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Abstract Hydrogen oxidation reaction in alkaline media is critical for alkaline fuel cells and electrochemical ammonia compressors. The slow hydrogen oxidation reaction in alkaline electrolytes requires large amounts of scarce and expensive platinum catalysts. While transition metal decoration can enhance Pt catalysts’ activity, it often reduces the electrochemical active surface area, limiting the improvement in Pt mass activity. Here, we enhance Pt catalysts’ activity without losing surface-active sites by using a Pd-Ru pair. Utilizing a mildly catalytic thermal pyrolysis approach, Pd-Ru pairs are decorated on Pt, confirmed by extended X-ray absorption fine structure and high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy. Density functional theory and ab-initio molecular dynamics simulations indicate preferred Pd and Ru dopant adsorption. The Pd-Ru decorated Pt catalyst exhibits a mass-based exchange current density of 1557 ± 85 A g−1 metal for hydrogen oxidation reaction, demonstrating superior performance in an ammonia compressor.

Abstract Micro-sized silicon anodes can significantly increase the energy density of lithium-ion batteries with low cost. However, the large silicon volume changes during cycling cause cracks for both organic-inorganic interphases and silicon particles. The liquid electrolytes further penetrate the cracked silicon particles and reform the interphases, resulting in huge electrode swelling and quick capacity decay. Here we resolve these challenges by designing a high-voltage electrolyte that forms silicon-phobic interphases with weak bonding to lithium-silicon alloys. The designed electrolyte enables micro-sized silicon anodes (5 µm, 4.1 mAh cm−2) to achieve a Coulombic efficiency of 99.8% and capacity of 2175 mAh g−1 for >250 cycles and enable 100 mAh LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.05O2 pouch full cells to deliver a high capacity of 172 mAh g−1 for 120 cycles with Coulombic efficiency of >99.9%. The high-voltage electrolytes that are capable of forming silicon-phobic interphases pave new ways for the commercialization of lithium-ion batteries using micro-sized silicon anodes.

Abstract Li metal batteries using Li metal as negative electrode and LiNi1-x-yMnxCoyO2 as positive electrode represent the next generation high-energy batteries. A major challenge facing these batteries is finding electrolytes capable of forming good interphases. Conventionally, electrolyte is fluorinated to generate anion-derived LiF-rich interphases. However, their low ionic conductivities forbid fast-charging. Here, we use CsNO3 as a dual-functional additive to form stable interphases on both electrodes. Such strategy allows the use of 1,2-dimethoxyethane as the single solvent, promising superior ion transport and fast charging. LiNi1-x-yMnxCoyO2 is protected by the nitrate-derived species. On the Li metal side, large Cs+ has weak interactions with the solvent, leading to presence of anions in the solvation sheath and an anion-derived interphase. The interphase is surprisingly dominated by cesium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide, a component not reported before. Its presence suggests that Cs+ is doing more than just electrostatic shielding as commonly believed. The interphase is free of LiF but still promises high performance as cells with high LiNi0.8Mn0.1Co0.1O2 loading (21 mg/cm2) and low N/P ratio (~2) can be cycled at 2C (~8 mA/cm2) with above 80% capacity retention after 200 cycles. These results suggest the role of LiF and Cs-containing additives need to be revisited.

Abstract Background The study aims to investigate the clinical characteristics of early postnatal period in children with prenatal hydronephrosis (HN) in our single center for 8 years. Study design The clinical data of 1137 children with prenatal HN from 2012 to 2020 were retrospectively analyzed in our center. Variables of our study mainly included different malformations and urinary tract dilation (UTD) classification, and main outcomes were recurrent hospitalization, urinary tract infection (UTI), jaundice, and surgery. Results Among the 1137 children with prenatal HN in our center, 188 cases (16.5%) were followed-up in early postnatal period, and 110 cases (58.5%) were found malformations. The incidence of recurrent hospitalization (29.8%) and UTI (72.5%) were higher in malformation, but the incidence of jaundice (46.2%) was higher in non-malformation(P

