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A new coordination polymer (H2 bpy)0.5 ⋅[(UO2 )1.5 (ipa)2 (H2 O)] (1) (H2 ipa=isophthalic acid, bpy=4,4'-bipyridine) was synthesized by hydrothermal condition. It was characterized by IR spectroscopy, elemental analysis, TG-DTA analysis, and powder X-ray diffraction. Analysis of single-crystal X-ray diffraction results showed that the title compound exhibited a double chain bridged by the different uranyl ions and ipa2- ligands. Through the hydrogen bond interactions and π⋅⋅⋅π stacking interactions, the double chains were assembled into the three-dimensional supramolecular framework. Furthermore, the compound can be used as a promising bifunctional luminescence sensor for detecting and identifying Fe3+ and tetracycline hydrochloride antibiotic molecules with high selectivity and sensitivity in aqueous solutions. Moreover, the luminescent sensing mechanisms for different analytes were proposed. Moreover, the electronic properties of title compound were explored by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The sensor system has been successfully applied for the detection of Fe3+ and tetracycline hydrochloride with high recovery percentages and low relative standard deviation in real river water samples.

The design and synthesis of highly efficient thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters with an electroluminescence wavelength beyond 600 nm remains a great challenge for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). To solve this issue, three TADF molecules, xDMAC–BP (x = 1, 2, 3), are developed in combination with the rigid planar dibenzo[a,c]phenazine (BP) acceptor core and different numbers of 9,9-dimethylacridan (DMAC) donors. All these emitters possess stable internal charge transfer and a large dihedral angle between the donors and planar BP core. The emission wavelength can be regulated from 541 to 605 nm by increasing the number of the donor DMAC units because of the controllable tuning of the intramolecular charge transfer effect and the molecular geometrical structure. The photoluminescence quantum yields of these emitters are improved from 42 to 89% with the increase in the number of DMAC units. The orange-red OLEDs employing the xDMAC–BP emitters exhibit maximum external quantum effici...

Background Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) may be cured with radiation therapy. Tumor proximity to critical structures demands accuracy in tumor delineation to avoid toxicities from radiation therapy; however, tumor target contouring for head and neck radiation therapy is labor intensive and highly variable among radiation oncologists. Purpose To construct and validate an artificial intelligence (AI) contouring tool to automate primary gross tumor volume (GTV) contouring in patients with NPC. Materials and Methods In this retrospective study, MRI data sets covering the nasopharynx from 1021 patients (median age, 47 years; 751 male, 270 female) with NPC between September 2016 and September 2017 were collected and divided into training, validation, and testing cohorts of 715, 103, and 203 patients, respectively. GTV contours were delineated for 1021 patients and were defined by consensus of two experts. A three-dimensional convolutional neural network was applied to 818 training and validation MRI data sets to construct the AI tool, which was tested in 203 independent MRI data sets. Next, the AI tool was compared against eight qualified radiation oncologists in a multicenter evaluation by using a random sample of 20 test MRI examinations. The Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test was used to compare the difference of Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) of pre- versus post-AI assistance. Results The AI-generated contours demonstrated a high level of accuracy when compared with ground truth contours at testing in 203 patients (DSC, 0.79; 2.0-mm difference in average surface distance). In multicenter evaluation, AI assistance improved contouring accuracy (five of eight oncologists had a higher median DSC after AI assistance; average median DSC, 0.74 vs 0.78; P < .001), reduced intra- and interobserver variation (by 36.4% and 54.5%, respectively), and reduced contouring time (by 39.4%). Conclusion The AI contouring tool improved primary gross tumor contouring accuracy of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, which could have a positive impact on tumor control and patient survival. © RSNA, 2019 Online supplemental material is available for this article. See also the editorial by Chang in this issue.

Background: To identify a radiomics signature to predict local recurrence in patients with non-metastatic T4 nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Methods: A total of 737 patients from Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center (training cohort: n = 360; internal validation cohort: n = 120) and Wuzhou Red Cross Hospital (external validation cohort: n = 257) underwent feature extraction from the largest axial area of the tumor on pretreatment magnetic resonance imaging scans. Feature selection was based on the prognostic performance and feature stability in the training cohort. Radscores were generated using the Cox proportional hazards regression model with the selected features in the training cohort and then validated in the internal and external validation cohorts. We also constructed a nomogram for predicting local recurrence-free survival (LRFS). Findings: Eleven features were selected to construct the Radscore, which was significantly associated with LRFS. For the training, internal validation, and external validation cohorts, the Radscore (C-index: 0.741 vs. 0.753 vs. 0.730) outperformed clinical prognostic variables (C-index for primary gross tumor volume: 0.665 vs. 0.672 vs. 0.577; C-index for age: 0.571 vs. 0.629 vs. 0.605) in predicting LRFS. The generated radiomics nomogram, which integrated the Radscore and clinical variables, exhibited a satisfactory prediction performance (C-index: 0.810 vs. 0.807 vs. 0.753). The nomogram-defined high-risk group had a shorter LRFS than did the low-risk group (5-year LRFS: 73.6% vs. 95.3%, P

The diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae), is one of the main pests of Brassica crops worldwide. Management of P. xylostella is particularly challenging, as different field populations have readily acquired resistance to a wide range of insecticides, including Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins. In this study, a novel strain of P. xyllostela (Fuzhou-R2Ad) with 120-fold resistance to Bt Cry2Ad was selected in the laboratory, after screening for 66 generations from the susceptible strain Fuzhou-S. In the absence of Bt Cry2Ad toxin, the Fuzhou-R2Ad had significantly lower fitness as compared to the susceptible strain, which might be related to induced genetic changes to Bt toxins. We used several models to measure the dominance levels of insecticide resistance among different strains and found an incompletely recessive inheritance pattern of the Fuzhou-R2Ad resistance, which might be controlled by multiple genes. This study constitutes the first report of laboratory-acquired resistance to Cry2Ad toxin in P. xylostella. Our work presents further insights into the mechanism of Bt resistance and has immediate implications for the integrated pest management of P. xylostella globally.

This work reports the synthesis of a new quasi two-dimensional layered compound, K0.36(H2O)yWS2, for aqueous potassium ion storage. Its crystal structure determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction is composed of WS2 layers and disordered hydrated K+ stacking along the c direction alternately. Due to the large interlayer spacing and high conductivity, K0.36(H2O)yWS2 is demonstrated to be a stable host for reversible intercalation and de-intercalation of hydrated K+ in K2SO4 aqueous solution.

It is very important to reveal the influence of different electric field directions on dye sensitizers. Thus, in this study, we investigated the electronic structures and optical properties of six designed aryl amine organic dye models under different electric fields using density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT). Moreover, the electronic structures and optical properties of these studied dyes with different electric field in tetrahydrofuran (THF) were also calculated. The key parameters of the short-circuit current density (Jsc), including light harvesting efficiency (LHE) and intra-molecular charge transfer (ICT), are discussed in detail. With dye T adsorbed on the anatase(101) surface, the periodic models with the exposed anatase(101) surface were employed to investigate the geometrical and electronic injection process. We expect that the present study will establish the relationship between the electric field and efficiency and provide a better understanding of the operation mechanism of DSSCs in detail.

Ni-Based materials are promising candidates for the electrocatalytic hydrogen oxidation reaction and hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline solution. However, pure Ni binds hydrogen very strongly. To promote its electrocatalytic activity would require the weakening of its hydrogen binding energy. Here, we demonstrate that interstitial nitrogen doping in Ni3N can greatly promote its electrocatalytic activity. Ni3N nanoparticles are prepared from the controlled nitridation of Ni-based coordination polymer nanosheets. The resultant product exhibits excellent mass activity superior to most existing non-precious-metal-based materials and great CO-tolerance for the hydrogen oxidation reaction, as well as remarkable activity and stability for the hydrogen evolution reaction. Our experimental results are further understood and supported by theoretical simulations showing that the interstitial nitrogen doping significantly decreases the hydrogen binding energy and lowers the activation barrier for water formation and dissociation.

Background Circular RNA 0029803 (circ_0029803) was found to be upregulated in colorectal cancer (CRC) tissues, but its function and underlying molecular mechanism are not studied in CRC. Methods The expression levels of circ_0029803, microRNA-216b-5p (miR-216b-5p), and ski-oncogene-like (SKIL) were measured by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). RNase R treatment was used to affirm the existence of circ_0029803. Cell proliferation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion were assessed by colony formation, flow cytometry, and Transwell assays, respectively. A glucose and lactate assay kit was used to detect glucose consumption and lactate production. Western blot was applied to analyze the levels of all proteins. Dual-luciferase reporter assay was performed to assess the relationship between miR-216b-5p and circ_0029803 or SKIL. Tumor xenograft models were established to elucidate the effect of circ_0029803 in vivo. Results Circ_0029803 expression was enhanced in CRC tissues and cells, and the 5-year overall survival rate of patients with high circ_0029803 expression was substantially reduced. Circ_0029803 depletion retarded proliferation, migration, invasion, EMT and glycolysis of CRC cells in vitro as well as the tumor growth in vivo. Mechanically, circ_0029803 could serve as miR-216b-5p sponge to regulate its expression, and miR-216b-5p knockdown reversed the inhibition of si-circ_0029803 on the malignant behaviors of CRC cells. Additionally, as the target mRNA of miR-216b-5p, SKIL could counteract the inhibitory effect of miR-216b-5p on the development of CRC cells. Importantly, silencing circ_0029803 reduced SKIL expression via sponging miR-216b-5p. Conclusion Circ_0029803 knockdown hindered proliferation, migration, invasion, EMT, and glycolysis and promoted apoptosis in CRC cells by modulating the miR-216b-5p/SKIL axis.

