use of non-absorbable sutures is liable to cause allergies and a series of complications; (2) the absorbable sutures are easily degradation, and people need to reshape in a relatively short period. Therefore, the high biocompatible spider silk was proposed as a novel material of thread lifting suture and related devices, the advantages and preliminary achievements on spider silk were also addressed. Graphic Abstract

Coalescence and breakup of drops are classic problems in fluid physics that often involve self-similarity and singularity formation. While the coalescence of suspended drops is axisymmetric, the coalescence of drops on a substrate is inherently three-dimensional. Yet, studies so far have only considered this problem in two dimensions. In this Letter, we use interferometry to reveal the three-dimensional shape of the interface as two drops coalescence on a substrate. We unify the known scaling laws in this problem within the thin-film approximation and find a three-dimensional self-similarity that enables us to describe the anisotropic shape of the dynamic interface with a universal curve.

Reasonable design and scalable preparation of low-cost, effective and durable electro-catalysts as substitutes to expensive Pt-derived catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is highly desired toward the progress of future sustainable energy storage devices. In this work, we scalably prepare a highly active ORR electrocatalyst which consists of both Fe3N nanoparticles and Fe-N-C active sites in N-doped carbon frameworks (named as Fe3N/Fe-N-C) and derives from walnut shells as precursors followed by iron ion incorporation and a pyrolysis process in NH3 atmosphere. The X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic (XPS) measurements strongly evidence the coexistence of Fe3N nanoparticles and iron-nitrogen-carbon active sites. Benefiting from the synergistic mechanism between Fe3N nanoparticles and Fe-N-C sites in N-doped carbon frameworks, the resultant catalyst presents desirable ORR performance with impressive Eonset, E1/2, higher long-term stability, and satisfactory resistance to methanol interference, overtopping commercial Pt/C catalyst. The present research not only proposes a cost-effective and available ORR electro-catalyst to substitute Pt-based catalysts, but also provides a reliable and versatile technology to realize large-scale preparation for practical applications.

By using a mixed-ligand approach, two new coordination polymers with the chemical formula of {[Co2.5(nbta)(trz)2(H2O)]·3H2O}n (1, H3nbta = 5-nitros,2,3-benzenetricarboxylic acid and Htrz = 1H-1,2,4...

Data for p53 mutation in prostate cancer in The Cancer Genome Atlas database revealed that >85% of p53 mutations occurred in the p53 DNA binding domain. These mutations not only severely damage the function of the p53 protein, but also reduce the disease‑free survival of patients. Peroxisome proliferator‑activated receptor γ coactivator‑1α (PGC‑1α) is involved in the regulation of mitochondrial function and is highly expressed in prostate cancer PC3 and DU145 cells with p53 deletion or mutation. However, whether p53 negatively regulates PGC‑1α in prostate cancer cells remains to be elucidated. In the present study, p53 overexpression was induced in prostate cancer PC3 cells. Subsequently, the expression levels of PGC‑1α and alterations to mitochondrial function were assessed. Moreover, PGC‑1α was activated in prostate cancer PC3 cells using ZLN005 to investigate alterations to mitochondrial function and cell apoptosis. The present study revealed that p53 decreased the expression and nuclear localization of the PGC‑1α protein and induced mitochondrial dysfunction. Activation of PGC‑1α partially reversed p53‑mediated mitochondrial dysfunction. Inhibition of the p53/PGC‑1α pathway on mitochondrial biogenesis and fission‑/fusion‑associated gene and protein expression were associated with mitochondrial dysfunction. p53/PGC‑1α‑mediated mitochondrial dysfunction promoted apoptosis of PC3 prostate cancer cells. The results indicated that PGC‑1α is an essential target of p53‑induced apoptosis in prostate cancer cells and indicated that targeting PGC‑1α may provide a new therapeutic strategy for prostate cancer.