Abstract Background Glomerulopathy with fibronectin deposits (GFND) is a rare autosomal dominant genetic disorder, and proteinuria and hematuria are the most common clinical manifestations. The pathogenesis of this disease is primarily related to mutation of the fibronectin 1 gene. Unfortunately, without specific treatment, the prognosis remains poor. Here we present a case report that investigates the clinical characteristics, renal pathology, and gene testing of childhood GFND. Case presentation A two-year-old child was brought to our hospital for “persistent hematuria for 1 year and 10 months.” The disease onset was at the age of 4 months, with persistent microscopic hematuria accompanied by intermittent gross hematuria, occasionally with proteinuria, and without hypertension or renal failure. The chief complaint was intermittent gross hematuria, without massive proteinuria, hypertension, or renal failure. Family history: The child’s mother had microscopic hematuria, his maternal aunt had nephrotic syndrome due to focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, and his maternal grandmother had end-stage renal disease. No significant pathological changes were found in the renal pathological biopsy of the child under a light microscope. Under the electron microscope, the basement membrane was found to be of uneven thickness, ranging from 150 to 400 nm. The stratum compactum of the basement membrane was thickened, with a small part showing tear-like and cobweb-like morphology. No electron-dense deposits were found. The renal tubular epithelial cells were vacuolated, and there were no unique pathological changes in the renal interstitium. Immunofluorescence showed that IgG, IgM, IgA, C3, and C1q were all negative. Alport syndrome was preliminarily considered. However, exome sequencing revealed a mutated site in the fibronectin 1 gene. The child’s mother was the carrier of the pathogenic gene and the final diagnosis was GFND. Conclusions Fibronectin deposition is a typical pathological change in GFND, and the disease progresses slowly to end-stage renal disease. There is no specific treatment so far, and the prognosis is poor. The early onset of childhood patients may not show typical renal pathological changes, but only changes in the thickness of basement membrane, etc. Genome sequencing technology may helpful for the early diagnosis of GFND.

Bone tumors occur in bone or its accessory tissues. Benign bone tumors are easy to cure and have good prognosis, while malignant bone tumors develop rapidly and have poor and high mortality. So far, there is no satisfactory treatment method. Here, we designed a universal template vector for bone tumor therapy that simultaneously meets the needs of bone targeting, tumor killing, osteoclast suppression, and tumor imaging. The template is composed of a polydopamine (PDA) core and a multifunctional surface. PDA has excellent biosafety and photothermal performance. In this study, alendronate sodium (ALN) is grafted to enable its general bone targeting function. PDA core can carry a variety of chemotherapy drugs, and the rich ALN group can carry a variety of metal ions with an imaging function. Therefore, more personalized treatment plans can be designed for different bone tumor patients. In addition, the PDA core enables photothermal therapy and enhanced chemotherapy. Through template drug Doxorubicin (DOX) and template imaging ion Fe (Ⅱ), we systematically verified the therapeutic effect, imaging effect, and inhibition of bone dissolution of the agent on Osteosarcoma (OS), a primary malignant bone tumor, in vivo. In conclusion, our work provides a more general template carrier for the clinical treatment of bone tumors, through which personalized treatment of bone tumors can be achieved.

Abstract Background With an increase in the diagnosis of plastic bronchitis (PB) cases, to enhance paediatricians’ knowledge and add to the few existing studies, we explored the clinical characteristics, diagnosis, and treatment of PB in children. Methods The clinicopathological data of 43 children admitted to the Xiamen Children’s Hospital and the Women and Children’s Hospital, affiliated to the Xiamen University from December 2016 to December 2019, were retrospectively analysed. Results All the children had cough, with 41 of them having associated fever. A peak temperature > 40 ℃ was observed in 25 children. Twenty-six children had shortness of breath, 27 had reduced respiratory sounds on the affected side, and 35 had audible moist rales on the affected side. Lactate dehydrogenase in all children increased to different degrees, and 29 had elevated D-dimer and fibrinogen degradation products. Lung imaging showed pulmonary consolidation and atelectasis, mainly in the bilateral lower lung lobes, in all the children. However, 31 had pleural effusion, mainly a small parapneumonic effusion. The infections were mainly caused by adenovirus and Mycoplasma pneumoniae. The casts in all 43 children were sucked or clamped out under bronchoscopy, and 10 were found to have type I PB on pathological examination. All children were treated with anti-infective therapy in addition to bronchoscopic cast removal. Thirty-one children were treated with methylprednisolone, and 16 with gamma globulin. Except for one child who was non-adherent to treatment, all other children showed improvement, or were cured and discharged from the hospital. Follow-up lung imaging at 3 months revealed that the lungs were fully re-expanded in 40 children. At the 6-month follow-up, six children had small airway lesions, four had obliterative bronchiolitis, and one had bronchiectasis. Conclusions Paediatric PB often occurs secondary to respiratory tract infections and progresses rapidly, with hyperpyrexia, cough, and shortness of breath as the main clinical manifestations. Pulmonary consolidation, atelectasis, and pleural effusion are seen on lung imaging, and early bronchoscopy and removal of casts in the trachea and bronchi are effective treatment options.

High-nickel content cathode materials suffer issues of structural and surface instability. Herewith authors show that introduction of a nickel valence gradient enhances the thermal and cycle stability of high-nickel content cathode materials.

