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Sitafloxacin, a new fluoroquinolone, has strong antibacterial activity. We evaluated the effects of sitafloxacin granules in single‐dose and multidose cohorts and the effects of ABCB1, UGT1A1, and UGT1A9 genetic polymorphisms on the pharmacokinetics (PK) of sitafloxacin in healthy subjects. The single‐dose study included 3 fasted cohorts receiving 50, 100, and 200 mg of sitafloxacin granules and 1 cohort receiving 50 mg of sitafloxacin granules with a high‐fat meal. The multidose study included 1 cohort receiving 100 mg of sitafloxacin granules once daily for 5 days. PK parameters were calculated using noncompartmental parameters based on concentration‐time data. The genotypes for ABCB1, UGT1A1, and UGT1A9 single‐nucleotide polymorphisms were determined using Sanger sequencing. Subsequently, the association between sitafloxacin PK parameters and target single‐nucleotide polymorphisms was analyzed. Sitafloxacin granules were well tolerated up to 200 and 100 mg in the single‐dose and multidose studies, respectively. Sitafloxacin AUC and Cmax increased linearly within the detection range, and a steady state was reached within 3 days after the administration of multiple oral doses. Our findings showed that Cmax was lower in the ABCB1 (rs1045642) mutation group, whereas t1/2 was longer in the UGT1A1 (rs2741049) and UGT1A9 (rs3832043) mutation groups. In conclusion, sitafloxacin granules were safe at single doses and multiple doses up to 200 and 100 mg/day, respectively, with a linear plasma PK profile. However, ABCB1 (rs1045642), UGT1A1 (rs2741049), and UGT1A9 (rs3832043) genetic polymorphisms are likely to influence the Cmax or t1/2 and thereby merit further clinical evaluation.

In this study, a macroinitiator of β-CD-ONa was prepared by a substitution reaction of β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) with sodium (Na). The macroinitiator was then used in the ring-opening polymerization of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4) to obtain a star polymer, in which β-CD is the core and polysiloxane is the arm. FTIR, NMR, TGA, CA, etc., were used to characterize the structure and properties of star polymers. The results indicated that there were four polysiloxane arms attached to each β-CD core, and the star polymer had good thermal stability. With the increase in D4 monomer dosage, the hydrophobicity of the star polymer slightly improved, but the reaction time had no significant effect on hydrophobicity. When the star polymer was coated onto polyethylene terephthalate membrane, the transmittance increased from 87.6% to 92.8%, and the haze did not change significantly. Furthermore, the surface of star polymer porous membranes was prepared by the static breath-figure method using n-hexane as solvent at 30 °C. The results showed uniform pore distribution and increased hydrophobicity.

Lead oxide (PbO) nanosheets are of significance in the design of functional devices. However, facile, green, and fast fabrication of ultrathin and homogenous PbO nanosheets with a chemically clean ...

This study aimed to evaluate the bioequivalence (BE) of 2 formulations of the 10-mg rivaroxaban tablet. The study was a randomized, open-label, 4-period, crossover study that included 28 healthy subjects in fasting or fed conditions. The pharmacokinetic parameters were determined based on the concentrations of rivaroxaban using high-performance liquid chromatography with a tandem mass spectrometer detector. In each of the 4 study periods with fasting or fed conditions, a single dose of test or reference product was administered. Rivaroxaban concentrations in plasma were determined using a validated liquid chromatography with a tandem mass spectrometer detector method. The pharmacokinetic parameters assessed were the area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC0-t , AUC0-∞ ), the peak plasma concentration of the drug (Cmax ), time to achieve Cmax , elimination half-life, within-subject variability of test drug, and within-subject variability of reference drug. The geometric mean ratio (90%CI) of the test drug/reference drug for rivaroxaban was 90.38% to 103.60% for AUC0-t in fasting conditions and 90.13% to 100.42% in fed conditions. The AUC0-∞ s were 89.94% to 102.50% and 90.14% to 100.45% under fasting and fed conditions, respectively. The Cmax values were 90.58% to 105.01% and 96.36% to 108.07% in these 2 conditions, respectively. All 90%CIs for test drug/reference drug geometric mean ratio were ≤2.5. The 90%CIs for test/reference AUC ratio and Cmax ratio were within the acceptable range for BE. There were no adverse events encountered during this BE study. The study's results indicated that the 2 formulations of the rivaroxaban tablet were bioequivalent.

Accurate and efficient gas monitoring is still a challenge because the existing sensing techniques mostly lack specific identification of gases or hardly meet the requirement of real-time readout. Herein, we present a strategy of conductometric response-triggered surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) for such gas monitoring, via designing and using ultrathin oxide-wrapped plasmonic metal nanoparticles (NPs). The oxide wrapping layer can interact with and capture target gaseous molecules and produce the conductometric response, while the plasmonic metal NPs possess strong SERS activity. In this strategy, the conductometric gas sensing is performed throughout the whole monitoring process, and once a conductometric response is generated, it will trigger SERS measurements, which can accurately recognize molecules and hence realize gas monitoring. The feasibility of this strategy has been demonstrated via using ultrathin SnO2 layer-wrapped Au NP films to monitor gaseous 2-phenylethanethiol molecules. It has been shown that the monitoring is rapid, accurate, and quantifiable. There exist optimal values of working temperature and SnO2 layer thickness, which are about 100 °C and 2.5 nm, respectively, for monitoring gaseous 2-phenylethanethiol. The monitoring signal intensity has a linear relation with the gas concentration in the range from 1 to 100 ppm on a logarithmic scale. Furthermore, the monitoring limits are at the ppm level for some typical gases, such as 2-phenylethanethiol, cyclohexanethiol, 1-dodecanethiol, and toluene. This study establishes the conductometric response-triggered SERS, which enables accurate gas recognition and real-time monitoring.

