Search

The wet-chemical technique has been widely applied in material synthesis. In recent years, high throughput (HT) technique has shown its potential in parallel synthesis and the investigation of synthesis parameters. However, traditional ways of HT parallel synthesis require costly equipment and complex operating procedures, restricting their further applications. In this paper, we prepared a cost-effective and timesaving microfluidic-based composition and temperature controlling platform to carry out HT wet-chemical synthesis in a facile and automated workflow. The platform uses a microfluidic chip to generate 20-level concentration gradients of the two reagents and uses 100-channel reactor arrays for wet-chemical synthesis with 5-level temperature gradients. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) were applied to characterize Co-Ni bimetallic powder materials synthesized under 100 different reaction conditions. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was conducted to confirm the oxidation state of the products. This platform not only enables one-step determination of the minimum reaction temperature required for a wet-chemical system but also provides a significant increase in efficiency compared with the traditional wet-chemical approach. The microfluidic-based composition and temperature controlling platform shows promise in facile, efficient, and low-cost HT wet-chemical synthesis of materials.

Background: Qizhu granule, a traditional Chinese medicine, has been widely used in clinic as a complementary and alternative medicine to treat liver fibrosis.However, the mechanism underlying its anti-hepatic fibrosis is still not clear. Liver fibrosis accompanied by liver sinusoidal pathological angiogenesis has been highlighted as novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of chronic liver disease. In this study, we investigated the mechanism of anti-capillarization of this herbal drug against liver fibrosis.Materials and methods: The liver fibrosis rats model induced by 4-week of intervention with 40% CCl4 was employed in this study. Meanwhile, low, medium and high dose serum containing Qizhu granules were prepared. Liver tissues were acquired, and liver samples were subjected to histological studies.LSECs were isolated from liver fibrosis rats and were routinely cultured for 48h in low, medium and high dose of Qizhu granules-containing serum. The fenestration of LSECs in liver fibrosis rats were observed under scanning electron microscopy. The expression of the endothelial cell surface markers CD31, SE-1 and LSECs integrin ɑVβ3, FAK, p-FAK, Ras, MAPK, p-MAPK were measured by western blot.Results: Compared with the control group, the loss of fenestration of LSECs in the model group increased. After intervention of Qizhu granule-containing serum, the fenestration of the structure of LSECs in liver fibrosis induced by CCl4 increased, especially in the high-dose Qizhu granules group. ompared with the control group, the expression levels of SE-1 and CD31 in LSECs in the model group were significantly increased (P < 0.05). Compared with the model group, the expression levels of SE-1 and CD31 in LSECs of rats with hepatic fibrosis induced by CCl4 decreased after the treatment of low, medium and high dose serum containing Qizhu granules (P < 0.05). Among them, the expression levels of SE-1 and CD31 in LSECs of Qizhu granules group decreased with the increase of dosage, showing a dose-dependent relationship to a certain extent. Compared with the normal control group, the expression of integrin ɑVβ3, Ras, p-FAK and p-MAPK protein increased in the LSECs of model group(P 0.05).Conclusions: Qizhu granule could reduce the loss of fenestration of LSECs, transforming the cell phenotype of LSECs, and ameliorating the pathological remodeling of hepatic sinus capillarization in hepatic fibrosis induced by CCl4 in rats. It was found that Qizhu granules played an anti-fibrosis role by suppressing the expression of integrin ɑVβ3-FAK-Ras/MAPK signaling pathway of LSECs in CCl4-induced fibrosis rats.

As consumers' requirements for delivery speed and service quality become higher and higher and demand for terminal delivery is increasingly diversified, urban instant delivery has become a development trend under the current new retail model. The instant delivery problem with commitment is studied. To improve the operability and usability, two algorithms strictly abiding by the time commitment to improve customer service satisfaction are proposed as follows. In the first algorithm, the center-of-gravity clustering method is used to select the distribution route for the customer, that is, the nearest distribution route is selected as the insertion route after calculating the distance from the new customer to the center of gravity of the existing distribution route. Then the nearest insertion algorithm is applied to insert the customer into the selected route without violating the time commitment to all customers. In the second algorithm, based on the principle of first-come-first-served, the first departure route is selected, and the customer is inserted after the last existing customer of the selected route. Finally, the effectiveness of the two algorithms are verified with the known benchmarks. It's found that the first algorithm performs better than the second one with a shorter total traveling distance and a lower error rate.

Proximal to distal Y stenting technique is a modified bifurcation technique based on the original Y stenting technique described over 20 years ago. We use a bench top model to illustrate the steps of the technique, which can provide both provisional and full coverage options, using radial artery access. This technique may be applied in clinical settings on a wide range of bifurcation anatomies with a number of unique advantages.

Since the Paris Agreement came into effect in 2016, governments worldwide have established goals for future carbon emission reduction. Enterprises and governments have begun to pay attention to the management of carbon emission. This study explored the dynamic relationship between business growth and carbon emission performance by constructing and using a time series model to predict the trend of carbon emission. The time series method (ADF unit root test, cointegration test and VAR model etc.) was adopted to investigate 805 companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange from 2012 to 2017 as the sample of this study. The carbon emission performance variables include: total carbon emission, annual increase of carbon emission, and annual increase rate of carbon emission. The business growth variables include: growth rate, stability of growth, and years of establishment. The results showed a long-term dynamic relationship between business growth and carbon emission performance. Therefore, using the time series method can assist enterprises in developing green strategies, strengthen carbon emission prediction and management capacities, reduce operating costs and risks, and actively achieve the ideal of sustainable development.