Abstract Atom segmentation and localization, noise reduction and deblurring of atomic-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) images with high precision and robustness is a challenging task. Although several conventional algorithms, such has thresholding, edge detection and clustering, can achieve reasonable performance in some predefined sceneries, they tend to fail when interferences from the background are strong and unpredictable. Particularly, for atomic-resolution STEM images, so far there is no well-established algorithm that is robust enough to segment or detect all atomic columns when there is large thickness variation in a recorded image. Herein, we report the development of a training library and a deep learning method that can perform robust and precise atom segmentation, localization, denoising, and super-resolution processing of experimental images. Despite using simulated images as training datasets, the deep-learning model can self-adapt to experimental STEM images and shows outstanding performance in atom detection and localization in challenging contrast conditions and the precision consistently outperforms the state-of-the-art two-dimensional Gaussian fit method. Taking a step further, we have deployed our deep-learning models to a desktop app with a graphical user interface and the app is free and open-source. We have also built a TEM ImageNet project website for easy browsing and downloading of the training data.

PurposeTo assess the diverse cell populations of human corpus cavernosum in patients with severe erectile dysfunction (ED) at the single-cell level.MethodsPenile tissues collected from three patients were subjected to single-cell RNA sequencing using the BD Rhapsody™ platform. Common bioinformatics tools were used to analyze cellular heterogeneity and gene expression profiles from generated raw data, including the packages Seurat, Monocle, and CellPhoneDB.ResultsDisease-related heterogeneity of cell types was determined in the cavernous tissue such as endothelial cells (ECs), smooth muscle cells, fibroblasts, and immune cells. Reclustering analysis of ECs identified an arteriole ECs subcluster and another one with gene signatures of fibroblasts. The proportion of fibroblasts was higher than the other cell populations and had the most significant cellular heterogeneity, in which a distinct subcluster co-expressed endothelial markers. The transition trajectory of differentiation from smooth muscle cells into fibroblasts was depicted using the pseudotime analysis, suggesting that the expansion of corpus cavernosum is possibly compromised as a result of fibrosis. Cell-cell communications among ECs, smooth muscle cells, fibroblasts, and macrophages were robust, which indicated that inflammation may also have a crucial role in the development of ED.ConclusionsOur study has demonstrated a comprehensive single-cell atlas of cellular components in human corpus cavernosum of ED, providing in-depth insights into the pathogenesis. Future research is warranted to explore disease-specific alterations for individualized treatment of ED.

Lithium-rich layered material deserves in-depth understanding because it has large capacity enabled by both cation and anion activities. Here, authors apply 3D spectro-tomography with nano resolution to reveal the multi-layer morphology and depth-dependent transition metal valence distribution associated with oxygen redox.

Anionic redox reactions are gaining interest as a means to optimize capacities of alkaline ion batteries. Here, the authors investigate various charge compensation mechanisms and report S–S dimerization and the formation of electron holes on sulfur in a model sulfide cathode.

The authors show that after cycling the model cathode material Li2Ru0.5Mn0.5O3 undergoes ruthenium segregation and even exsolution at the reconstructed oxide surface, which triggers a progressive degradation process. The insights enable new dimensions in choosing dopants for stabilized cathode surface.

Objective To investigate the mechanism through which tacrolimus, often used to treat refractory nephropathy, protects against puromycin-induced podocyte injury. Methods An in vitro model of puromycin-induced podocyte injury was established by dividing podocytes into three groups: controls, puromycin only (PAN group), and puromycin plus tacrolimus (FK506 group). Podocyte morphology, number, apoptosis rate and microtubule associated protein 1 light chain 3 alpha ( LC3 ) expression were compared. Results Puromycin caused podocyte cell body shrinkage and loose intercellular connections, but podocyte morphology in the FK506 group was similar to controls. The apoptosis rate was lower in the FK506 group versus PAN group. The low level of LC3 mRNA observed in untreated podocytes was decreased by puromycin treatment; however, levels of LC3 mRNA were higher in the FK506 group versus PAN group. Although LC3-I and LC3-II protein levels were decreased by puromycin, levels in the FK506 group were higher than the PAN group. Fewer podocyte autophagosomes were observed in the control and FK506 groups versus the PAN group. Cytoplasmic LC3-related fluorescence intensity was stronger in control and FK506 podocytes versus the PAN group. Conclusions Tacrolimus inhibited puromycin-induced mouse podocyte damage by regulating LC3 expression and enhancing autophagy.

Poor electrochemical reversibility of the conversion-type cathode materials remains an important challenge for their practical applications. Here, the authors report a highly reversible fluoride cathode material with low hysteresis through concerted doping of cobalt and oxygen into iron fluoride.