BACKGROUND Although stratifying individuals with respect to nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) risk with Epstein-Barr virus-based markers is possible, the performance of diagnostic methods for detecting lesions among screen-positive individuals is poorly understood. METHODS The authors prospectively evaluated 882 participants aged 30 to 70 years who were enrolled between October 2014 and November 2018 in an ongoing, population-based NPC screening program and had an elevated NPC risk. Participants were offered endoscopy and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and lesions were identified either by biopsy at a follow-up endoscopy or further contact and linkage to the local cancer registry through December 31, 2019. The diagnostic performance characteristics of endoscopy and MRI for NPC detection were investigated. RESULTS Eighteen of 28 identified NPC cases were detected by both methods, 1 was detected by endoscopy alone, and 9 were detected by MRI alone. MRI had significantly higher sensitivity than endoscopy for NPC detection overall (96.4% vs 67.9%; Pdifference = .021) and for early-stage NPC (95.2% vs 57.1%; P = .021). The sensitivity of endoscopy was suggestively lower among participants who had previously been screened in comparison with those undergoing an initial screening (50.0% vs 81.2%; P = .11). The authors observed a higher overall referral rate by MRI versus endoscopy (17.3% vs 9.1%; P < .001). Cases missed by endoscopy had early-stage disease and were more commonly observed for tumors originating from the pharyngeal recess. CONCLUSIONS MRI was more sensitive than endoscopy for NPC detection in the context of population screening but required the referral of a higher proportion of screen-positive individuals. The sensitivity of endoscopy was particularly low for individuals who had previously been screened.

Functional nanoporous materials are widely explored for CO2 separation, in particular, small-pore aluminosilicate zeolites having a “trapdoor” effect. Such an effect allows the specific adsorbate to push away the sited cations inside the window followed by exclusive admission to the zeolite pores, which is more advantageous for highly selective CO2 separation. Herein, we demonstrated that the protonated organic structure-directing agent in the small-pore silicoaluminophosphate (SAPO) RHO zeolite can be directly exchanged with Na+, K+, or Cs+ and that the Na+ form of SAPO-RHO exhibited unprecedented separation for CO2/CH4, superior to all of the nanoporous materials reported to date. Rietveld refinement revealed that Na+ is sited in the center of the single eight-membered ring (s8r), while K+ and Cs+ are sited in the center of the double 8-rings (d8rs). Theoretical calculations showed that the interaction between Na+ and the s8r in SAPO-RHO was stronger than that in aluminosilicate RHO, giving an enhanced “trapdoor” effect and record high selectivity for CO2 with the separation factor of 2196 for CO2/CH4 (0.02/0.98 bar). The separation factor of Na-SAPO-RHO for CO2/N2 was 196, which was the top level among zeolitic materials. This work opens a new avenue for gas separation by using diverse silicoaluminophosphate zeolites in terms of the cation-tailored “trapdoor” effect., The sodium form of silicoaluminophosphate RHO zeolite exhibits a pronounced cation-tailored “trapdoor” effect, showing an unprecedented selectivity adsorption separation performance for CO2/CH4 and CO2/N2.

Xie, C.-M., Ren, Zh.-J, Wang, Ch.-X. & Zhang, L.-L. 2020. Four species of Fuscidea new to China. – Herzogia 33: 447–454.Fuscidea asbolodes, F. elixii and F. scrupulosa are reported for the first time in Asia and F. recensa var. arcuatula is new to China. Detailed taxonomic descriptions with illustrations as well as a key to all known Chinese Fuscidea species are provided.

