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Abstract Background Xylo-oligomers are a kind of high value-added products in biomass fractionation. Although there are several chemical methods to obtain xylo-oligomers from biomass, the reports about the deep eutectic solvents (DESs)-mediated co-production of xylo-oligomers and fermentable sugars and the related kinetic mechanism are limited. Results In this work, glycolic acid-based DESs were used to obtain xylo-oligomers from corncob. The highest xylo-oligomers yield of 65.9% was achieved at 120 °C for 20 min, of which the functional xylo-oligosaccharides (XOSs, DP 2–5) accounted for up to 31.8%. Meanwhile, the enzymatic digestion of cellulose and xylan in residues reached 81.0% and 95.5%, respectively. Moreover, the addition of metal inorganic salts significantly accelerated the hydrolysis of xylan and even the degradation of xylo-oligomers in DES, thus resulting in higher selectivity of xylan removal. AlCl3 showed the strongest synergistic effect with DES on accelerating the processes, while FeCl2 is best one for xylo-oligomers accumulation, affording the highest xylo-oligomers yield of 66.1% for only 10 min. Furthermore, the kinetic study indicates that the ‘potential hydrolysis degree’ model could well describe the xylan hydrolysis processes and glycolic acid/lactic acid (3:1) is a promising solvent for xylo-oligomers production, in particular, it worked well with FeCl2 for the excellent accumulation of xylo-oligomers. Conclusions Glycolic acid-based deep eutectic solvents can be successfully applied in corncob fractionation with excellent xylo-oligomers and fermentable sugars yields on mild conditions, and the large amount of xylo-oligosaccharides accumulation could be achieved by specific process controlling. The strategies established here can be useful for developing high-valued products from biomass.

The slippery liquid infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) with employing pitcher plants as a biomimetic prototype are ultra-smooth surfaces formed by injecting lubricants into rough porous structures with low surface energy. Owing to the excellent barrier effect, the SLIPS lubricating layer has a good application prospect in the field of metal corrosion protection. In this work, the construction mechanism of SLIPS was introduced, and the preparation methods of SLIPS on metal surfaces were summarized from three aspects: direct substrate structuring, in-situ growth and coating treatment. The anti-corrosion applications of SLIPS on four different metal surfaces of aluminum, copper, magnesium and steel were reviewed. Furthermore, the shortcomings of SLIPS materials used in metal anti-corrosion were pointed out, and its development trend was prospected.

ABSTRACTSeasonal influenza, causes hundreds of thousands of deaths annually, posing a severe threat to human health. Currently available influenza vaccines are targeted only at specific strains or conserved epitopes; however, these vaccines are not completely efficacious because influenza viruses can undergo mutation during circulation, leading to antigenic mismatch between recommended strains and circulating strains and elusion from the immune system. Therefore, developing an influenza vaccine that is quick, effective, and broadly protective has become crucial, and the integral part of hemagglutinin (HA) remains an ideal target for vaccine development. This study developed a lipid nanoparticle-encapsulated nucleoside-modified mRNA vaccine (mRNA-LNPs) encoding a consensus full-length HA sequence (H1c) and evaluated its protective efficacy and immunogenicity through in vitro and in vivo assays. Following two intramuscular immunizations (2, 10 µg, or 20 µg) at a 3-week interval in BALB/c mice, H1c-mRNA-LNP vaccine induced strong antibodies as shown in the hemagglutination-inhibition test and protective neutralizing antibodies against numerous heterologous H1N1 influenza viruses as shown in the microneutralization assay. Additionally, both Th1- and Th2-biased cellular immune responses were elicited, with the Th1-biased response being stronger. Two doses of the H1c-mRNA-LNP vaccine could neutralize a panel of heterologous H1N1 influenza viruses and could confer protection in mice. Taken together, these findings suggest that the H1c-mRNA-LNP vaccine encoding a consensus full-length HA is a feasible strategy for developing a cross-protective vaccine against a panel of heterologous H1N1 influenza viruses.

Background There is currently no specific equation for estimating glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in Chinese children with chronic kidney disease (CKD). The commonly used equations are less robust than expected; we therefore sought to derive more appropriate equations for GFR estimation. Methods A total of 751 Chinese children with CKD were divided into 2 groups, training group (n = 501) and validation group (n = 250). In the training group, a univariate linear regression model was used to calculate predictability of variables associated with GFR. Residuals were compared to determine multivariate predictability of GFR in the equation. Standard regression techniques for Gaussian data were used to determine coefficients of GFR-estimating equations after logarithmic transformation of measured GFR (iGFR), height/serum creatinine (height/Scr), cystatin C, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), and height. These were compared with other well-known equations using the validation group. Results Median .sup.99mTc-DTPA GFR was 90.1 (interquartile range: 67.3-108.6) mL/min/1.73 m.sup.2 in training dataset. Our CKD equation, eGFR (mL/min/1.73 m.sup.2) = 91.021 [height(m)/Scr(mg/dL)/2.7].sup.0.443 [1.2/Cystatin C(mg/L)].sup.0.335 [13.7/BUN (mg/dL)].sup.-0.095 [ 0.991.sup.male] [height(m)/1.4].sup.0.275, was derived. This was further tested in the validation group, with percentages of eGFR values within 30% and 15% of iGFR (P30 and P15) of 76.00% and 48.40%, respectively. For centres with no access to cystatin C, a creatinine-based equation, eGFR (mL/min/1.73 m.sup.2) = 89.674 [height(m)/Scr(mg/dL)/2.7].sup.0.579 [ 1.007.sup.male] [height(m)/1.4].sup.0.187, was derived, with P30 and P15 73.60% and 49.20%, respectively. These were significantly higher compared to other well-known equations (p < 0.05). Conclusion We developed equations for GFR estimation in Chinese children with CKD based on Scr, BUN and cystatin C. These are more accurate than commonly used equations in this population., Author(s): Ying Tang [sup.1] , Ling Hou [sup.1] , Tingting Sun [sup.1] , Shanping Li [sup.1] , Junli Cheng [sup.1] , Dan Xue [sup.1] , Xiuli Wang [sup.1] , Yue [...]