To evaluate the plasma levels and clearance of procalcitonin (PCTc) as prognostic biomarkers for patients with abdominal sepsis. A retrospective study of 103 patients with abdominal sepsis was conducted in our intensive care unit (ICU) from 2016 to 2018. Procalcitonin (PCT) plasma levels were measured at the time of diagnosis of abdominal sepsis and daily over the next 5 days. PCTc was calculated from day 3 to day 5. The prognostic accuracy of PCTc was expressed as the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC). The Kaplan–Meier method was used to compare the survival curves by log-rank test. Logistic regression analysis was used to predict the 28-day mortality. The primary outcome was 28-day mortality since admission to ICU. Serum PCT levels from day 1 to day 5 did not differ significantly between survivors and non-survivors, while PCTc on day 5 was statistically significantly higher in survivors than that in non-survivors (86.4% vs 38.7%, P 70% compared with those with PCTc-day 5

A couple of molecular-targeting medications, such as Lenvatinib, are available for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in addition to Sorafenib in an advanced stage. Approval for the use of immune check-point inhibitors, such as Nivolumab and Pembrolizumab has shifted the paradigm of current HCC treatment, and the monotherapy or in combination with Lenvatinib or Sorafenib has significantly extended overall survival or progression-free survival in a large portion of patients. A combination of programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1) inhibitor Atezolizumab with a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitor, Bevacizumab, has recently achieved promising outcome in unresectable HCC patients. Other immunotherapy, such as chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapy has achieved an evolutional success in hematologic malignancies, and has extended its use in deadly solid tumors, such as HCC. Although there exist various barriers, novel approaches are developed to move potential adoptive T cell therapy strategies, including cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL), T cell receptor (TCR) T cells, CAR-T cells, to clinical application.

Background: To study the endoscopic trans-lateral molar (ETLM) approach to infratemporal fossa (ITF) lesions and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of this method. Methods: Four cases of ITF lesions were analyzed retrospectively. The clinical features, diagnosis and treatments, the operative process, and clinical applications of this surgical approach were discussed. Results: Postoperative pathologies were 2 pleomorphic adenomas, 1 schwannoma, and 1 inflammatory lesion. All patients had self-resolving cheek swelling and pharyngalgia in the short term, but 2 patients had numbness in the long term. There was no infection or bleeding in the postoperative period, and no difficulty in chewing after disease recovery. There was no tumor recurrence during the follow-up period. Conclusion: The ETLM approach is convenient, minimally invasive, and allows complete excision of benign ITF lesions, posterior to the lateral pterygoid muscle and mainly below the level of the hard palate. It is a simple and direct access to the ITF, but it is a narrow access because of the limitations of bones and soft tissues. Appropriate patient selection is mandatory for successful surgery.

Background: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is a common malignancy with high morbidity. MicroRNAs have been demonstrated to be critical posttranscriptional regulators in tumorigenesis. This study aimed to investigate the effect of microRNA-590 on the proliferation and apoptosis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Material and Methods: The expression of microRNA-590 and high mobility group AT-hook 2 were examined in clinical pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma tissues. Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cell line Capan-2 was employed and transfected with microRNA-590 mimics or inhibitor. The correlation between microRNA-590 and high mobility group AT-hook 2 was verified by luciferase reporter assay. Cell viability and apoptosis were detected by MTT and flow cytometry assay. The protein level of high mobility group AT-hook 2, AKT, p-AKT, mTOR, and phosphorylated mTOR were analyzed by Western blotting. Results: MicroRNA-590 was found to be negatively correlated with the expression of high mobility group AT-hook 2 in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma tissues. Further studies identified high mobility group AT-hook 2 as a direct target of microRNA-590. Moreover, overexpression of microRNA-590 downregulated expression of high mobility group AT-hook 2, reduced cell viability, and promoted cell apoptosis, while knockdown of miR-590 led to an inverse result. MicroRNA-590 also suppressed the phosphorylation of AKT and mTOR without altering total AKT and mTOR levels. Conclusion: Our study indicated that microRNA-590 negatively regulates the expression of high mobility group AT-hook 2 in clinical specimens and in vitro. MicroRNA-590 can inhibit cell proliferation and induce cell apoptosis in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cells. This regulatory effect of microRNA-590 may be associated with AKT signaling pathway. Therefore, microRNA-590 has the potential to be used as a biomarker for predicting the progression of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

In the practical courses of machinery in colleges and universities, it is necessary to train students’ “skills of craftsmanship” to promote the consolidation and improvement of students’ practical skills and achieve the teaching goals of mechanical specialty. This article mainly analyzes the current status of the cultivation of the “artisan spirit” in the teaching of mechanical practical courses in colleges and universities, excavates the concept of “artisan spirit’ in the practical courses according to the existing technology, and focuses on the practical teaching methods to promote the development of students.