The electroreduction of CO2 into value-added products is a significant step toward closing the global carbon loop, but its performance remains far from meeting the requirement of any practical application. The insufficient understanding of the reaction mechanism is one of the major causes that impede future development. Although several possible reaction pathways have been proposed, significant debates exist due to the lack of experimental support. In this work, we provide opportunities for experiments to validate the reaction mechanism by providing predictions of the core-level shifts (CLS) of reactive intermediates, which can be verified by the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) data in the experiment. We first validated our methods from benchmark calculations of cases with reliable experiments, from which we reach consistent predictions with experimental results. Then, we conduct theoretical calculations under conditions close to the operando experimental ones and predict the C 1s CLS of 20 reactive intermediates in the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) to CH4 and C2H4 on a Cu(100) catalyst by carefully including solvation effects and applied voltage (U). The results presented in this work should be guidelines for future experiments to verify and interpret the reaction mechanism of CO2RR.

We propose a network structure for action recognition that is capable of extracting multi-scale temporal representations of actions. The key of the network is to combine a multi-scale temporal pooling module with a dense connection module, called multi-scale temporal pooling dense convolutional network (MTPDNet). The multi-scale temporal pooling module consists of multiple temporal scale levels. At each scale level, video frames are divided into several segments and a pooling operation is then performed on each segment to get temporal pooling information. The number of segments is set differently at different time scale levels, aiming to obtain multi-scale temporal pooling information. In addition, at each scale level, we adopt a redesigned dense connection module to learn motion representations from temporal pooling information. Finally, predictions are independently made at each scale level and the class scores of each scale level are fused to get the final prediction scores. Experimental results on two standard datasets, UCF101 and HMDB51, demonstrate that MTPDNet gets comparable or even better results among leading methods, which proves the effectiveness of the strategy combining multi-scale temporal pooling and dense connection.

Clustering is an efficient way to analyze single-cell RNA sequencing data. It is commonly used to identify cell types, which can help in understanding cell differentiation processes. However, different clustering results can be obtained from different single-cell clustering methods, sometimes including conflicting conclusions, and biologists will often fail to get the right clustering results and interpret the biological significance. The cluster ensemble strategy can be an effective solution for the problem. As the graph partitioning-based clustering methods are good at clustering single-cell, we developed Sc-GPE, a novel cluster ensemble method combining five single-cell graph partitioning-based clustering methods. The five methods are SNN-cliq, PhenoGraph, SC3, SSNN-Louvain, and MPGS-Louvain. In Sc-GPE, a consensus matrix is constructed based on the five clustering solutions by calculating the probability that the cell pairs are divided into the same cluster. It solved the problem in the hypergraph-based ensemble approach, including the different cluster labels that were assigned in the individual clustering method, and it was difficult to find the corresponding cluster labels across all methods. Then, to distinguish the different importance of each method in a clustering ensemble, a weighted consensus matrix was constructed by designing an importance score strategy. Finally, hierarchical clustering was performed on the weighted consensus matrix to cluster cells. To evaluate the performance, we compared Sc-GPE with the individual clustering methods and the state-of-the-art SAME-clustering on 12 single-cell RNA-seq datasets. The results show that Sc-GPE obtained the best average performance, and achieved the highest NMI and ARI value in five datasets.

The sparseness of user-to-item rating is one of the main factors affecting the quality of a recommender system. To address the sparsity problem, several recommendation techniques have been proposed. They add auxiliary information to the recommender system to improve the accuracy of rating prediction. We observe that there are more implicit relationships besides the explicit connection between users and the items to be predicted. If these rich implicit relations are introduced into the recommendation model, the sparsity of the original data can be greatly reduced. Therefore, we propose a new recommendation algorithm via implicit relationship, which is applied to the classic movie recommendation problem. This model extracts the implicit relationship from the movie's cast data to make movie recommendations, so as to better understand the movie. Different from the existing context-based methods, our method extracts more diverse preference information of users and integrates the implicit relationship between users and other entities. This paper takes a step forward in this direction, and studies how to use rich implicit relations to alleviate the sparsity of recommendation and further improve the recommendation methods. We conduct a series of experiments on real datasets which show that our method sianificantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods.

In current clinical practice, the standard evaluation for axillary lymph node (ALN) status in breast cancer is based on the invasive procedure and many patients will suffer from operative associated complications. Hence, a novel signature incorporated tumor and lymph node magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) radiomics, clinical and pathological characteristics, and molecular subtypes based on the machine learning approach was established to accurately identify ALN metastasis in early-stage invasive breast cancer patients. Although the misjudgment of ALN status by clinicians according to preoperative MRI are common during clinical practice and even the senior radiologists make mistakes sometimes, this multiomic radiomic signature showed the superiority over clinicians and could precisely discriminate ALN metastasis among different molecular subtype patients. Furthermore, the association between MRI radiomic features and tumor-microenvironment features including immune cells, long non-coding RNAs, and types of methylated sites were found, which revealed the potential biological underpinning of MRI radiomics.