The rational design of intercalation electrodes is largely confined to the optimization of redox chemistry of transition metals and oxygen. Here, the authors report the single anionic redox process in NaCrS2 where it is sulfur rather than chromium that works as the electrochemical active species.

Abstract Forty-nine patients with stage IIb cervical cancer were included to investigate the changes in bladder volume in response to different approaches to maintaining consistent bladder filling. The impacts of age (P age), water consumption (P wat ), and body mass index (BMI, P bmi ) on the mean urinary inflow rate (v tot ) were analysed. The bladder volume (BV) increased linearly over time. A large variation in v tot among individuals was observed, ranging from 0.19 to 5.13 ml/min. The v tot was correlated with P age (R = −0.53, p = 0.01) and P wat (R = 0.84, p = 0.00), and no correlation between v tot and P bmi was found (p > 0.05). Therefore, v tot could be parameterized using two methods: multivariable linear regression and iterative fitting. There was no statistically significant difference between the two methods. The model accuracy was successfully assessed with several validation tests for patients with good compliance (79.2% of all patients), and the proportion of radiotherapy (RT) fractions with zero wait time (one ultrasound (US) scan) increased from 6.5% to 41.2%. The optimal US scanning number and RT time could be provided using this model. This adaptive RT approach could reduce patient discomfort caused by holding onto urine and reduce technician labour as well as cost.

Human Wharton's jelly-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hWJ-MSCs) have excellent proliferative ability, differentiation ability, low immunogenicity, and can be easily obtained. However, there are few studies on their application in the treatment of ischemic stroke, therefore their therapeutic effect requires further verification. In this study, hWJ-MSCs were transplanted into an ischemic stroke rat model via the tail vein 48 hours after transient middle cerebral artery occlusion. After 4 weeks, neurological functions of the rats implanted with hWJ-MSCs were significantly recovered. Furthermore, many hWJ-MSCs homed to the ischemic frontal cortex whereby they differentiated into neuron-like cells at this region. These results confirm that hWJ-MSCs transplanted into the ischemic stroke rat can differentiate into neuron-like cells to improve rat neurological function and behavior.

Non-equilibrium intercalation reactions may determine the performance of lithium-ion battery materials undergoing lithiation, but it is difficult to probe in real time. Here, the authors use in situelectron microscopy to identify kinetically-driven phase evolution in magnetite single nanoparticles.

It remains poorly understood if carrier hardness, elastic modulus, and contact area affect neural stem cell growth and differentiation. Tensile tests show that the elastic moduli of Tiansu and SMI silicone membranes are lower than that of an ordinary dish, while the elastic modulus of SMI silicone membrane is lower than that of Tiansu silicone membrane. Neural stem cells from the cerebral cortex of embryonic day 16 Sprague-Dawley rats were seeded onto ordinary dishes as well as Tiansu silicone membrane and SMI silicone membrane. Light microscopy showed that neural stem cells on all three carriers show improved adherence. After 7 days of differentiation, neuron specific enolase, glial fibrillary acidic protein, and myelin basic protein expression was detected by immunofluorescence. Moreover, flow cytometry revealed a higher rate of neural stem cell differentiation into astrocytes on Tiansu and SMI silicone membranes than on the ordinary dish, which was also higher on the SMI than the Tiansu silicone membrane. These findings confirm that all three cell carrier types have good biocompatibility, while SMI and Tiansu silicone membranes exhibit good mechanical homogenization. Thus, elastic modulus affects neural stem cell differentiation into various nerve cells. Within a certain range, a smaller elastic modulus results in a more obvious trend of cell differentiation into astrocytes.

One of the reasons why commercial application of surface acoustic wave (SAW) atomization is not possible is due to the condensation of aerosol droplets generated during atomization, which drip on the interdigitated transducer (IDT), thereby causing electrodes to short-circuit. In order to solve this problem, a SU-8-2002 film coating on an IDT is proposed in this paper. The waterproof performance of the film coating was tested on a surface acoustic wave (SAW) device several times. The experimental results reveal that the film coating was robust. The experiment also investigated the effects of the SU-8-2002 film on atomization behavior and heating.

In the molecule of the title compound, C13H10ClN3OS, the dihedral angles between the plane through the thiourea group and the pyridine and benzene rings are 53.08 (3) and 87.12 (3)°, respectively. The molecules are linked by intermolecular N—H...N hydrogen-bonding interactions to form a supramolecular chain structure along the a axis. An intramolecular N—H...O hydrogen bond is also present.

In the centrosymmetric title compound, C20H22N4O2S2, the carbonyl group forms an intramolecular hydrogen bond with the NH group attached to the butanediyl linker, resulting in a six-membered ring. There are also intermolecular C—H...S interactions in the crystal structure, and π–π interactions between phenyl groups [2.425 (3) Å].