Zinc-air batteries are considered as the promising alternative to conventional power sources and have received revived research efforts recently due to their high energy density, good safety, environmental friendliness, and potential for low material costs. The design and production of zinc-air batteries is critical to accelerate the commercialization for extending the application range. Herein, we proposed a method for producing plate-type primary zinc-air batteries which apply zinc foil as an example. The proposed method includes the design of an easily assembled zinc-air battery configuration, the preparation of air cathodes and assembly of zinc-air battery. In addition, the galvanostatic discharge performance of the assembled non-flow primary zinc-air battery was tested at a current density of 10 mA cm–2. The method can be applied for the production of commercial zinc-air batteries for laboratory research and industrial manufacture for electric vehicles, consumer electronics, and energy storage devices.•The preparation method for components of zinc-air battery configuration and air cathodes was developed.•The assembly of the zinc-air battery was proposed.•Direct evaluation of discharge performance of the zinc-air batteries produced by the method., Graphical abstract Image, graphical abstract

Automatic fake news detection is a challenging problem which needs a number of verifiable facts support back. Wang et al. [16] introduced LIAR, a validated dataset, and presented a six classes classification task with several popular machine learning methods to detect fake news in linguistic level. However, empirical results have shown that the CNN and RNN based model can not perform very well especially when integrating all features with claim. In this paper, we are the first to present a method to build up a BERT-based [4] mental model to capture the mental feature in fake news detection. In details, we present a method to construct a patterned text in linguistic level to integrate the claim and features appropriately. Then we fine-tune the BERT model with all features integrated text. Empirical results show that our method provides significant improvement over the state-of-art model based on the LIAR dataset we have known by 16.71% in accuracy.

Bacillus utilize preferred sugars such as glucose over other carbon sources due to carbon catabolite repression (CCR). Surfactin is a small signal molecule to regulate the quorum-sensing (QS) response such as biofilm formation and sporulation in B. subtilis. Here, the srfA operon for synthesis of surfactin was mutated for disrupting the production of surfactin in B. amyloliquefaciens. The srfA-mutant strain showed a defective biofilm and sporulation but could be restored by addition with surfactin, indicating that surfactin is a QS signal molecule in B. amyloliquefaciens. Unexpectedly, mutation of srfA also led to the cells' death although nutrients were still enough to support the bacterial growth during this period. Analysis of transcriptomes found that the srfA-mutant strain could not relieve CCR to use non-preferred carbon sources after glucose exhaustion due to deficiency of surfactin. This was further verified by the fact that addition with glucose could dramatically restore the growth, and addition with surfactin could improve the enzymes' activity (e.g., glucanase and α-amylase) to use non-preferred carbon sources in the srfA-mutant strain. After glucose exhaustion, the cells produce surfactin to relieve CCR for utilizing non-preferred sugars. As a signal molecule to regulate QS, surfactin also directly or indirectly relieves the CcpA-mediated CCR to utilize non-preferred carbon sources countering nutrient limitation (e.g., glucose deprivation) in the environment. In conclusion, our findings provide the first evidence that the QS signal molecule of surfactin is also involved in relieving the CcpA-mediated CCR in B. amyloliquefaciens.

Indefinite causal structure is generically present in theories of quantum gravity admitting a path integral formulation. We show that summing over causal structures eliminates ultraviolet divergences of matter QFT and resolves spacetime singularities using the non-perturbative World Quantum Gravity approach. Independent information-theoretic and model-independent considerations suggest that the mechanism of ultraviolet regularization by indefinite causal structure also applies to other theories of quantum gravity., 5 pages, 2 figures. Comments are welcome!

Skeletal bone age assessment (BAA), as an essential imaging examination, aims at evaluating the biological and structural maturation of human bones. In the clinical practice, Tanner and Whitehouse (TW2) method is a widely-used method for radiologists to perform BAA. The TW2 method splits the hands into Region Of Interests (ROI) and analyzes each of the anatomical ROI separately to estimate the bone age. Because of considering the analysis of local information, the TW2 method shows accurate results in practice. Following the spirit of TW2, we propose a novel model called Anatomical Local-Aware Network (ALA-Net) for automatic bone age assessment. In ALA-Net, anatomical local extraction module is introduced to learn the hand structure and extract local information. Moreover, we design an anatomical patch training strategy to provide extra regularization during the training process. Our model can detect the anatomical ROIs and estimate bone age jointly in an end-to-end manner. The experimental results show that our ALA-Net achieves a new state-of-the-art single model performance of 3.91 mean absolute error (MAE) on the public available RSNA dataset. Since the design of our model is well consistent with the well recognized TW2 method, it is interpretable and reliable for clinical usage.