There are no satisfying approaches to identify high- and low-risk recurrence patients with early-stage breast cancer in current clinical practice. Patients might be overtreated or undertreated due to the inaccurate prediction of recurrence risk. Herein, machine learning magnetic resonance imaging radiomic-based signature that integrates the intratumoral and peritumoral radiomic signatures, and clinicopathological characteristics was developed to classify high- and low-risk recurrence patients and predict recurrence within multicentre cohorts. The radiomic-clinical signature could also discriminate high- from low-risk recurrence patients among different breast cancer molecular subtype, and HR+/Her2-, T1N0M0 stage patients. Furthermore, it was observed that the neoadjuvant chemotherapy improved survival in high-risk Luminal subtype patients compared with the adjuvant chemotherapy. The survival-associated radiomic features also showed the correlation with the immune microenvironment. The radiomic-clinical signature presented the feasibility of predicting recurrence risk and assisting clinical decision-making in early-stage invasive breast cancer patients.

Developing efficient Pt-based electrocatalysts for the methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) is of pivotal importance for large-scale application of direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs), but Pt suffers from severe deactivation brought by the carbonaceous intermediates such as CO. Here, we demonstrate the formation of a bismuth oxyhydroxide (BiOx(OH)y)-Pt inverse interface via electrochemical reconstruction for enhanced methanol oxidation. By combining density functional theory calculations, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and electrochemical characterizations, we reveal that the BiOx(OH)y-Pt inverse interface can induce the electron deficiency of neighboring Pt; this would result in weakened CO adsorption and strengthened OH adsorption, thereby facilitating the removal of the poisonous intermediates and ensuring the high activity and good stability of Pt2Bi sample. This work provides a comprehensive understanding of the inverse interface structure and deep insight into the active sites for MOR, offering great opportunities for rational fabrication of efficient electrocatalysts for DMFCs.

Background To evaluate the feasibility of high resolution diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) for the prediction about the response of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in patients. Methods 119 NPC patients who underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) including readout-segmented diffusion weighted imaging (RESOLVE-DWI) before treatment enrolled in this study from September 2017 to December 2019, and all patients underwent follow-up MRI at 3 month after two cycles of NAC. Patients were classified into stable disease (SD), partial response (PR) or completed response (CR) based on Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST). Apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values were measured from RESOLVE-DWI in the first MRI examination. The ADC values were compared between responders (CR and PR) and non-responders (SD) using Independent samples t-test, and the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was calculated to assess the diagnostic efficacy. Results The ADC value of responders was significantly higher than that of non-responders (719.73 ± 100.44 × 10− 3 mm2/s and 583.28 ± 53.15 × 10− 3 mm2/s, p

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) can become promising electrode materials for advanced lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), because their loosely packed porous structures may mitigate volume expansion and metal atom aggregation, which occur at the respective metal oxides. However, they suffer from poor electrical conductivity and irreversible structural degradation upon charge/discharge processes, which impede their practical utilization. Herein, we investigate MOF-like Sn2 O(CN2 ) as a new electrode material. The conductive yet flexible [N=C=N] linkers are tilted between [Sn4 O] nodes and cross-linked into a porous quasi-layered structure. Such structure offers abundant channels for fast Li-ion transport and tolerance of enormous volume expansion. Notably, anisotropic [N=C=N]2- arrays hardly migrate so that Sn0 nanodots are physically separated via robust [N=C=N]2- framework during discharge, thereby effectively preventing the formation of large Sn islands. Owing to the structural advantage, the Sn2 O(CN2 ) electrode exhibits an initial Coulombic efficiency as high as ∼80 %. With the addition of graphite as conductive supporter, the electrode provides 978 mAh g-1 at 1.0 A g-1 even after 300 cycles. Such MOF-like carbodiimides hold potential for the advanced electrodes in LIBs and other battery systems.

