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Growing global concern over greenhouse gas emissions has led to a demand for understanding and addressing carbon emissions, with China being one of the main contributors to global carbon emissions, committed to reach the carbon peak by 2030. As a result, much previous research has delved into the drivers of carbon emissions in China; however, few studies have included new energy factors in the extended STIRPAT model when analysing the data, employed more advanced visualisation techniques such as force-directed diagrams, and explored factors outside of the industrial and energy sectors in determining China's ability to reach their environmental goals. In this study, we use the extended STIRPAT model to analyse a more diverse range of drivers for carbon emissions in China and discuss methods to reach peak carbon emissions through the implementation of environmental policies. Using data from China's 14th Five-Year Plan and Vision 2035 to set up two simulation scenarios, we predict China's carbon emissions, introducing ridge regression to ensure validity, and employing big data and visualisation techniques to aid in interpreting results. Our findings suggest that China needs to implement more stringent environmental policies to meet its commitment to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030, revealing that factors such as per capita arable land area, per capita GDP, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, the level of tourism development, the use of fossil fuels, and new energy technologies have a significant impact on China's carbon emissions. As such, we can recommend more stringent policies relating to the agricultural, energy, and tourism sectors to help China achieve their goal of carbon peak by 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The surface morphology of perovskite films significantly influences the performance of perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs). However, the thin perovskite thickness (~10 nm) results in low surface coverage on the substrate, limiting the improvement of photoelectric performance. Here, we propose a molecular additive strategy that employs pentafluorophenyl diphenylphosphinate (FDPP) molecules as additives. P=O and Pentafluorophenyl (5F) on FDPP can coordinate with Pb2+ to slow the crystallization process of perovskite and enhance surface coverage. Moreover, FDPP reduces the defect density of perovskite and enhances the crystalline quality. The maximum brightness, power efficiency (PE), and external quantum efficiency (EQE) of the optimal device reached 24,230 cd m−2, 82.73 lm W−1, and 21.06%, respectively. The device maintains an EQE of 19.79% at 1000 cd m−2 and the stability is further enhanced. This study further extends the applicability of P=O-based additives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exploration of highly efficient noble-metal-free catalysts for overall water splitting is crucial for industrial application. In this study, FeS nanosheets/1T-MoS2 nanoflowers on conductive iron foam (IF) were prepared as efficient electrocatalysts for the HER and OER using a solvothermal method. The prepared FMS0.5 electrocatalyst can deliver a high current density of 100 mA cm−2 at low overpotential potentials of 245 and 316 mV and small Tafel slopes of 80.6 and 88.3 mV dec−1 for the HER and OER. The FMS0.5//FMS0.5 exhibited a low voltage of 1.56 V at 10 mA cm−2 with remarkable stability for 40 h in alkaline water. Benefiting from the 3D morphology and interface coupling interactions between the FeS nanosheets and 1T-MoS2 nanoflowers, the self-supporting electrocatalyst could tune the charge/ion transfer path and electronic structure to facilitate the HER and OER activity. Hence, this study would provide new ideas for exploiting highly active non-noble-metal bifunctional catalysts for energy-related applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban renewal to fulfill the updated needs of urban residents is an inevitable product of urbanization at certain stages. And how to effectively prioritize varied attributes to be renewed across scales is a challenging process for urban governance worldwide. This study aimed to fill the existing gaps by merging the prioritization capacity of importance-performance analysis (IPA) and the scalability potential of social media data. The study pioneered establishing a social-media-based improvement index (SMII) for urban renewal. Based on the framework of importance-performance analysis, SMII takes the most overkilled point (the lowest importance but the highest performance) as the origin and calculates the area between other points and the origin. SMII always has the highest value in the quadrant with high importance but low performance. We demonstrate the usage of SMII taking the landscape services of urban park systems as an example. We used SMII to understand the users' evaluation of parks' services across scales and then clarified the priority sequence for future renewal. Among selected parks, we identified three parks that need immediate renewal. Among all the services, we found that recreational activities and social interactions are in highest priority for renewal in Beijing's park systems. The findings suggest that the history and culture services of the Old Summer Place Park need to be improved first for a wide variety of reasons. The findings also reveal multiple temporal changes of varied services. Our study concludes that SMII can clarify problem prioritization and cost-effective guide decision-making for urban park renewal with high scalability both temporally and spatially. Meanwhile, SMII can extend its applications to analyzing various issues in the urban environment on multiple scales for the effective allocation of resources during urban renewal.