Massive self-compacting concrete pumped in steel tube columns has been used more and more widely in super high-rise buildings and bridge engineering at present. The early-age expansion and shrinkage performance of its core mass concrete is an important index to ensure the stress state of triaxial compression and structural safety. However, no relevant reports have been found. In view of the actual building with the height of 265.15 meters, the early-age expansion and shrinkage tests of the massive self-compacting concrete pumped in full-scale columns with the height of 12.54 m and 12.24 m and diameter of 1.3 m and 1.6 m were carried out by means of strain gauges embedded in concrete-filled steel tubes (CFSTs). The early-age variation regularity of the vertical and horizontal expansion and shrinkage strains for the core concrete with the diameter of steel tube, development time, temperature, the pouring pressure, expansion stress, and so on is given. The calculation model of its early-age deformation strains is presented in this paper, which is in good agreement with the experimental results. It provides the basis of experimental and theoretical analyses for shrinkage compensation of massive self-compacting concrete pumped in steel tube columns.

Background: Electrocardiography (ECG) is a fundamental diagnostic tool, frequently used in clinical practice, for testing heart conditions. Recently, computer-aided ECG interpretation has become more widely investigated. However, researches on concurrent ECG diagnosis for multiple heart abnormalities are limited and therefore a market-applicable multi-label automatic diagnosis framework that covers a wide range of arrhythmias, with better-than-human accuracy in diagnosing ECGs with multi-labels, has not yet been developed. We therefore aimed to engineer a deep learning approach for the automated multi-label diagnosis of impulse or conduction abnormalities by realtime ECG analysis. Methods: We utilized a dataset with 70,692 patients, consisting of adults with age ≥18 years. 180112 ECGs (standard 10-second and 12-lead format) with 21 distinct rhythm classes, including various impulse or conduction abnormalities, were used for the diagnosis of arrhythmias in multi-label and single-label level. Base rhythm labels were assessed by trained personnel under the supervision of cardiologists. We ensured that each abnormality had a sample size of at least 4,000 ECGs, except idioventricular rhythm (1,780 ECGs due to the rarity of said disease), for compiling a balanced dataset. We allocated ECGs to a training or a validation dataset for the multi-label diagnostic model training, and evaluated model performance on a test dataset by calculating the area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, as well as quantifying accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and the F1 score. The test dataset was annotated by the consensus of a committee of board-certified actively-practicing cardiologists. Validation of results for the test dataset were compared to diagnoses made by 53 ECG cardiologists who have a wide range of ECG interpretation experience (range=0-12+ years). Findings: We demonstrated that in multi-label level, our convolutional neural network (CNN) approach toward diagnosing heart abnormalities resulted in AUC scores above 0.913 for most of the diseases, with an average score of 0.985 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.988-0.994). The model obtained an average F1 score of 0.890 (95% CI0.877- 0.903), sensitivity of 0.869 (95% CI 0.851-0.887), specificity of 0.995 (95% CI 0.994- 0.996). The average F1 score computed from our deep learning model exceeded the score from human cardiologists regardless of ECG interpretation experience (0 12 years: 0.829). The CNN outputs also showed identical or increased performance with respect to average sensitivity and accuracy as compared to the cardiologists. In single-label level, the CNN achieved an average F1 of 0.918, higher than the average level of the cardiologists 0.798. Interpretation: Our automatic ECG diagnosis system is better than human cardiologists to classify particular waveforms into clinically defined categories accurately, to distinguish a wide range of distinct arrhythmias, and to apply both single label and multiple label ECGs. Our study is therefore a promising foundation for the deployment of computational decision-support systems in practical clinical applications. Funding Statement: Project supported by the Major International (Regional) Joint Research Project, the Ministry of Management Science, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71520107003). Declaration of Interests: Dr. Yuan reports grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China, during the conduct of the study; In addition, Dr. Yuan has a patent An automatic ECG classification method, system and equipment based on deep learning algorithm pending to Ye Yuan, Xiaoyun Yang, Hongling Zhu, Yiran Wang, Cheng Cheng, Xingyi Li, Hang Yin, Jingyi Wang. There are no other conflicts of interest. Ethics Approval Statement: To protect patients’ privacy, we used anonymized data as to prevent breaches. Accordingly, a written informed consent was not required for this study, since the ECG samples were appropriately anonymized and de-identified, as according to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Safe Harbor provision. The study design was evaluated and exempted from full review by the Huazhong University of Science and Technology Institutional Review Board.

Flexible zinc–air batteries (FZABs) show a promising future for emerging electronic devices, while the short cycle life seriously limits their large-scale applications. Although numerous opinions on the failure reasons for FZABs during discharge–charge cycles have been raised, the bottleneck factors that influence the cycle lifetime of the FZABs remain unclear. Herein, we fabricated a FZAB with poly(acrylic acid) alkaline gel electrolyte and conducted a series of comparative experiments to explore the bottleneck factors of battery failure when cycling under different current densities. Under a low current density of 2 mA cm−2, the content of OH− in the gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) highly determines the cycling life of FZABs. Owing to the formation of ZnO and carbonates as well as the carbon oxidation of the air electrode, the content of OH− is significantly reduced, shortening the battery cycling life. Furthermore, under a high current density of 10 mA cm−2, the deteriorative electrochemical performance of air electrode caused by the carbon oxidation at high charging potential is the key factor leading to the battery failure. Therefore, reducing the charging potential of the battery or optimizing the composition and structure of the air electrode is critical to extend battery life. Besides, under a higher current density of 20 mA cm−2, the passivation of the Zn electrode, increased interface resistance between the Zn electrode and GPE, as well as the reduced electrochemical performance of the air electrode are reasons for the battery failure. This work provides a significant guidance for prolonging the cycle lifespan of next generation batteries.