No international consensus has been reached regarding delineation of postoperative intensity-modulated radiotherapy (PO-IMRT) clinical target volumes (CTV) for major salivary gland carcinoma (SGC). The purpose of this article was to report our experience according to surgical principles. Between June 2010 and June 2018, 54 consecutive patients were enrolled. Reserved tissues around the margin of resection that were less than 5 mm from the invasive tumour edge before surgery were defined as high-risk clinical target volumes (CTV-HD), those less than 10 mm away were defined as medium-risk CTV (CTV1), and those 10–20 mm away were defined as low-risk CTV (CTV2), and were irradiated with 63–65 Gy, 59.5–61 Gy, and 45–54 Gy, respectively. Target volume distributions of reserved tissues were analysed and actuarial estimates of overall survival (OS), recurrence-free survival (RFS) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) were obtained with the Kaplan–Meier method. In parotid gland tumours, the percentages of defined CTV-HD in the styloid process, mandibular ramus, posterior venter of the digastric muscle, carotid sheath and stylomastoid foramen reached 34.29%, 25.71%, 54.29%, 40.00%, and 37.10%, respectively. The median follow-up was 33 months (range, 5–98 months). The 3-year and 5-year Kaplan–Meier estimates of OS, RFS and DMFS were 85.4% and 77.8%, 97.4%, and 97.4%, and 82.0% and 82.0%, respectively. It is feasible to delineate CTVs according to distances between various reserved tissues and the primary tumour edge before operation.

Spinel lithium manganate (LiMn2O4) is a promising cathode for aqueous lithium-ion batteries (ALIBs). However, due to Mn dissolution and the Jahn-Teller effect it suffers from fast capacity fading, insufficient rate capability, and low overcharge resistance. Herein, a ∼2-3 nm artificial solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer (lithium polyacrylate, LiPAA) is constructed on the commercial LiMn2O4 (LiPAA@LiMn2O4). It is realized by an in situ polymerization hydrothermal reaction using an acrylic monomer. This artificial SEI layer can separate the electrode and aqueous electrolyte, thus suppressing Mn dissolution and the Jahn-Teller effect of LiMn2O4. Electrochemical analyses also suggest it may work as the Li+ conductor/reservoir to improve the Li+ diffusion coefficient of the electrode. Consequently, as the cathode of ALIBs, LiPAA@LiMn2O4 harvests a high capacity of 119 mA h g-1 at 0.6C, high rate capability (70 mA h g-1 at 12C), better durability (85.5%@100 cycles) and superior overcharge resistance.

Focusing on innovative high-performance single-pole double-throw nonlinear optical (NLO) molecular switches, two C3v configurations (1 and 3) and one D3h configuration (2) of bipyramidal CaN3Ca have been obtained by using quantum mechanical methods. Not only are 1, 2, and 3 alkaline-earth-based aromatic superalkalis, but they are also interesting electrides. The salt-like electronic structures of e-Ca2+N33-Ca2+ (1) and Ca2+N33-Ca2+e- (3) with localized redox centres are rare inorganic Robin-Day class II-type structures, and e0.5-Ca2+N33-Ca2+e0.5- (2) with a delocalized structure is a class III-type mixed-valent superalkali electride. Under a small external electric field of ±0.0110 a.u. (0.565 V Å-1), the short-distance hopping of Ca atoms in CaN3Ca from the D3h configuration with in-plane aromaticity to each C3v configuration with out-of-plane aromaticity brings about the long-range transfer of half an electron from one Ca atom to another. And, subsequently, a large dipole moment (μ0) and remarkable static first hyperpolarizability (β0) occur. μz and βzzz range from 0 (D3h, off form) to -12.1 or 12.1 D (C3v, on forms) and from 0 (D3h, off form) to -19 428 or 19 428 a.u. (C3v, on forms), respectively. These extremely large differences in μz and βzzz values between the D3h and each of the C3v configurations confirm the potential of these inorganic aromatic Robin-Day-type superalkali electrides for applications in high-sensitivity multi-state nonlinear optical switches.

Rechargeable aqueous batteries have been widely investigated for large-scale energy storage in view of their high safety and low cost. While tremendous efforts have been devoted to the development of cathode materials, few have focused on the development of anode materials and only limited candidates such as V-based oxides and Ti-based polyanionic compounds have been explored. In this study, for the first time, we discover a hydrated compound of molybdenum based ternary sulfide K0.38(H2O)0.82MoS2 as a universal host for reversible intercalation of various hydrated cations (K+, Na+, Li+, NH4+, Mg2+, Al3+, etc.). It undergoes a two-phase reaction during the electrochemical process, showing a stable redox potential of around -0.1 V vs. Ag/AgCl to serve as an anode material and a specific capacity of over 50 mA h g-1 at a current density of 0.5 A g-1. The intercalation of larger hydrated cations during the discharge process results in a lower operation potential and wider interlayer spacing, which has been explained theoretically by Gibbs free energy analysis and valence bond theory. In particular, taking hydrated K+ insertion and extraction of K0.38(H2O)0.82MoS2 as an example, the ex situ XRD and XPS results demonstrate a reversible change in the phase structure and Mo3+/Mo4+ redox couple during the charge-discharge process. Our study provides a promising anode for aqueous batteries using K0.38(H2O)0.82MoS2 as a universal host.