Background. Licorice is one of the most ubiquitous herbs in traditional Chinese medicine, with notable anti-inflammatory and antiulcerative effects as well as potent digestive disease therapeutic impacts; yet, its active components and mechanisms remain unclear. There is a lot of evidence that Glycyrrhiza polysaccharide (GPS) has antioxidants, improving intestinal flora, anti-inflammatory effects, etc. Hypothesis/Purpose. Here, we investigated the effects of GPS on dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced acute ulcerative colitis (UC) mice and its possible mechanisms. Methods. GPS (100, 200, and 400 mg/kg) or the positive control drug sulfasalazine (SASP) (200 mg/kg) were orally administered to mice for 8 days. Body weight was recorded daily. Symptoms associated with UC, such as disease activity index (DAI), colon length, spleen weight, and mucosal damage were detected. The possible mechanism of GPS ameliorating enteritis symptoms was explored by detecting intestinal permeability and serum levels of inflammatory factors, and changes in intestinal permeability were expressed by serum concentration of FITC-dextran and D-lactic acid. Results. The results demonstrated that GPS administration alleviated UC symptoms in colitis mice, including weight loss, DAI index, shorting colon length, and mucosal damage. Mechanistic evaluation revealed that GPS treatment reduced intestinal permeability and serum levels of inflammatory factors: IL-1, IL-6, and TNF-α, while increasing serum levels of the anti-inflammatory factor IL-10, suggesting that GPS’s mechanism in UC is related to reducing intestinal permeability and inhibiting the inflammatory response, with intestinal permeability implicated as the initiating mechanism. Conclusion. This study highlights GPS as a promising therapeutic agent, with high therapeutic efficacy and a good safety profile, for enteritis and beyond.

A rational integration of multiple reactive centers into a combined unit to facilitate their cooperative effects is a smart approach for accelerating the catalytic activity. Here, to achieve this goal, linear imidazolium-based ionic polymers were confined into the nanopores of mesoporous silica nanospheres anchored with homogeneously distributed zinc salts. Owing to the flexible character and the reinforced cooperative effects of the ionic liquid (nucleophile) and zinc species (Lewis acid) in the confined mesoporous structure, the resultant composite exhibited dramatically improved catalytic performance in the cycloaddition of CO2 with epoxides to form cyclic carbonates. This was in contrast to that observed for the individual catalytic components. Moreover, such a solid catalyst could be easily recovered and reused four times without a significant loss of activity.

The purpose of this article is to study the effectiveness of pedagogical and psychological conditions that form a sense of rhythm in students (n=200) involved in conducting. The study was conducted in 2017-2019 among 1-2 year students from Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing (China). In the control part of the experiment, 42% of students were in the group with a low level of rhythm perception. The number of students with a low level of intonation of musical rhythm was reduced by 2.0 times, a combined response as a key element of the conductor gestures of conducting was increased by 2.81 times.

Wound management, especially for chronic wounds, has emerged as a major healthcare challenge, which brings great pain and other negative impacts to patients, and accounts for significant portions of health care budgets. The common practice of covering wounds with dressings, owing to the lack of information about wound healing underneath, cannot provide insights into the status of the wound. Changing the dressings to inspect wounds not only disturbs normal healing process of wounds, but also causes pain to affected individuals. Therefore, it is necessary to rely on parameters in the wound microenvironment such as temperature, pH, moisture level, and etc., by continuously monitoring, to indicate the wound status and healing stages. Moreover, intelligent on-demand treatment systems also can be integrated into the smart dressing, called new-type skin bioelectronic systems to be applicated in wound repair. Besides monitoring, these kinds of skin bioelectronic systems can offer effective treatments automatedly when the wound deteriorates. It makes timely treatment possible and avoids delayed treatment and uncovering the dressing to give medicine. In this review, wound healing-related indexes in the wound microenvironment are discussed, applications of various smart dressings with functions of monitoring or/and treatment are summarized.

In the past decade, object detection has achieved significant progress in natural images but not in aerial images, due to the massive variations in the scale and orientation of objects caused by the bird's-eye view of aerial images. More importantly, the lack of large-scale benchmarks has become a major obstacle to the development of object detection in aerial images (ODAI). In this paper,we present a large-scale Dataset of Object deTection in Aerial images (DOTA) and comprehensive baselines for ODAI. The proposed DOTA dataset contains 1,793,658 object instances of 18 categories of oriented-bounding-box annotations collected from 11,268 aerial images. Based on this large-scale and well-annotated dataset, we build baselines covering 10 state-of-the-art algorithms with over 70 configurations, where the speed and accuracy performances of each model have been evaluated. Furthermore, we provide a code library for ODAI and build a website for evaluating different algorithms. Previous challenges run on DOTA have attracted more than 1300 teams worldwide. We believe that the expanded large-scale DOTA dataset, the extensive baselines, the code library and the challenges can facilitate the designs of robust algorithms and reproducible research on the problem of object detection in aerial images., Comment: Accepted to IEEE TPAMI