The effects of human activities on climate change are a significant area of research in the field of global environmental change. Land use and land cover change (LUCC) has a greater effect on climate than greenhouse gases, and the effect of farmland expansion on regional drought is particularly important. From the 1910s to the 2010s, cultivated land in Songnen Plain increased by 2.67 times, the area of cultivated land increased from 4.92×104 km2 to 13.14·104 km2, and its percentage of all land increased from 25% to 70%. This provides an opportunity to study the effects of the conversion of natural grassland to farmland on climate. In this study, the drought indices in Songnen Plain were evaluated from the 1910s to the 2010s, and the effect of farmland expansion on drought was investigated using statistical methods and the Weather Research and Forecasting Model based on UK’s Climatic Research Unit data. The resulting dryness index, Palmer drought severity index, and standardized precipitation index values indicated a significant drying trend in the study area from 1981 to 2010. This trend can be attributed to increases in maximum temperature and diurnal temperature range, which increased the degree of drought. Based on statistical analysis and simulation, the maximum temperature, diurnal temperature range, and sensible heat flux increased during the growing season in Songnen Plain over the past 100 years, while the minimum temperature and latent heat flux decreased. The findings indicate that farmland expansion caused a drying trend in Songnen Plain during the study period.

BACKGROUND Oral-facial-digital syndrome type 1 (OFD1) is a rare ciliopathy mainly with an X-linked dominant pattern of inheritance, which is caused by mutations in the OFD1 gene. The OFD1 protein is located within the centrosomes and basal bodies of the primary cilia. It is reported that approximately 15%–50% cases of OFD1 progress to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) following development of polycystic kidney diseases (PKD). Here we report a pair of childhood male twins who presented only renal failure and PKD caused by an OFD1 mutation in China. CASE SUMMARY A pair of 14-year male twins were hospitalized with a complaint of abnormal renal function for nine days. They both complained of ankle pain for 3 mo vs 2 wk, respectively. They denied fever, abdominal pain, daytime or nighttime enuresis, urgency, dysuria, or gross hematuria. Laboratory tests at a local hospital showed renal failure (serum creatinine 485 μmol/L vs 442 μmol/L, blood urea nitrogen 14.7 mol/L vs 14.5 mol/L) and anemia (hemoglobin 88 g/L vs 98 g/L). The twins are monozygotic. There was no abnormal birth, past medical, or family history. Clinical data were analyzed and genetic analysis on PKD was carried out in the twins by next-generation sequencing. The results showed that the twins presented low-molecular-weight proteinuria, hyposthenuria, anemia, renal failure, and renal polycystic changes. Genetic tests showed that the twins both carried a hemizygous mutation in exon 19 c.2524G>A (p. G842R) of the OFD1 gene. Their mother heterozygously carried the same mutation as the twins but was without any phenotypes while their father was normal. CONCLUSION We have reported a pair of childhood male twins with an OFD1 mutation who presented ESRD and PKD but without any other phenotypes of OFD1 in China.

Blackening (or enhancing the optical absorption in the visible region) of nano-sized white semiconducting oxides (N-WSOs) is of significant importance for solar utilization. Here, we present a novel Mars-van-Krevelen mechanism-based method for blackening the N-WSOs via facile one-step heating of the N-WSOs with alcohols. Taking n-butanol-induced blackening of TiO2 (anatase) as an example, the pristine TiO2 NP powders can be successfully blackened to form black TiO2 (B-TiO2) via heating with n-butanol at 300 °C for 20 min. Technical analyses demonstrate that the B-TiO2 nanocrystals are wrapped with a 2 nm thick disordered layer, which is rich in oxygen vacancies, Ti3+ and hydroxyl groups. Both theoretical and experimental results show that B-TiO2 has much stronger optical absorption in the visible region than pristine TiO2. Furthermore, the influence factors (including heating temperatures and alcohol types) and good universality of this blackening method are also demonstrated. A blackening principle based on Mars-van-Krevelen mechanism-induced oxygen vacancy generation and hydroxylation-anchoring of oxygen vacancies has been proposed, and the mechanism can well explain all the phenomena observed in experiments. Importantly, such B-TiO2 shows hugely enhanced activity in solar photodegradation of dye pollutants. Under simulated solar irradiation, the degradation rate constant achieved by the B-TiO2 catalyst is 2.3 times that of the pristine TiO2, showing an obvious enhancement. Further experiments reveal that the improved degradation activity is mainly attributed to the enhanced optical absorption in the visible region and the synergistic photothermal and photocatalytic effect. This study demonstrates a new and facile approach to blacken the N-WSOs for enhanced solar utilization.

The gemini-like surfactants have been constructed by compounding N-erucamidopropyl-N,N-dimethylamine (UC22AMPM) and o-phthalic acid (o-PA), m-phthalic acid (m-PA), or p-phthalic acid (p-PA), and are denoted as o-EAPA, m-EAPA, and p-EAPA, respectively. It is well known that inorganic salts have significant effects on surfactant aggregates, and herein the effects of sodium chloride (NaCl) on gemini-like surfactants is explored by rheological and dynamic light scattering measurements, and cryo-TEM. It is found that the viscoelasticity of the EAPA systems first increases and then decreases with an increase of the NaCl concentration. And the optimal NaCl concentrations for these three systems are in the order of o-EAPA < m-EAPA < p-EAPA due to different spacer distances between the two carboxyl groups in the phthalic acid. Similar trends in the N,N-dimethyl oleoaminde-propylamine (DOAPA) and o-PA, m-PA, or p-PA systems were also observed. The results show that an appropriate NaCl concentration will promote gemini-like surfactants to form wormlike micelles (WLMs). Upon further increasing the NaCl concentration, the WLMs transform into vesicles. Excessive NaCl concentration will cause the surfactant systems to reach their cloud point and make the surfactants precipitate out. The mechanism of the effects of NaCl is that Cl- reduces the electrostatic repulsion between the headgroups of the surfactants. This work is helpful in understanding the effects of inorganic salts on the surfactants and this study is useful for exploring the practical applications of gemini-like surfactants.