AIM To assess the feasibility and preliminary diagnostic performances of relaxation times derived from synthetic magnetic resonance imaging (syMRI) for differentiating nasopharyngeal carcinoma from nasopharyngeal benign lymphoid hyperplasia, and to assess the influence of tissue segmentation method on relaxation estimates. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifty participants with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and 40 participants with benign hyperplasia (NPH) who underwent syMRI examination were enrolled prospectively. T1, T2, and proton density (PD) values were obtained from four different regions of interest (ROIs), namely, partial‐section, single‐section, three‐sections, and whole‐lesion. The metrics between NPC and NPH or among different ROIs were compared using Student's t-test or one-way ANOVA. The area under curve (AUC) was calculated to assess the performance of metrics obtained from different ROIs to differentiate NPC and NPH. RESULTS The T1, T2, and PD values for NPH were significantly higher than those for NPC, regardless of the type of ROI used, except for the PD value obtained from the whole-lesion ROI. The T2 values obtained from the single-section ROI showed the highest diagnostic accuracy in distinguishing NPC from NPH, with an AUC of 0.894, sensitivity of 0.900, and specificity of 0.800. Additionally, the T1, T2, and PD values for nasopharyngeal lesions showed no statistical difference among different kinds of ROI, except for the difference in T1 value between partial‐section and other methods. CONCLUSION Quantitative analysis of syMRI has the potential to distinguish NPC from NPH. Moreover, different types of ROI showed limited influence on the relaxation time estimation for nasopharyngeal lesions.

Vibrio alginolyticus, a Gram-negative bacterium, has been recognized as an opportunistic pathogen in marine animals as well as humans. Type III secretion system (T3SS) is critical for pathogen virulence and disease development. However, no more information is known about the C-ring component VscQ and its physiological role. In this study, gene vscQ was cloned from V. alginolyticus wild-type strain HY9901 and the mutant strain HY9901ΔvscQ was constructed by the in-frame deletion method. The HY9901ΔvscQ mutant showed an attenuated swarming phenotype and a closely 4.6-fold decrease in the virulence to Danio rerio. However, the HY9901ΔvscQ mutant showed no difference in growth, biofilm formation and ECPase activity. HY9901ΔvscQ reduces the release of LDH, NO and caspase-3 activity of infected FHM cell, which are involved in fish cell apoptosis. Deletion of gene vscQ downregulates the expression level of T3SS-related genes including vscL, vopB, hop, vscO, vscK, vopD, vcrV and vopS and flagellum-related genes (flaA and fliG). And Danio rerio vaccinated via i.m injection with HY9901ΔvscQ induced a relative percent survival (RPS) value of 71% after challenging with the wild-type HY9901. Real-time PCR assays showed that vaccination with HY9901ΔvscQ enhanced the expression of immune-related genes, including TNF-α, TLR5, IL-6R, IgM and c/ebpβ in liver and spleen after vaccination, indicating that it is able to induce humoral and cell-mediated immune response in zebrafish. These results demonstrate that the HY9901ΔvscQ mutant could be used as an effective live vaccine to combat V. alginolyticus infection.

Exploratory search paradigm assists users who do not have a clear search intent and are unfamiliar with the underlying data space. Query formulation evolves iteratively in this paradigm as a user becomes more familiar with the content. Although exploratory search has received significant attention recently in the context of structured data, scant attention has been paid for graph-structured data. An early effort for building exploratory subgraph search framework on graph databases suffers from efficiency and scalability problems. In this paper, we present a visual exploratory subgraph search framework called ferrari, which embodies two novel index structures called vaccine and advise, to address these limitations. vaccine is an offline, feature-based index that stores rich information related to frequent and infrequent subgraphs in the underlying graph database, and how they can be transformed from one subgraph to another during visual query formulation. advise, on the other hand, is an adaptive, compact, on-the-fly index instantiated during iterative visual formulation/reformulation of a subgraph query for exploratory search and records relevant information to efficiently support its repeated evaluation. Extensive experiments and user study on real-world datasets demonstrate superiority of ferrari to a state-of-the-art visual exploratory subgraph search technique. Ministry of Education (MOE) The first three authors are supported by AcRF MOE2015-T2-1-040 and AcRF Tier-1 Grant RG24/12. Shuigeng Zhou is supported by National NSF of China (Grant No. U1636205).

Additional file 2. Multivariate analysis of the prognosis of the integrated GTV-TNM stratification system in the training cohort and validation cohort.