The presence of nanoplastics in drinking water inducing inevitable exposure to human beings has aroused considerable attention. It is worth evaluating the degradation and even mineralization of nanoplastics in drinking water treatment plants designed for guaranteeing drinking water safety. Herein we mainly focus on the decomposition of nano-sized polystyrene plastics by two commonly used disinfection techniques, namely ozonation and chlorination. At recommended dosage for disinfection, ozonation achieves 99.9% molecular weight (MW) degradation and 42.7% mineralization of nano-sized polystyrene plastics in 240 min, while chlorination only attains 7.1% MW degradation and 4.3% mineralization. The overwhelming MW degradation is concentrated in first 30 min with 96.3% for ozonation and 4.2% for chlorination. With the proceeding of ozonation, the surface of nano-sized polystyrene plastics becomes rough and the particle size is decreased, during which the introduction of oxygen-containing groups on the surface of nano-sized polystyrene plastics increases the hydrophilicity of plastics, thus contributing to the further oxidative degradation to produce formic acid, phenol, acetophenone, hydroquinone and other products. However chlorination cannot roughen the surface of nano-sized polystyrene plastics, and only destroys a small amount of C-C bonds in main chain to form shorter chains polymers. This finding shows ozonation other than chlorination is available and effective for degradation of nano-sized polystyrene plastics, indicating that ozonation could be employed as a potential technique to tackle nanoplastics pollution in drinking water treatment plants.

Zn2SnO4 nanotubes have been fabricated via a solution approach with the aiding of anodic aluminum oxide template. Microstructure analysis reveals that the as-prepared Zn2SnO4 nanotubes are polycrystalline and cubic spinel structured. Zn2SnO4 nanowires can also be successfully synthesized by prolonging the reaction time without changing other condition. A formation mechanism of Zn2SnO4 nanostructures has been proposed based on heterogeneous nucleation on AAO template pore walls. The photocatalytic activity study indicated that Zn2SnO4 nanotubes have a higher efficiency than nanowires. This may be induced by their hollow tube structure with larger specific surface area and more photocatalytic active sites.

BACKGROUND Congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) is characterized by a defective closure of the diaphragm occurring as an isolated defect in 60% of cases. Lung size, liver herniation, and pulmonary circulation are major prognostic indices. Isolated CDH genetics is heterogeneous and poorly understood. Whether genetic lesions are also outcome determinants has never been explored. OBJECTIVES To identify isolated CDH genetic causes, to fine map the mutational burden, and to search for a correlation between the genotype and the disease severity and outcome. METHODS Targeted massively parallel sequencing of 143 human and mouse CDH causative and candidate genes in a cohort of 120 fetuses with isolated CDH and detailed outcome measures. RESULTS Pathogenic and likely pathogenic variants were identified in 10% of the cohort. These variants affect both known CDH causative genes, namely, ZFPM2, GATA4, and NR2F2, and new genes, namely, TBX1, TBX5, GATA5, and PBX1. In addition, mutation burden analysis identified LBR, CTBP2, NSD1, MMP14, MYOD1, and EYA1 as candidate genes with enrichment in rare but predicted deleterious variants. No obvious correlation between the genotype and the phenotype or short-term outcome has been found. CONCLUSION Targeted resequencing identifies a genetic cause in 10% of isolated CDH and identifies new candidate genes.

In this critical Review we focus on the evolution of the hybrid ion capacitor (HIC) from its early embodiments to its modern form, focusing on the key outstanding scientific and technological questions that necessitate further in-depth study. It may be argued that HICs began as aqueous systems, based on a Faradaic oxide positive electrode (e.g., Co3O4, RuOx) and an activated carbon ion-adsorption negative electrode. In these early embodiments HICs were meant to compete directly with electrical double layer capacitors (EDLCs), rather than with the much higher energy secondary batteries. The HIC design then evolved to be based on a wide voltage (∼4.2 V) carbonate-based battery electrolyte, using an insertion titanium oxide compound anode (Li4Ti5O12, LixTi5O12) versus a Li ion adsorption porous carbon cathode. The modern Na and Li architectures contain a diverse range of nanostructured materials in both electrodes, including TiO2, Li7Ti5O12, Li4Ti5O12, Na6LiTi5O12, Na2Ti3O7, graphene, hard carbon, soft carbo...

A promising thin-felt stainless-steel-fiber (SS-fiber) structured hollow-ZSM-5/SS-fiber catalyst is developed through alkali leaching of the full-silica core from the silicalite-1@ZSM-5/SS-fiber. A silicalite-1 seeded dry-gel/SS-fiber is obtained by dip-coating technique and is then transformed into the silicalite-1@ZSM-5/SS-fiber (overall SiO 2 /Al 2 O 3 molar ratio of 93) via seed-assisted dry gel conversion method. Such catalyst shows marked enhancement of mesoporosity development because of the abundant hollow structures left behind after the silicalite-1 core removal by alkali treatment in a mild Na 2 CO 3 media. The effect of alkali-treated time length on catalyst structure, textural and acidic properties as well as methanol-to-propylene (MTP) performance is systematically investigated. As-obtained catalyst, with well-maintained Bronsted acid sites after alkali treatment, shows hollow-structure-dependent stability improvement in the MTP and n-hexane cracking processes due to markedly enhanced diffusion.