The total crude oil resources are approximately 9-11 trillion barrels around the world and the steam based thermal recovery processes are still the most effective methods to enhance heavy oil recovery. Due to the high oil viscosity, high fluid temperature and high fluid volume changes with time, the choice of suitable artificial lift (AL) system is one of the most important techniques in optimizing production from thermally developed heavy oil wells. Notwithstanding the attempt by several studies in the past few decades to understand and develop cutting-edge technologies to optimize the application of artificial lift system in thermally developed heavy oil reservoirs, there remains differing assessments of the best approach, AL type for various kinds of thermal recovery methods. A comprehensive review of artificial lift systems application with specific focus on thermally developed heavy oil reservoirs across the world for offshore oilfields is conducted. The review focuses on the special designed artificial lift system with functions of both steam injection and oil production for offshore oilfield. At the same time, the purpose of this work is to apprise the industry and academic researchers on the various AL optimization approaches that have been used and suggest AL optimization areas where new technologies can be developed for thermally developed heavy oil reservoirs in the future.

Data availability statement: not applicable. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. The non-linear dynamic behavior of a hybrid air bearing-rotor system is very complicated and requires careful attention when designing to avoid spindle failure, especially under ultra-high speed condition. In this paper, the rotor trajectory of a hybrid air bearing-rotor system is obtained by solving the unsteady Reynolds equation and motion equations simultaneously. The typical non-linear behavior of hybrid air bearing-rotor systems is illustrated with the analysis of the rotor trajectory, the phase angle, time domain vibration and power spectral density. Furthermore, the influences of the rotor mass, external load, rotating speed and unbalanced mass on the non-linear behavior are investigated. Finally, the effect of structure parameters on the rotor trajectory is studied and the phenomenon under ultra-high speed condition is illustrated, which provides some new guidelines on the ultra-high speed air spindle design National Natural Science Foundation of China: The Young Scientists Fund (Grant No. 52105537).

This study aimed to improve the surface hardness and wear resistance of spindle hook teeth with special shapes to reduce the cost of replacing the spindle on cotton pickers. For this goal, a Ni-Co-β-SiC composite coating with different concentrations of β-SiC nanoparticles (0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 g/L) was electrodeposited on the surface of spindle hook teeth. The hardness, elemental composition, and micromorphology of the spindle hook teeth were characterized by microhardness tests, an energy spectrum analyzer, and a scanning electron microscope after cutting with the spindles. The actual wear process of the coating was determined by wear simulation and scratch wear tests, and the effect of the concentration of β-SiC nanoparticles on the properties of the coating was investigated. The results show that Ni-Co-β-SiC composite coating has a typical cellular structure. The hardness first increases and then decreases, and the wear resistance (including friction coefficient, scratch area, and shape of wear area) first decreases and then increases, mainly due to the pinning role and agglomeration of β-SiC nanoparticles. When the concentration of β-SiC was 1 g/L, the hardness reached a maximum of 506.2 HV0.1, the coefficient of friction reached a minimum of 0.13, and the wear area and wear micromorphology reached the most suitable values. Therefore, this Ni-Co-β-SiC composite coating had the best microhardness and wear resistance.

The optical compensation method is a promising method to compensate the image motion by driving the optical element of the system. However, the tilt motion of the optical element could induce the degradation of the image quality. Based on the Nodal Aberration Theory (NAT), this paper proposes a novel optical image motion compensation design with a secondary tilt-aplanatic two-mirror optical system (STATOS), which achieves the insensitivity on the image quality of the optical system. First, the properties of coma-free pivot point depending on the location of stop at primary mirror or secondary mirror have been analyzed respectively. Then the calculating method about construction parameters in terms of STATOS is developed. Further, the maximum tilt angle of secondary mirror could be solved using NAT under ordered specific restriction. Finally, a prototype is designed with SM-tilting result of MTF value maintain above 0.32 at the cut-off frequency of detector, where the principal distance could remain stable and the changed distortion is better than 0.03%. A test flight has been carried out to prove the desired results and feasibility of STATOS used in an aerial mapping camera.

In this study, a series of microsphere composites were prepared by the hydrosilylation of nanospherical SiO

ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate the prevalence of glaucoma with associated factors in the rural populations of 10 provinces in China.DesignA population-based cross-sectional study.MethodsAll participants aged 6 years or older from 10 provinces completed visual acuity testing, slit-lamp examination, ophthalmoscopy and non-contact tonometry. Glaucoma suspects underwent fundus photography, Goldmann applanation tonometry, visual field testing and gonioscopy. Glaucoma was determined according to the International Society of Geographical and Epidemiological Ophthalmology classification scheme. Associations of demographics and medical factors with glaucoma were assessed using multiple logistic regression models.ResultsFrom June 2017 to October 2018, 48 398 of 52 041 participants were included in the final analyses. The age-standardised prevalence of glaucoma was 1.7% (95% CI 1.55% to 1.78%) among the participants older than 6 years, which was 2.1% (95% CI 1.93% to 2.23%) in participants aged over 40 years. The constituent ratios of glaucoma were: 44.4% primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG), 34.7% primary open-angle glaucoma, 2.6% congenital glaucoma and 18.3% other types of glaucoma. Increasing age, smoking, cerebral stroke, type 2 diabetes, higher education (college or more) and higher personal income were significant risk factors for PACG. The unilateral and bilateral blindness rates in the entire study population were 4.692% and 1.068%, respectively. A family history of glaucoma was a significant risk factor for the prevalence of glaucoma and blindness in at least one eye.ConclusionsRural populations have a high prevalence of glaucoma, which should be included in chronic disease management programmes in China for long-term care.