Objectives: Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress plays pivotal roles in the regulation of skeletal muscle damage and dysfunction in multiple disease conditions. We postulate the activation of ER stress in idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM).Methods: Thirty-seven patients with immune-mediated necrotizing myopathy (IMNM), 21 patients with dermatomyositis (DM), 6 patients with anti-synthetase syndrome (ASS), and 10 controls were enrolled. The expression of ER stress-induced autophagy pathway was detected using histological sections, Western blot, and real-time quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction.Results: ER stress-induced autophagy pathway was activated in biopsied muscle of patients with IMNM, DM, and ASS. The ER chaperone protein, glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78)/BiP expression in skeletal muscle correlated with autophagy, myofiber atrophy, myonecrosis, myoregeneration, and disease activity in IMNM.Conclusion: ER stress was involved in patients with IIM and correlates with disease activity in IMNM. ER stress response may be responsible for skeletal muscle damage and repair in IIM.

Benzylic oxygenation of methylarenes is a direct but challenging method for aldehyde synthesis from simple starting materials. Here, the authors show an electrochemical, site-selective method for the oxidation of methyl benzoheterocycles to aromatic acetals without using chemical oxidants or transition metal catalysts.

Abstract Background and aims Even Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) has been becoming the key role in process of liver fibrosis or cirrhosis, no any NASH involving liver fibrosis mice model which consistent with the mechanisms of fatty acid and glucose metabolism disorder was widely accepted. Here, we established a mouse model of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) with liver fibrosis using a high-fat, high-carbohydrate diet (HFHC) and analyzed the potential pathogenesis using a transcriptome microarray. Methods Fifty mice were stratified by weight and randomly divided into the HFHC model and control (Con) groups. Ten mice were sacrificed at the beginning of the experiments, 10 mice of HFHC and Con group were euthanized at the end of 20 and 30 weeks. The following analyses were performed: biochemical analysis; histological assessment; evaluation of hepatic type I collagen (Col-I), α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) protein and mRNA expression levels; and transcriptomic gene chip analysis. Results Compared with the Con group at each time point, the body weight and liver wet weight of the HFHC model group of mice were significantly higher. At 30th weeks, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), fasting blood glucose (FBG) and fasting insulin (FINS) levels or activities and the triglyceride (TG) and hydroxyproline (HYP) content in the HFHC model group were significantly elevated. Severe steatosis was present in the liver tissues contributed from the HFHC group of mice. Typically, substantial perisinusoidal fibrosis with a cage-like structure and bridging formations were observed in the mice liver in HFHC group. Col-I, α-SMA and TGF-β1 protein and mRNA expression levels in liver tissues of HFHC mice dramatically increased over time. Compared with the Con group, the HFHC group had 151 differentially expressed genes that were involved in 41 signaling pathways. Conclusions After keeping 30 weeks HFHC diet treatment, the mice exhibited substantial liver fibrosis, hepatic steatosis, ballooning degeneration and inflammation. Basing on the transcriptome microarray assays, the experimental NASH involving liver fibrosis potentially related to dramatically changed ECM-receptor interaction, Toll-like receptor signaling and other signaling pathways.

Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is still one of the illnesses with the greatest mortality and morbidity. As a recently identified mode of cellular death, the activation of ferroptosis may promote the effectiveness of antitumor therapies in several types of tumors. However, the expression and clinical significance of Ferroptosis-associated genes in LUAD are still elusive. The RNA sequencing data of LUAD and relevant clinical data were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) datasets. Subsequently, potential prognostic biomarkers were determined by the use of biological information technology. The R software package “ggalluvial” was applied to structure Sanguini diagram. Herein, our team screened 14 dysregulated ferroptosis-associated genes in LUAD. Among them, only four genes were associated with clinical outcome of LUAD patients, including ATP5MC3, FANCD2, GLS2, and SLC7A11. In addition, we found that high SLC7A11 expression predicted an advanced clinical progression in LUAD patients. Additionally, 8 immune checkpoint genes and 7 immune cells for LUAD were recognized to be related to the expression of SLC7A11. KEGG assays indicated that high expression of SLC7A11 might participate in the modulation of intestinal immune network for IgA generation and Staphylococcus aureus infection. Overall, our findings revealed that SLC7A11 might become a potentially diagnostic biomarker and SLC7A11 might serve as an independent prognosis indicator for LUAD.

Optical vortex array (OVA) containing multiple optical vortices is an optimal candidate for applications of optical communications, complex manipulation of multi-particle systems, and mass-synchronous fabrication. However, the existing OVAs have not been constructed to respond to the application requirements, particularly for micro-/nanomaterial fabrication where the boundary, size, and stability need to be carefully considered. To address this issue, we propose a Gibbs–Wulff OVA (GWOVA) by analogizing the Gibbs–Wulff theorem in solid-state physics. Herein, the Gibbs–Wulff theorem is first generalized to OVA's generation as the condition to confine its growth boundary. The GWOVA, which possesses versatile structures and arrangement modes (simple- and close-packed modes), is successfully generated and grown. It exhibits high stability and perfect symmetry during growth and rotation, which satisfies the symmetric group of D2s. Owing to its stable structure and growth boundary conditions, the GWOVA has great potential for a wide range of applications, particularly in micro-/nanomaterial fabrication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caffeine and epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), which respectively, are the main functional extracts from coffee and green tea, and present protective effects against non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases (NAFLD). These two beverages and their functional extracts are highly recommended as potential treatments for obesity and NAFLD in clinics; however, their pharmacodynamic effects and pharmacological mechanisms in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) remain unclear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the commonality and specificity of the pharmacodynamic effects and pharmacological mechanisms of caffeine and EGCG on NASH mice, which were fed with a high-trans fatty acid/high-carbohydrate (HFHC) diet. C57BL/6J mice were fed a normal diet (control group) or an HFHC diet (HFHC group) for 24 weeks. HFHC group mice were additionally treated with caffeine (75 mg/kg) or EGCG (100 mg/kg) for 6 weeks, using obeticholic acid (OCA,10 mg/kg) as a positive control group. The pharmacological effects of the drugs, including effects on glucose and lipid metabolism and liver inflammation and fibrosis, were evaluated. Gene expression in liver tissue samples from the different groups were assessed. Both caffeine and EGCG significantly reduced the liver manifestations of NASH induced by HFHC. The pathological aspects of liver lipid deposition, inflammation, and liver fibrosis in both groups were strongly ameliorated. Of note, most indexes were strongly reversed in the caffeine group, although AST activity, fasting blood glucose, and the HOMA-IR index were improved in the ECGC group. There were 714 differentially expressed genes between the caffeine and HFHC groups and 268 differentially expressed genes between the EGCG and HFHC groups. Twenty and 17 NASH-related KEGG signaling pathways were enriched by caffeine and EGCG. This study confirmed that 75 mg/kg caffeine and 100 mg/kg EGCG could significantly improve liver lipid deposition, glucose metabolism, inflammation, and fibrosis in a mouse model of NASH induced by HFHC. The bioinformatics platform we built for caffeine and EGCG in NASH disease found that the two drugs may greatly overlap in improving the mechanism related to NASH inflammation. However, caffeine may have better potential in regulating glucose metabolism and EGCG may have better potential in regulating lipid metabolism.