A series of thin-felt SS-fiber@HZSM-5 catalysts are fabricated via the seed-assisted vapor-phase transport (VPT) method. The crystal size and mesoporosity of zeolite shell are controllably tuned toward enhanced diffusion by increasing the silicalite-1 seeding gel (SG) amount used. The microstructured catalyst obtained with a high SG amount of 50% contains a smaller crystal size of ∼70 nm and higher mesopore volume of 0.21 cm3 gzeolite−1, which markedly prolonged single-run lifetime with a remarkable decrease in the coking rate in the MTP process. The adverse effect of non-uniform aluminum in the zeolite shell on the MTP stability is revealed. The use of aluminum-containing SG to replace the pure-silica one makes the acid sites of as-obtained ZSM-5 mounted on SS-fiber distributed homogeneously thereby leading to a marked suppression of hydrogen transfer, and as a result, the catalyst single-run lifetime is further increased by ∼40%. This promising SS-fiber@HZSM-5 catalyst is stable for at least 1600 h (>94% conv.) with a high propylene selectivity of ∼36% at 450 °C using a WHSV of 1 h−1 for a feed of MeOH/H2O molar ratio of 1:1, by taking advantage of improved diffusion from mesoporosity development and uniform aluminum distribution as well as our distinctive microfibrous-engineered design.

This study explores and analyzes the correlation between enterprise–bank relationships and market quality to mitigate information asymmetry problems in the securities market. Loans issued by domestic and foreign banks to a sample of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange are examined to determine the quality of the enterprise–banking relationships according to the dimensions of loan limit, syndicated loan guarantees, and loan interest rates. Market quality is empirically analyzed according to bid–ask spread, market depth, and transient volatility. The results reveal that improvements to the quality of enterprise–bank relationships is reflected in the quality of information in the stock market, and requires reducing information asymmetry between buyers and the sellers. The findings of this study provide insights into the implications of enterprise–bank relationships and may serve as a reference for the general public about reducing information asymmetry when making investment decisions and for competent authorities when formulating policies.

Intercalation compounds form the basis of essentially all lithium rechargeable batteries. They exhibit a wide range of electronic and crystallographic structures. The former varies from metallic conductors to excellent insulators. The latter often have layer structures or have open tunnel structures that can act as the hosts for the intercalation of a wide range of metal cation and other guest species. They are fascinating materials with almost infinitely variable properties, with the crystal structure controlling the identity and the amount of the guest species that may be intercalated and subsequently removed. The electronic structure controls not only the degree of electron transfer to the host, but also defines the degree of the electrostatic interactions a mobile ion experiences; thus, a metallic host will provide a minimizing of those interactions, whereas in an ionic lattice the interactions will be much greater and the mobile ion will experience a much higher activation energy for motion. This becomes more important for multivalent cations such as Mg

From macro- to nano-engineering of a promising CeO2-ZrO2-doped NiO-Al2O3/Ni-foam catalyst has been demonstrated for the oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane to ethylene (ODE), through facial wet chemical etching of a Ni-foam followed post modification with CeO2 and ZrO2. The NiO-Al2O3/Ni-foam (denoted as NANF) achieved a high ethane conversion of 25.2% but with a very low ethylene selectivity of 43.1% at 450 °C. ZrO2-doping of the NANF led to a remarkable improvement in the ethylene selectivity but serious deterioration of activity while the CeO2-doping showed an opposite effect. Co-doping of the NANF using optimal amount of CeO2 and ZrO2 markedly promoted not only the activity but also the selectivity to ethylene. For example, over the 1CeO2-5ZrO2-NANF (CeO2:1 wt%, ZrO2:5 wt%) catalyst, a high ethane conversion of 40.3% was obtained with a 60.6% ethylene selectivity for a feed gas of C2H6/O2/N2 = 1/1/8 at 500 °C and a gas hourly space velocity of 18,000 cm3 g−1 h−1, corresponding to a high ethylene productivity of 510 gEthylene kgcat−1 h−1. In nature, co-doping with CeO2 and ZrO2 synergistically tamed the NiO for selective H-abstraction of the ethane molecules other than over oxidation of them.

Commercially manufactured ‘jiaosu’ (fermented fruit and vegetable juices) have gained popularity in Asia recently. Like other fermented products, they have a high microbial diversity and richness. However, no published study has yet described their microbiota composition. Thus, this work aimed to obtain the full-length 16S rRNA profiles of jiaosu using the PacBio single-molecule, real-time sequencing technology. We described the bacterial microbiota of three jiaosu products purchased from Taiwan and Japan. Bacterial sequences from all three samples distributed across seven different phyla, mainly Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, and Bacteroidetes. Forty-three genera were identified (e.g. Ochrobactrum, Lactobacillus, Mycobacterium, and Acinetobacter). Fifty-five species were identified (e.g. Ochrobactrum lupini, Mycobacterium abscessus, Acinetobacter johnsonii, Lactobacillus paracasei, Lactobacillus delbrueckii, and Petrobacter succinatimandens). No pathogen sequences were identified within the entire dataset. Moreover, only a low proportion of sequences represented common skin microflora and the food hygiene indicator Escherichia/Shigella, suggesting overall acceptable sanitary conditions during the manufacturing process.