The optimal excitation wavelength (OEW) for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is generally close to that of the local surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). In some cases, however, the OEW is significantly longer than that of the observed LSPR. Its origin is still unclear and controversial. Here, we propose a chemical interface damping (CID)-based mechanism and reveal the origin of the OEW's deviation from the LSPR by simulation and experiments using gold nanorods as the model material. Simulations show that the molecular adsorption induces CID, which causes a red-shift of the near-field peak relative to the far-field one, and that the chemical adsorption of target molecules on the plasmonic metals with enough strong CID would induce a significant red-shift of the OEW, even to the region far beyond the LSPR. Finally, we experimentally confirm the validity of the proposed CID theory and demonstrate the significant influence of the CID on the OEW during SERS measurements.

The wear performance of the spindle hook teeth during fieldwork was compared, and the causes of the wear failure of the spindle hook teeth were analyzed. Samples of three kinds of spindle were obtained from the fixed installation position under continuous field operation conditions. The hardness, phase structure, elemental composition, and micromorphology of the spindle hook teeth were characterized using microhardness, X-ray diffractometer (XRD), energy spectrum analyzer (EDS), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) after cutting of the spindles. Results show that the coating hardness and element penetration zone of No.3 spindle hook tooth are the largest, and the surface coating phase structure of the three kinds of the spindle is mainly a body-centered cubic structure of Cr (211). Micro-crack and hole defects exist in the coating of all three kinds of the spindle. The thicknesses of the coating of No.1, No.2, and No.3 spindles are 74, 100, and 130 µm, respectively. During the field operation, the wear of the spindle hook tooth coating is caused by abrasive wear and fatigue wear, while the wear of the substrate is the result of the combined effect of abrasive wear and oxidation wear. Extracting the wear area and width of spindle hook teeth shows that the wear area of all three kinds of spindle hook teeth increases exponentially and the wear width changes linearly with the increase in the field operation area.

In this study, a dynamic grid mathematical model of scanning electrodeposition coupled with electric field, flow field, temperature field and concentration field was established. The transient distribution of multiple physical fields with different current densities (I was 0.075–0.275 A) and the growth of the coating were investigated. The preparation, morphology characterization and performance testing of nickel-based coatings were carried out. The results showed that the transient distribution of multiple physical fields reflected the deposition rule of the coating, and explains the deposition phenomenon of the coating with an “arch-shaped” distribution in the test. With the increase of current, the thickness of the coating and the degree of the arch increased. The numerical solution was consistent with the experimental law. The hardness, wear resistance and corrosion resistance of the coating increased first and then decreased. When I was 0.175 A (current densities was 700 A/m2), the maximum hardness of the nickel-based coating was 668.88 HV0.1, the minimum wear scar area was 1144.74 μm2, and the maximum equivalent resistance was 10,960 Ω. The temperature and concentration fields had little influence on the deposition process, and changes were only observed on the deposition surface. Electric and flow field distributions had greater influences on the deposition process, were the main reason for “arch-shaped” distribution.

Voriconazole (VRC) is a first-line drug for the treatment of invasive fungal infections (IFIs) and an inhibitor of CYP3A activity. The aims of this study are to investigate the influence of related factors on the plasma concentration of voriconazole and the effect of voriconazole on the activity of CYP3A in patients with haematological malignancies.A total of 89 patients received an initial dose of 6 mg/kg followed by 4 mg/kg every 12 h were included in the study. Blood samples were collected before and 2 h after administration for subsequent testing and for the extraction of DNA samples. Voriconazole and voriconazole N-oxide in the plasma were detected by LC-MS/MS. The effect of voriconazole on CYP3A activity was evaluated by the ratio of the endogenous biomarkers 6β-hydroxycortisol and cortisol.During the study period, the overall incidence of adverse reactions was 33.6% (with no deaths). The metabolite type of CYP2C19 and combined use of CYP2C19 enzyme inhibitors both had a significant impact on voriconazole exposure. Voriconazole has a long-lasting and potent inhibitory effect on CYP3A activity. The exposure of CYP3A substrate in combination with metabolic enzyme inhibitors voriconazole could increase. Therefore, the combination uses with voriconazole need to be considered carefully and assessed adequately.

Background:To investigate the effect of drought stress on wheat posture.Methods:An image acquisition system based on an infrared tracing robot was developed and a graphical user interface (GUI) software was designed to simplify the operation control of the robot. In this experiment, three genotypes of wheat, Ruihuamai 523, Jimai 22 and Xumai 33, were grown in indoor pots, and the images of wheatposture from flowering stage to maturity were collected to extract morphological parameters such as plant height, stem width and leaf inclination angle. Results:The experimental results showed that the deviation of linear trajectory was less than 3 mm when the robot traveled in a straight line at 0.4 m/s in the greenhouse; the image acquisition efficiency was about 18 images/min;the collected pictures of drought-stressed and control potted wheat groups can be used for posture assessment; the accuracy of wheat plant height and stem width with manual acquisition was 84.6% and 79.2%, respectively. After statistical analysis, it was concluded that drought stress and genotype and other influencing factors had no significant effect on plant height and stem width, but had a greater effect on leaf inclination angle.Conclusions:Therefore, this system can be used for posture collection of wheat.