Enzymatic microarchitectures with spatially controlled reactivity, engineered molecular sieving ability, favorable interior environment, and industrial productivity show great potential in synthetic protocellular systems and practical biotechnology, but their construction remains a significant challenge. Here, we proposed a Pickering emulsion interface-directed synthesis method to fabricate such a microreactor, in which a robust and defect-free MOF layer was grown around silica emulsifier stabilized droplet surfaces. The compartmentalized interior droplets can provide a biomimetic microenvironment to host free enzymes, while the outer MOF layer secludes active species from the surroundings and endows the microreactor with size-selective permeability. Impressively, the thus-designed enzymatic microreactor exhibited excellent size selectivity and long-term stability, as demonstrated by a 1000 h continuous-flow reaction, while affording completely equal enantioselectivities to the free enzyme counterpart. Moreover, the catalytic efficiency of such enzymatic microreactors was conveniently regulated through engineering of the type or thickness of the outer MOF layer or interior environments for the enzymes, highlighting their superior customized specialties. This study provides new opportunities in designing MOF-based artificial cellular microreactors for practical applications.

Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) is associated with various health benefits. In this review, we searched current work about the effects of EGCG and its wound dressings on skin for wound healing. Hydrogels, nanoparticles, micro/nanofiber networks and microneedles are the major types of EGCG-containing wound dressings. The beneficial effects of EGCG and its wound dressings at different stages of skin wound healing (hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation and tissue remodeling) were summarized based on the underlying mechanisms of antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, angiogenesis and antifibrotic properties. This review expatiates on the rationale of using EGCG to promote skin wound healing and prevent scar formation, which provides a future clinical application direction of EGCG.

Controlling localization of multiple metal nanoparticles on a single support is at the cutting edge of designing cascade catalysts, but is still a scientific and technological challenge because of the lack of nanostructured materials that can not only host metal nanoparticles in different sub-compartments but also enable efficient molecular transport between different metals. Herein we report a multicompartmentalized mesoporous organosilica with spatially separated sub-compartments that are connected by short nanochannels. Such a unique structure allows co-localization of Ru and Pd nanoparticles in a nanoscale proximal fashion. The so designed cascade catalyst exhibits an order of magnitude activity enhancement in the sequential hydrogenation of nitroarenes to cyclohexylamines compared with its mono/bi-metallic counterparts. Crucially, an interesting phenomenon of neighboring metal-assisted hydrogenation via hydrogen spillover is observed, contributing to the significant enhancement in catalytic efficiency. The multicompartmentalized architectures along with the revealed mechanism of accelerated hydrogenation provide vast opportunity for designing efficient cascade catalysts., Controlling localization of multiple metal nanoparticles on a single support is at the cutting edge of designing innovatory cascade catalysts. Here, the authors report a multicompartmentalized mesoporous organosilica to spatially position different metal nanoparticles in intimate proximity for efficient sequential hydrogenation reactions.

Equivalence ratio is one of the important operating parameters for biomass gasification. The oxygen carrier possesses high producer gas production in a wide range of equivalence ratio (oxygen carrier/biomass ratio), which is exceedingly desirable for biomass chemical looping gasification (CLG). In this study, the effect of different equivalence ratios on the CO selectivity (the evolved gas composition) of Fe2O3, Fe2O3/CaO and CaFe2O4 oxygen carriers in biomass char CLG was investigated in a fixed bed reactor. The results showed that the CO selectivity of CaFe2O4 had little changes and decreased from 70.39% to 59.79% and 73.40% to 63.98% with increasing equivalence ratio from 0.5 to 3.0 at 900 °C and 1000 °C, respectively. In sharp contrast, the CO selectivity of Fe2O3 changed markedly, which declined respectively from 65.86% to 31.13% (900 °C) and 69.68% to 47.27% (1000 °C). Fe2O3/CaO illustrated the similar tendency as Fe2O3 at 900 °C but as CaFe2O4 at 1000 ℃. The three oxygen carries exhibited a high CO production at lower equivalence ratio, and CaFe2O4 displayed the best performance of CO selectivity in the given equivalence ratio range. X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectrums showed that the oxygen carriers were transformed to different iron phases with difference equivalent ratios. The Fe (III) in the three oxygen carries was reduced completely to Fe (0) at the equivalence ratios of 0.5 and 1.0, while FeO and Ca2Fe2O5 were the dominant species in the spent oxygen carriers as equivalence ratio was further increased. The trends of CO selectivity obtained by thermodynamic analysis for three oxygen carries were consistent with the experimental results.