Recent advances in materials syntheses have enabled e-LiVOPO4 to deliver capacities approaching, and in some cases exceeding the theoretical value of 305 mA h g−1 for 2Li intercalation, despite its poor electronic and ionic conductivity. However, not all of the capacity corresponds to the true electrochemical intercalation/deintercalation reactions as evidenced upon systematic tracking of V valence through combined operando and rate-dependent ex situ X-ray absorption study presented herein. Structural disorder and defects introduced in the material by high-energy ball milling impede kinetics of the high-voltage V5+/V4+ redox more severely than the low-voltage V4+/V3+ redox, promoting significant side reaction contributions in the high-voltage region, irrespective of cycling conditions. The present work emphasizes the need for nanoengineering of active materials without compromising their bulk structural integrity in order to fully utilize high-energy density of multi-electron cathode materials.

Surfactin, a lipopeptide produced by Bacillus species, has been used for the oral delivery of insulin. In this study, another lipopeptide of iturin was tested for its ability to orally delivery insulin alone or plus surfactin. Iturin could form co-precipitate with insulin at acidic pH values. After treatment by ultrasonification, the structure of coprecipitate was destroyed that led to a significant decrease in hypoglycemic effect after oral administration. Iturin weakly binds to (Kd = 257 μM) and induce insulin structure more compact that is favorable for insulin uptake by the intestine. After being coated with Acryl-Eze by lyophilization, the coprecipitate formed the spherical enteric-coated insulin microparticles delivered by iturin with a relative oral bioavailability of 6.84% in diabetic mice. For further improving oral hypoglycemic effect, surfactin was added to form the spherical enteric-coated insulin microparticles in a formulation containing insulin, Acryl-Eze, iturin and surfactin at a ratio of 1:1:0.5: 0.5 (w/w), with an insulin encapsulation efficiency of 66.22%. The enteric-coated insulin microparticles delivered by iturin plus surfactin showed a classical profile for controlled release in the intestine with a relative bioavailability of 7.67% after oral administration, which could effectively control the postprandial blood glucose at a level about 50% of the initial one just like the subcutaneous injection. Collectively, iturin plus surfactin is more efficient for oral delivering insulin than the sole one, and the resultant enteric-coated insulin microparticles are potential for the development of oral insulin to control postprandial blood glucose in diabetic patients.

CO2 electroreduction (CO2 RR) to CO is promising for the carbon cycle but still remains challenging. Au is regarded as the most selective catalyst for CO2 RR, but its high cost significantly hinders its industrial application. Herein, the bimetallic CuInSe2 is found to exhibit an Au-like catalytic feature: i) the interaction of Cu and In orbitals induces a moderate adsorption strength of CO2 RR intermediates and favors the reaction pathway; and ii) the hydrogen evolution is energetically unfavorable on CuInSe2 , as a surface reconstruction along with high energy change will occur after hydrogen adsorption. Furthermore, the Se vacancy is found to induce an electron redistribution, slightly tune the band structure, and optimize the CO2 RR route of bimetallic selenide. Consequently, the Se-defective CuInSe2 (V-CuInSe2 ) achieves a highly selective CO production ability that is comparable to noble metals in aqueous electrolyte, and the V-CuInSe2 cathode shows a satisfactory performance in an aqueous Zn-CO2 cell. This work demonstrates that designing cost-effective catalysts with noble-metal-like properties is an ideal strategy for developing efficient electrocatalysts. Moreover, the class of transition bimetallic selenides has shown promising prospects as active and cost-effective electrocatalysts owing to their unique structural, electronic, and catalytic properties.

As an important epigenetic modification, 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) aroused wide concern about the distribution and the function. Due to the necessity of 5hmC detection, a novel photoelectrochemical (PEC) biosensor was established based on the in-situ generated heterojunction of Bi4NbO8Cl@Bi2S3, which was employed as the substrate material with excellent photoelectric property. The specific recognition of 5hmC relied on the covalent reaction between –CH2OH of 5hmC and –SH on the substrate electrode under the catalysis of M.HhaI methyltransferase. Afterwards, ZrO2 was used as signal amplification unit capturing by the specific reaction of Zr with the phosphate group of 5hmC. The experimental results demonstrated well specificity and sensitivity of this biosensor. Under optimal conditions, the linear relationship between the photocurrent and the logarithm value of 5hmC concentration was constructed with the range from 0.3 to 300 nM and the detection limit of 0.0779 nM (S/N = 3). The procedures of constructing this biosensor were compact and convenient, and this biosensor realized actual detection of 5hmC level in wheat sample. Significantly, this biosensor was applied to a preliminary study that the heavy metal Pb2+ and the perfluorooctanoic acid influence the expression of 5hmC in the genomic DNA of wheat seedling roots and leaves.