Precipitation recycling, as represented by the precipitation contributed by locally evaporated water vapor, is a key indicator of regional changes in the water cycle. The Quasi Isentropic Back-Trajectory method, combined with a global climate model [Community Climate System Model (CCSM)] and regional climate model [Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model simulation forced by CCSM (WRF-CCSM)], was used to analyze historical (1982–2005) and future (2090–2099) precipitation recycling over the Tibetan Plateau (TP). The study focuses on the differences in the projection of precipitation recycling ratio (PRR) changes and relevant mechanisms between the fine-resolution (30 km) WRF-CCSM and coarse-resolution (~110 km) CCSM simulations. Compared with CCSM, the biases and root-mean-square errors of the historical evapotranspiration and precipitation over the TP were greatly reduced in the WRF-CCSM simulation, particularly in precipitation. Using WRF-CCSM outputs, higher PRRs in all elevation bands, as well as the opposite seasonal pattern and linear trend of PRR for the river basins in the northern TP, were revealed. Unlike the CCSM projections, WRF-CCSM projects increasing trends of PRR changes with elevation under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, with the largest increase at an elevation of about 5000 m. WRF-CCSM projects a diverse spatial and seasonal pattern of PRR changes, in contrast to the uniform decrease projected by CCSM. The larger fractional increases of future evapotranspiration contribution (precipitation contributed by local evapotranspiration) per unit warming than precipitation changes in WRF-CCSM suggests an enhanced contribution of locally evaporated moisture to total precipitation in the future under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios.

Background Low temperature freezing stress has adverse effects on wheat seedling growth and final yield. The traditional method to evaluate the wheat injury caused by the freezing stress is by visual observations, which is time-consuming and laborious. Therefore, a more efficient and accurate method for freezing damage identification is urgently needed. Results A high-throughput phenotyping system was developed in this paper, namely, RGB freezing injury system, to effectively and efficiently quantify the wheat freezing injury in the field environments. The system is able to automatically collect, processing, and analyze the wheat images collected using a mobile phenotype cabin in the field conditions. A data management system was also developed to store and manage the original images and the calculated phenotypic data in the system. In this experiment, a total of 128 wheat varieties were planted, three nitrogen concentrations were applied and two biological and technical replicates were performed. And wheat canopy images were collected at the seedling pulling stage and three image features were extracted for each wheat samples, including ExG, ExR and ExV. We compared different test parameters and found that the coverage had a greater impact on freezing injury. Therefore, we preliminarily divided four grades of freezing injury according to the test results to evaluate the freezing injury of different varieties of wheat at the seedling stage. Conclusions The automatic phenotypic analysis method of freezing injury provides an alternative solution for high-throughput freezing damage analysis of field crops and it can be used to quantify freezing stress and has guiding significance for accelerating the selection of wheat excellent frost resistance genotypes.

Renal hypodysplasia and cystic kidney diseases, the common non-glomerular causes of pediatric chronic kidney disease (CKD), are usually diagnosed by their clinical and imaging characteristics. The high degree of phenotypic heterogeneity, in both conditions, makes the correct final diagnosis dependent on genetic testing. It is not clear, however, whether the frequencies of damaged alleles vary among different ethnicities in children with non-glomerular CKD, and this will influence the strategy used for genetic testing. In this study, 69 unrelated children (40 boys, 29 girls) of predominantly Han Chinese ethnicity with stage 2–5 non-glomerular CKD caused by suspected renal hypodysplasia or cystic kidney diseases were enrolled and assessed by molecular analysis using proband-only targeted exome sequencing and array-comparative genomic hybridization. Targeted exome sequencing discovered genetic etiologies in 33 patients (47.8%) covering 10 distinct genetic disorders. The clinical diagnoses in 13/48 patients (27.1%) with suspected renal hypodysplasia were confirmed, and two patients were reclassified carrying mutations in nephronophthisis (NPHP) genes. The clinical diagnoses in 16/20 patients (80%) with suspected cystic kidney diseases were confirmed, and one patient was reclassified as carrying a deletion in the hepatocyte nuclear factor-1-beta gene (HNF1B). The diagnosis of one patient with unknown non-glomerular disease was elucidated. No copy number variations were identified in the 20 patients with negative targeted exome sequencing results. NPHP genes were the most common disease-causing genes in the patients with disease onsets above 6 years of age (14/45, 31.1%). The children with stage 2 and 3 CKD at onset were found to carry causative mutations in paired box gene 2 (PAX2) and HNF1B gene (11/24, 45.8%), whereas those with stage 4 and 5 CKD mostly carried causative mutations in NPHP genes (19/45, 42.2%). The causative genes were not suspected by the kidney imaging patterns at disease onset. Thus, our data show that in Chinese children with non-glomerular renal dysfunction caused by renal hypodysplasia and cystic kidney diseases, the common causative genes vary with age and CKD stage at disease onset. These findings have the potential to improve management and genetic counseling of these diseases in clinical practice.

Silver (Ag)-based Janus nanoparticles (NPs) are of broad interest for extensive applications due to their excellent photoelectric performances and special structure. However, it still remains chall...