A total of 1177 Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis were randomly collected from the northwest Indian Ocean from February between May 2019 and 2020 by lighting falling-net vessels. The age, growth, and population structure of S. oualaniensis were studied based on the statolith microstructure. The results showed that the range of mantle length (ML) was 123–562 mm for females and 88–273 mm for males, and the range of body weight (BW) was 78–6268 g for females and 82–518 g for males in 2019 and 2020, respectively. The hatching date extended from May to December, with the 2019 samples mainly composed of the autumn population, while the 2020 samples were mostly composed of the summer population. The analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) showed that there were significant differences in the growth of ML–age and BW–age between sexes. In the growth model of the ML–age relationship, both females and males in 2019 were best described by s linear model, and 2020 was best described by a logarithmic model. The growth model of the BW–age relationship of females and males in 2019 was best described as linear and the growth model of the BW–age relationship of females and males in 2020 was described logarithmically and exponentially, respectively. The average absolute daily growth rate (AGR) and instantaneous growth rate (IGR) for ML of the 2019 samples were 0.85 mm/d and 0.40%/d, and the average AGR and IGR for ML of the 2020 samples were 0.65 mm/d and 0.18%, respectively. The growth of S. oualaniensis samples in 2019 was faster than that in 2020. This study provided basic information on the age, growth, and population of S. oualaniensis, which will supply a scientific basis for stock assessment and sustainable development.

Neutrophils are characterized by their heterogeneity. They fight against pathogens and are involved in tissue injury repair and immune system regulation. Neutrophils have an extremely short life span in the peripheral blood and undergo aging after being released from the bone marrow. The over-aggregation of aged neutrophils is associated with phenotypical and functional changes. Here, we aimed to investigate the dynamics of neutrophil aging and its relationship with T cell exhaustion in HIV-1 infection, as they are not well understood. In this study, we enrolled 23 treatment naïve (TN) patients, 23 individuals that had received antiretroviral therapy (ART), and 21 healthy controls (HC). In these cohorts, we measured the degree of neutrophil aging, and its possible correlation with T cell dysfunction. In TN patients, peripheral neutrophils showed a more distinct aging phenotype and were over-activated compared to those in ART-treated patients. The degree of neutrophil aging was positively correlated with HIV-1 RNA viral load and negatively correlated with CD4+ T cell count. Moreover, aged neutrophils had impaired reactive oxygen species (ROS) production after lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation, and were characterized by increased PD-L1 and arginase-1 expression in a time-dependent manner. Aged neutrophils demonstrated an increased inhibition of IFN-γ and TNF-α secretion by CD8+ T cell compared to non-aged neutrophils. The inhibition effect could be partially reversed by blocking PD-L1 and arginase-1 in vitro, and LPS was identified as an important activator of neutrophil aging. These results provide evidence that dampening neutrophil aging may provide a novel approach to recover T cell dysfunction in patients with HIV-1 infection.

To explore the feasibility of using beak microstructure information to estimate the age of Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis, the microstructures of the upper beaks of individual squid were applied in this work to analyze the ages and growth patterns of squid caught from February–May 2019 and from October–December 2020 in the northwest Indian Ocean. The results indicated that the squid samples in the two years were no older than 9 months, and the samples in 2019 were autumn population and 2020 were spring population. The linear growth model of the autumn population (2019) was the best model for describing the relationship between age and ML, while the power model of the spring population (2020) was the best for describing the relationship between age and ML. The maximum instantaneous growth rate (IGR) and absolute daily growth rate (AGR) values of the spring population were 0.24%/d and 1.09 mm/d, respectively, occurring in squid between 200 and 220 days of age. The maximum IGR and AGR values of the autumn population were 0.69%/d and 1.73 mm/d, respectively, occurring in squid between 200 and 240 days of age. The period from 141–260 days (5–8 months) was considered to correspond to the subadult stage in the whole life history of S. oualaniensis in the Northwest Indian Ocean. The beak microstructure information can be effectively applied to estimate the age of S. oualaniensis individuals.