A digital-correlation full-polarized microwave radiometer is an important passive remote sensor, as it can obtain the amplitude and phase information of an electromagnetic wave at the same time. It is widely used in the measurement of sea surface wind speed and direction. Its configuration is complicated, so the error analysis of the instrument is often difficult. This paper presents a full-polarized radiometer system model that can be used to analyze various errors, which include input signal models and a full-polarized radiometer (receiver) model. The input signal models are generated by WGN (white Gaussian noise), and the full-polarized radiometer model consists of an RF front-end model and digital back-end model. The calibration matrix is obtained by solving the overdetermined equations, and the output voltage is converted into Stokes brightness temperature through the calibration matrix. Then, we use the four Stokes parameters to analyze the sensitivity, linearity, and calibration residuals, from which the simulation model is validated. Finally, two examples of error analysis, including gain imbalance and quantization error, are given through a simulation model. In general, the simulation model proposed in this paper has good accuracy and can play an important role in the error analysis and pre-development of the fully polarized radiometer.

A novel photoelectrochemical (PEC) biosensor was constructed for DNA hydroxymethylation detection based on Bi4NbO8Cl/PTC-NH2 heterojunction and Fe-MIL-88NH2, where Bi4NbO8Cl/PTC-NH2 was employed as photoactive material and Fe-MIL-88NH2 was adopted as artificial hydrogen peroxide mimic enzyme. Based on the structure of hydroxymethylated cytosine in DNA sequence, 5-hydroxymethyl-2’-deoxycytidine (5hmdC) was employed as detected target molecule for the first time using PEC technique. After Bi4NbO8Cl/PTC-NH2 heterojunction was modified on the substrate electrode, thioglycolic acid (TGA) was captured by forming amide bond, where the sulfhydryl group (-SH) of TGA was employed as the specific recognition of 5hmdC. Under M. HhaI catalysis, the −CH2OH of 5hmdC reacted selectively with the –SH. Finally, Fe-MIL-88NH2 was modified on the electrode based on the crosslinker of 4-formylphenylboronic acid (FPBA), where FPBA possessed two active groups of formyl and boronic acid group, reacting with glycosyl of 5hmdC and amino of Fe-MIL-88NH2. Under the catalysis effect of Fe-MIL-88NH2, the insoluble substance was produced on the surface of electrodes, resulting in distinct lessening of PEC response. Under optimal conditions, the photocurrent shows a linear relationship with the logarithm value of 5hmdC concentration from 0.01-100 nM with a low detection limit of 6.48 pM. More importantly, this method can be applied to investigate the influence of exogenous phytohormone on 5hmdC content in the genomic DNA of rice seedling roots and leaves.

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is characterized by digitalization, networking, and smartness, which opens a world of the interconnection of all things and makes mass personalization possible. As a result, traditional industrial firms are forced to change their operation mode from the manufacture-oriented one to the manufacture-and-service-oriented type. In particular, furniture production is a typical domain featured by mass personalization from networking, where order selection (service aspect) and board cutting (manufacture aspect) are mainly concerned. We formulate customized furniture production as a multi-objective optimization problem and propose two algorithms to solve it, i.e., an integrated algorithm and a two-stage decoupling algorithm. As a secondary, the robust mixed-integer linear optimization algorithm is proposed to deal with the uncertainty such as fluctuations in production capacity and raw materials cost. The numerical experiments using real industrial data demonstrate that the proposed algorithms effectively improve firms’ operational efficiency by achieving a balance between service and manufacture. Moreover, they present remarkable performance under various circumstances. The developed methods could apply to a wide range of mass personalization for related manufacturing scenarios of IIoT with digital servitization, including computer, communication, and consumer electronics products (3C products) machining, automobile accessory production, and chip manufacturing.

An integrated cobalt oxide catalyst supported on silica (Co3O4/SiO2) packed in the lumen of tubular alumina (Al2O3) membrane was designed to realize a Fenton-like oxidation coupling with ultrafiltration water treatment technology to remove persistent and hazardous pollutants. We employed a selection of SiO2 support materials with a range micro/mesostructures to immobilize the Co3O4 catalyst. These were evaluated and screened to achieve the highest pollutant decolorization rate and maximum decolorization efficiency. Then, an integrated catalyst-membrane was developed as proof-of-concept for advanced water treatment. Batch degradation results showed acid orange 7 dye (AO7) was effectively removed using Co3O4 deposited on MCM-41 silica, with 97% decolorization efficiency achieved in 15 mins owing to the large surface area and high porosity of the MCM-41 support. In contrast, humic acid (HA) was relatively difficult to degrade using this catalyst, and was however found to inhibit AO7 degradation. The integrated catalyst-membrane successfully removed both AO7 and HA with only a 10% water flux reduction from 25.0 to 22.5 kg m−2 h−1 bar−1 with excellent co-pollutant removal rate of 99% over 40 h. Furthermore, the integrated catalyst-membrane also removed a range of organic pollutants (neutral red, tetracycline hydrochloride, oxytetracycline) achieving > 90% rejection and 30 kg m−2 h−1 bar−1. These results show that the integrated catalyst-membrane can effectively purify a binary pollutant mixture containing both hazardous dye and natural organic matter and other pharmaceutical chemicals whilst producing process water for recycling and reuse.