Objective This study was conducted to evaluate the difference in acid inhibition function among lansoprazole (LPZ), pantoprazole (PPZ), and their respective stereoisomers following single and multiple intravenous doses in healthy Chinese subjects. Materials and methods The dosage groups were set as follows: 30 mg single and multiple intravenous administrations of LPZ or R-LPZ, 40 mg single and multiple intravenous administrations of PPZ or S-PPZ. Subjects received an intravenous infusion of LPZ, R-LPZ, PPZ, or S-PPZ injection in sterile saline solution (100 mL/h, 60 minutes), respectively. The intragastric pH was sampled every second for 24 hours at baseline and for 24 hours after drug administration. The baseline-adjusted pharmacodynamic (PD) parameters include ΔMean (pH), ΔMedian (pH), ΔTpH≥3 (%), ΔTpH≥4 (%), ΔTpH≥6 (%), and ΔAUECph-tτ1-τ2. The PD parameters were evaluated in different time intervals (0 - 24 hours, 0 - 4 hours and 14 - 24 hours). Results After a single dose, the ΔTpH≥4 (%) of R-LPZ, LPZ, S-PPZ and PPZ was 56.6 ± 19.6, 53.1 ± 23.3, 35.6 ± 24.9 and 26.8 ± 30.2, respectively. The ΔTpH≥6 (%) was 50.7 ± 26.1, 41.4 ± 26.2, 25.4 ± 24.9 and 22.1 ± 27.6, respectively. The ΔAUECph-τ1-τ was 45,564 ± 16,107, 41,798 ± 16,153, 31,914 ± 17,304 and 20,744 ± 21,500, respectively. Statistically significant differences were found with R-LPZ vs. S-PPZ, R-LPZ vs. PPZ, LPZ vs. S-PPZ and LPZ vs. PPZ. The average TpH≥4 of R-LPZ, LPZ, S-PPZ, and PPZ was (47.2 ± 26.1) minutes, (49.6 ± 19.3) minutes, (56.1 ± 23.7) minutes, and (72.1 ± 27.3) minutes, respectively. Statistically significant differences were found with R-LPZ vs. PPZ (p = 0.009) and LPZ vs. PPZ (p = 0.019). After multiple doses, the ΔTpH≥4 (%) of R-LPZ, LPZ, S-PPZ, and PPZ was 71.7 ± 20.2, 63.5 ± 19.4, 59.5 ± 17.8 and 64.0 ± 22.4, respectively. The ΔTpH≥6 (%) was 64.0 ± 22.2, 52.0 ± 19.2, 49.6 ± 20.4 and 50.9 ± 23.8, respectively. The ΔAUECph-τ1-τ was 326,149 ± 94,839, 288,565 ± 93,279, 296,189 ± 83,412 and 300,960 ± 108,057, respectively. No statistically significant differences were found in baseline-adjusted PD parameters during all time periods after multiple doses. Conclusion After a single dose, the mean gastric pH inhibition value of R-LPZ was the highest, followed by LPZ, then S-PPZ and PPZ. R-LPZ and LPZ provided significantly better pH control compared with PPZ and S-PPZ in healthy subjects. The onset time of R-LPZ was the fastest and R-LPZ can provide better acid inhibition during sleeping time. After multiple doses, the mean values in all PD parameters of R-LPZ were the highest, the values of LPZ, S-PPZ, and PPZ were similar. However, no significant difference was found in acid inhibition among these four drugs after multiple doses.

Face frontalization refers to the process of synthesizing the frontal view of a face from a given profile. Due to self-occlusion and appearance distortion in the wild, it is extremely challenging to recover faithful high-resolution results meanwhile preserve texture details. This paper proposes a high fidelity pose in-variant model (HF-PIM) to produce photographic and identity-preserving results. HF-PIM frontalizes the profiles through a novel texture fusion warping procedure and leverages a dense correspondence field to bind the 2D and 3D surface spaces. We decompose the prerequisite of warping into dense correspondence field estimation and facial texture map recovering, which are both well addressed by deep networks. Different from those reconstruction methods relying on 3D data, we also propose adversarial residual dictionary learning to supervise facial texture map recovering with only monocular images. Furthermore, a multi-perception guided loss is proposed to address the practical misalignment between the ground truth frontal and profile faces, allowing HF-PIM to effectively utilize multiple images during training. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations on five controlled and uncontrolled databases show that the proposed method not only boosts the performance of pose-invariant face recognition but also improves the visual quality of high-resolution frontalization appearances.

X-linked Alport syndrome (XLAS) is an inherited renal disease caused by mutations inCOL4A5gene. The c.2858G>T(p.(G953V)) inCOL4A5gene (rs78972735) has been considered pathogenic previously. However, there are conflicting interpretations of its pathogenicity recently. Here we presented 19 Chinese families, out of which 36 individuals (18 probands and 18 family members) carried the c.2858G>T(p.(G953V)) inCOL4A5gene. The clinical manifestations and genetic findings of them were analyzed. We found there were no clinical features of Alport syndrome not only in six probands with c.2858G>T(p.(G953V)) inCOL4A5plus pathogenic variants in other genes (e.g.,WT1,ADCK4,NPHP1,TRPC6,COL4A4,andPAX2) but also in another six probands with only the c.2858G>T(p.(G953V)) variant. The other six probands with a combination of c.2858G>T(p.(G953V)) and another pathogenic variant inCOL4A5had XLAS. Eleven family members (11/18, nine females and two males) who had only the c.2858G>T(p.(G953V)) variant were asymptomatic. These two males (at age of 42 and 35 years) had normal result of urine analysis and no more clinical traits of Alport syndrome. We conclude c.2858G>T(p.(G953V)) inCOL4A5gene is not a pathogenic variant for XLAS. Individuals should not be diagnosed as XLAS only based on the detection of c.2858G>T(p.(G953V)) inCOL4A5gene.

To meet the requirement of high-resolution datasets for many applications, a dynamical downscaling approach using a regional climate model (the WRF Model) driven by a global climate model (CCSM4) has been adopted. This study focuses on projections of future moisture flux changes over the Tibetan Plateau (TP). First, the downscaling results for the historical period (1980–2005) are evaluated for precipitation P, evaporation E, and precipitation minus evaporation P − E against Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) data. The mechanism of P − E changes is analyzed by decomposition into dynamic, thermodynamic, and transient eddy components. Whether the historical period changes and mechanisms continue into the future (2010–2100) is investigated using the WRF and CCSM model projections under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. Compared with coarse-resolution forcing, downscaling was found to better reproduce the historical spatial patterns and seasonal mean of annual average P, E, and P − E over the TP. WRF projects a diverse spatial variation of P − E changes, with an increase in the northern TP and a decrease in the southern TP, compared with the uniform increase in CCSM. The dynamic component dominates P − E changes for the historical period in both the CCSM and WRF projections. In the future, however, the thermodynamic component in CCSM dominates P − E changes under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 from the near-term (2010–39) to the long-term (2070–99) future. Unlike the CCSM projections, the WRF projections reproduce the mechanism seen in the historical period—that is, the dynamic component dominates P − E changes. Furthermore, future P − E changes in the dynamical downscaling are less sensitive to warming than its coarse-resolution forcing.