Beneficial fungi - including difficult - to - culture arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and the culturable endophytic fungus Piriformospora indica - play positive roles in hosts under controlled conditions, whereas information regarding the application of these fungi in field citrus (a mycorrhizal - dependent plant) is scarce. The present study aims to analyze the effects of two AMF species (Diversispora spurca and D. versiformis) and an endophytic fungus (P. indica) on the fruit quality and soil properties of Newhall navel oranges (Citrus sinensis Osbeck cv. Newhall) grafted on trifoliate oranges in the field. The results showed the improvement of root fungal colonization following fungal inoculation. The fungal inoculations increased the soil's acid, neutral, alkaline, and total phosphatase activity, as well as soil Bray-P content; increased the distribution of water-stable aggregates, mainly in the size range of 2–4 mm; and stimulated the production of easily extractable, difficultly extractable, and total glomalin-related soil proteins in a fungal-species-dependent manner, which was positively correlated with soil aggregate stability. Fungal inoculations, to some extent, improved external fruit quality, depending on the fungal species. Among the three fungi, only D. versiformis significantly increased the fruits' soluble solid content, but all three together promoted fruit glucose, fructose, and sucrose content. The two AMF species dramatically increased fruit phosphorus (P) content, while P. indica distinctly reduced it. D. versiformis also significantly elevated fruit potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), and manganese (Mn) content, D. spurca improved fruit copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), K, and Mg content, and P. indica increased fruit iron (Fe) and Zn content, compared with non-inoculated controls. Our results indicate that the field inoculation of citrus with AMF and P. indica partially improved fruit quality and soil properties, providing a pathway for P. indica to partially replace AMF in field citrus applications.

Metallic lithium is considered a promising anode that can significantly increase the energy density of rechargeable lithium-based batteries, but problems like uncontrollable growth of lithium dendrites and formation of dead lithium impede its application. Recently, a low-concentration single-salt two-solvent electrolyte, 1 M LiTFSI/FDMA/FEC, has attracted attention because a high coulombic efficiency can be achieved even after many cycles owing to the formation of a robust solid electrolyte interface (SEI). However, the reaction mechanism and SEI structure remain unclear, posing significant challenges for further improvement. Here, a hybrid ab initio and reactive force field (HAIR) method revealed the underlying reaction mechanisms and detailed formation pathway. 1 ns HAIR simulation provides critical information on the initial reduction mechanism of solvent (FDMA and FEC) and salt (LiTFSI). FDMA and FEC quickly decompose to provide F- that builds LiF as the major component of the inner layer of inorganic SEI, which has been demonstrated to protect Li anode. Decomposition of FDMA also leads to a significant nitrogen-containing composition, producing Li-N-C, LixN, and other organic components that increase the conductivity of SEI to increase performance. XPS analysis confirms evolution of SEI morphology consistent with available experiments. These results provide atomic insight into SEI formation, which should be beneficial for the rational design of advanced electrolytes.

Poly(e-caprolactone) (PCL) composites filled by multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) which was non-covalently modified by the combined surfactants of poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) and cetyltrim...

Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma (NPC) has distinct TNM stages whose properties and influences on prognosis are not fully understood ...

A large body of research on subgraph query processing on large networks assumes that a query is posed in the form of a connected graph. Unfortunately, end users in practice may not always have precise knowledge about the topological relationships between nodes in a query graph to formulate a connected query. In this demonstration, we present a novel graph querying paradigm called partial topology-based network search and a query processing system called panda to efficiently find top-k matches of a partial topology query ( ptq ) in a single machine. A ptq is a disconnected query graph containing multiple connected query components . ptq s allow an end user to formulate queries without demanding precise information about the complete topology of a query graph. We demonstrate various innovative features of panda and its promising performance.

A mobile robot positioning method based on multi-sensor information fusion under wireless sensor network (WSNs), called HCKF algorithm, is proposed in this Article to improve the accuracy of mobile robot positioning method. Firstly, the degree of information fusion among sensors was measured according to differences in membership degree of certain Features in different sensor information under different positioning modes, and the weight of different sensors during fusion was determined with membership degree, so as to define the membership degree of same Features among different sensors after information fusion; secondly, a testing environment for mobile robot positioning based on WSN network was established in a gymnasium and was combined with dynamic model of mobile robot for comparison of positioning accuracy of the algorithm proposed. The results show that, under two circumstances of: with noise jamming and with unknown noise jamming, positioning accuracy of the algorithm proposed in this Article is improved by 7 and 15% respectively as compared with the contrast algorithm. The effectiveness of the method proposed in this Article in mobile robot positioning is verified by the results above.