In this paper, hydroxyl terminated polysiloxane was first prepared by ring-opening polymerization of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4), which was then modified with acryloyl chloride to obtain acryloyloxy polysiloxane. A light-scattering material was synthesized by copolymerization of acryloyloxy polysiloxane and methyl methacrylate (MMA). The results showed that the transmittance of the material was 88% and the haze was 93% when the ratio of MMA to light-scattering agent was 100:1, the amount of initiator was 0.3%, and the post-polymerization temperature was 50 °C. The TGA data indicated that the material had excellent heat resistance. Therefore, it has a wide range of applications in the field of light-emitting diodes.

A facile and general strategy is presented for homogenous and ultrathin metal sulfide wrapping on plasmonic metal (PM) nanoparticles (NPs) based on a thiourea-induced isotropic shell growth. This strategy is typically implemented just via adding the thiourea into pre-formed PM colloidal solutions containing target metal ions. The validity of this strategy is demonstrated by taking the wrapped NPs with Au core and CuS shell or Au@CuS NPs as an example. They are successfully fabricated via adding the thiourea and Cu2+ solutions into pre-formed Au NP colloidal solution. The CuS shell layer is highly homogenous (

The block copolymer PS-b-PMMA was prepared by atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). Amphiphilic copolymer could be formed by hydrolysis of the block copolymer at acidic conditions. The products were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectro-scopy and gel permeation chromatography. The results illustrated the successful preparation of amphiphilic copolymer. The porous membranes were prepared by the breath figure method and characterized their surface morphology. The results showed that there was a regular and uniform porous morphology on the surface of the amphiphilic copolymer film. When the concentration of the polymer solution was 25 mg/mL, the pore size of the PS-b-PMAA copolymer membrane was about 1 nm. After immersing the polymer film in silicone oil for a period of time, the water contact angle reached 108.7°. The microbial adhesion test was used to study the adhesion of microporous membrane surface to microorganisms. The results showed that the surface of the oil film could effectively improve the antibacterial property of the polymer surface.

In order to intrinsically boost the photocatalytic performance of WO3/CdS, the charge transfer route can be modulated from conventional type-Ⅱ to Z-scheme by incorporating of hydrogen ions into WO3/CdS to form H0.53WO3/CdS. This work indicates that only when charge transfer of WO3/CdS is type-Ⅱ, can H0.53WO3/CdS composite be formed in-situ. Subsequently, the Z-scheme photocatalytic mechanism plays its prominent roles in gradually improving photocatalytic H2 evolution performance. H0.53WO3/CdS has high photocatalytic activity for hydrogen production, which is much higher than that of WO3/CdS. This work will provides an in-depth understanding of charge separation and transfer processes and steer charge flow in a Z-scheme manner for efficient solar-to-chemical energy applications.

An artificial photosynthetic (APS) system consisting of a photoanodic semiconductor that harvests solar photons to split H2 O, a Ni-SNG cathodic catalyst for the dark reaction of CO2 reduction in a CO2 -saturated NaHCO3 solution, and a proton-conducting membrane enabled syngas production from CO2 and H2 O with solar-to-syngas energy-conversion efficiency of up to 13.6 %. The syngas CO/H2 ratio was tunable between 1:2 and 5:1. Integration of the APS system with photovoltaic cells led to an impressive overall quantum efficiency of 6.29 % for syngas production. The largest turnover frequency of 529.5 h-1 was recorded with a photoanodic N-TiO2 nanorod array for highly stable CO production. The CO-evolution rate reached a maximum of 154.9 mmol g-1 h-1 in the dark compartment of the APS cell. Scanning electrochemical-atomic force microscopy showed the localization of electrons on the single-nickel-atom sites of the Ni-SNG catalyst, thus confirming that the multielectron reduction of CO2 to CO was kinetically favored.

A core–shell configuration of the zeolite imidazole framework (ZIF-8) wrapped urchin-like Au-Ag alloyed nanocrystals (UAANs) were designed and fabricated via adding the pre-formed plasmonic nanoparticles into the ZIF-8 precursor solution with hexadecyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB). The UAANs are about 100 nm in size with high-density tips. The ZIF-8 shell layer is nanoporous and can be controlled in thickness from 10 nm to 40 nm by the CTAB concentration. Importantly, such ZIF-8 wrapped UAANs can be used as the highly efficient surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates for detection of the trace hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) molecules. The ZIF-8 shell layer with an appropriate thickness (-∼20 nm) can evidently increase the SERS performance of the UAANs to the trace γ-HCH and α-HCH. Such wrapping-enhanced SERS effect significantly increases, by a power function, with the decreasing HCH concentration, especially in the concentration below 10−6 M, which is attributed to the ever-increasing enrichment effect to the HCH molecules. The detection limit is down below 1.5 ppb. This work presents a highly efficient substrate for the SERS-based detection of the trace HCH, and also displays the potential application in the SERS detection of volatile small molecules.

This work demonstrated the 12 fold-enhanced solar water splitting over the type-II core-shell nanostructured TiO2 rutile photoanodes by orienting the charge flow and accelerating the hole transport to water-oxidation sites. Such nanoheterostructured photoanodes were designed rationally and prepared by a facile strategy to enwrapping an amorphous Ta2OxNy layer on surface of TiO2 nanorods grown on the FTO glass substrates, consequently the incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency was increased from 2.2% to 22.6% in a two-electrode system under 390 nm light irradiation. The activity results showed that under AM 1.5 G illumination, the photocurrent output of TiO2@Ta2OxNy photoanodes reached a stable density of 1.32 mA cm−2 at 1.23 V vs RHE, and which is 12 times and ca. 4.3 times than that of the pristine TiO2 and TiO2@Ta2O5 counterparts, respectively. Correspondingly, the oxygen evolution rate was improved from 20.3 to 112.7 mmol m−2 h−1. A solar-to-chemical energy conversion efficiency of ca. 1.49% was achieved at 1.23 V vs RHE.

Lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries have received significant attention due to the high theoretical specific capacity of sulfur (1675 mA h g–1). However, the practical applications are often handicapped by sluggish electrochemical kinetics and the “shuttle effect” of electrochemical intermediate polysulfides. Herein, we propose an in-situ copolymerization strategy for covalently confining a sulfur-containing copolymer onto reduced graphene oxide (RGO) to overcome the aforementioned challenges. The copolymerization was performed by heating elemental sulfur and isopropenylphenyl-functionalized RGO to afford a sulfur-containing copolymer, that is, RGO-g-poly(S-r-IDBI), which is featured by a high sulfur content and uniform distribution of the poly(S-r-IDBI) on RGO sheets. The covalent confinement of poly(S-r-IDBI) onto RGO sheets not only enhances the Li+ diffusion coefficients by nearly 1 order of magnitude, but also improves the mechanical properties of the cathodes and suppresses the shuttle effect of polysul...

TiO2@Ni(OH)2 core-shell microspheres were synthesized by a facile strategy to obtain a perfect 3D flower-like nanostructure with well-arranged Ni(OH)2 nanoflakes on the surfaces of TiO2 microspheres; this arrangement led to a six-fold enhancement in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. The unique p-n type heterostructure not only promotes the separation and transfer of photogenerated charge carriers significantly, but also offers more active sites for photocatalytic hydrogen production. A photocatalytic mechanism is proposed based on the results of electrochemical measurements and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

We present the on-chip fabrication of bilayer Au NP-decorated WO3 nanoporous thin films (B-Au/WO3) via layer-by-layer stacking of a sacrificial colloidal template with periodic Au sputtering deposition. Technical analysis shows that the B-Au/WO3 film is homogeneous and consists of a hexagonally ordered bowl-like structure, whose surface is uniformly decorated with crystalline Au NPs. The B-Au/WO3 sensing film shows a sensitivity of 96.0, a response time of 9.0 s and a recovery time of 16.0 s for 1 ppm NO2 at a low operating temperature of 150 °C. This significantly exceeds performances of bare WO3 counterpart. Also, the B-Au/WO3 sensor demonstrates obviously enhanced sensing responses over operating temperature ranges of 75–225 °C and perfect selectivity to NO2 gas. We proposed a combined sensing mechanism, the surface Au NPs dominated chemical sensitization and inter-bedded Au NP-induced electronic sensitization, to explain the perfect sensing performances in sensitivity, response, and selectivity. The template-mediated approach focuses on precise single-layer control and facilitates direct integration of the sensing film onto the required sensor substrate. The addressed on-chip fabrication strategy along with Au NPs decoration technique might provide promising applications in construction of advanced chemiresistive gas sensors, photocatalysts and electrochromic smart windows.

The composite with heavily incorporated HxWO3 (H0.53WO3/CdS) was successfully synthesized by a facile method of photo-assisted in situ reduction and applied in photocatalytic water splitting into H2. Its photocatalytic activity is about 70 times greater than that of pure CdS. Such a heterostructure shows wide spectral response in the UV-vis-NIR range, which is attributed to the LSPR of H0.53WO3. In the vis-NIR-driven photocatalytic water reduction process, a unique dual path for generating H2 from water is constructed, which is contributed by the synergistic photocatalysis effect between the charge-carrier separation driven by the Z-scheme and hot electron injection induced by LSPR (Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance).

SY-004, a dual-acting full glucokinase activator, is under development to provide a dose-dependent improvement of glucose control. This study aimed to assess the tolerability, safety, and pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of SY-004 in healthy Chinese adults.Two study participants were administered 2 mg of SY-004 in the 2-mg cohort, whereas 6 study participants were randomized with 4 study participants receiving SY-004 and 2 receiving placebo in the 20-mg cohort. In each of other 3 dose cohorts (40, 80, and 120 mg), 12 participants were randomized in a 10:2 ratio to receive single oral SY-004 capsules or placebos. Drug concentrations, glucose and insulin levels, and safety data were assessed and analyzed. Noncompartmental analysis was used to determine SY-004 pharmacokinetic parameters.SY-004 was generally well tolerated. Nine of the 44 study participants reported 17 treatment-related adverse events, and most treatment-related adverse events were mild. SY-004 had approximately dose-proportional increases in systemic exposure. The mean tSY-004, a new potential glucokinase activator, had favorable safety profiles and good PK characteristics. The glucose-lowering effects were slightly dose related. The SY-004 data in healthy Chinese adults supports further development.gov identifier: NCT03171623.

A convenient and sensitive liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry method was established to simultaneously quantify voriconazole (VRZ) and its metabolite, voriconazole N-oxide (VNO), in human urine. Voriconazole-d3 and voriconazole-d3 N-oxide were used as isotopic internal standards. Samples were processed by protein precipitation and separated using a ZORBAX SB-Aq column (1.8 μm, 2.1 × 50 mm). Mass spectrometry was performed using an API 4000 mass spectrometry by positive electrospray ionization. The flow rate was 0.6 mL/min. Gradient elution was performed with methanol and 0.1% formic acid as the organic and water phase, respectively. The VRZ and VNO calibration curves ranged from 20.0 to 7200 ng/mL in human urine. The specificity, matrix effect, extraction recovery, intra/inter-run precision, accuracy and stability were validated for both VRZ and VNO in human urine. The developed method was used to study urinary excretion after intravenous injection of 4 mg/kg VRZ in healthy Chinese subjects.