The automatic detection and identification of tunnel cracks is very important for safe driving and tunnel maintenance. In order to accelerate the application of automated detection and reduce the deployment cost of target detection algorithm on edge devices, this paper adopts non-destructive testing and proposes a lightweight Mini-YOLOv5s algorithm for small target crack detection in tunnels, which mainly includes DP-C3 module, GDConv module, ECA-C3 module, CARAFE lightweight upsampling operator and loss function IGIoU. Among them, the DP-C3 module uses PConv to reduce the computational complexity of the model, and uses dilated convolution to enrich the receptive field to improve the information loss. The GDConv module improves the feature extraction capability of deep information. The feature fusion of small crack target information is realised by using ECA-C3 module and CARAFE lightweight up-sampling operator. A new loss function IGIoU is used to pay more attention to the contact degree of the boundary frame, so as to minimise the loss and improve the detection accuracy. Experiments show that the detection accuracy of Mini-YOLOv5s on self-made tunnel crack dataset reaches 91%, which compensates for the information loss, while the number of model parameters and GFLOPs are reduced by 35.4% and 30.4% respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to investigate the clinical application of free/total prostate-specific antigen (F/T PSA) ratio, considering the new broad serum total PSA (T-PSA) “gray zone” of 2.0–25.0 ng ml−1 in differential diagnosis of prostate cancer (PCa) and benign prostate diseases (BPD) in men over 50 years in Western China. A total of 1655 patients were included, 528 with PCa and 1127 with BPD. Serum T-PSA, free PSA (F-PSA), and F/T PSA ratio were analyzed. Receiver operating characteristic curves were used to assess the efficiency of PSA and F/T PSA ratio. There were 47.4% of cancer patients with T-PSA of 2.0–25.0 ng ml−1. When T-PSA was 2.0–4.0 ng ml−1, 4.0–10.0 ng ml−1, and 10.0–25.0 ng ml−1, the area under the curve (AUC) of F/T PSA ratio was 0.749, 0.769, and 0.761, respectively. The best AUC of F/T PSA ratio was 0.811 when T-PSA was 2.0–25.0 ng ml−1, with a specificity of 0.732, a sensitivity of 0.788, and an optimal cutoff value of 15.5%. The AUC of F/T PSA ratio in different age groups (50–59 years, 60–69 years, 70–79 years, and ≥80 years) was 0.767, 0.806, 0.815, and 0.833, respectively, and the best sensitivity (0.857) and specificity (0.802) were observed in patients over 80 years. The T-PSA trend was in accordance with the Gleason score, tumor node metastasis (TNM) stage, and American Joint Committee on Cancer prognosis group. Therefore, the F/T PSA ratio can facilitate the differential diagnosis of PCa and BPD in the broad T-PSA “gray zone”. Serum T-PSA can be a Gleason score and prognostic indicator.

In order to achieve the non-destructive testing and quality evaluation of stainless-steel resistance spot welding (RSW) joints, a portable ultrasonic spiral C-scan testing instrument was developed based on the principle of ultrasonic pulse reflection. A mathematical model for the quality evaluation of RSW joints was established, and the centroid of the ultrasonic C-scan image in the nugget zone of the RSW was determined based on the principle of static moment. The longest and shortest axes passing through the centroid in the image were extracted, and the ratio of the longest axis to the shortest axis (RLS) factor and the average of axis (AOA) factor were calculated, respectively, to evaluate the quality of the joint. To study the effectiveness of the detection results, tensile tests, and stereo analysis were conducted on the solder joints after sampling. The results indicate that this detection method can realize online detection and significantly improve the detection efficiency; the detection value of internal defect size is close to the true value with an error of 0.1 mm; the combination of RLS and AOA factors can be used to evaluate the mechanical properties of RSW joints. This technology can be used to solve the NDT, evaluate problems of RSW joints, and realize engineering applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban land serves as the medium for urban economic and residential activity. The degree of intensive and efficient use of urban land and the coordinated growth of the economy and society are significantly impacted by utilization efficiency. Northwest China's temperature, geography, water, and soil characteristics make less of the region suited for urban development. Thus, it is imperative to investigate Northwest China's urban land use efficiency (ULUE). This study applies the efficiency loss model to highlight the discrepancy between the optimal and actual values of each input-output variable of the ULUE, and uses the Super-SBM model to compute the ULUE of 39 cities. Additionally, the internal driving elements of the ULUE are examined using the Global Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) index. This study discovered that Northwest China had a low ULUE, with a modest upward trend seen between 2004 and 2018. The overall shape of the region was similar to an 'N' curve, with high efficiency values concentrated in the southeast of the region in 2018. When considering the agglomeration impact of urban agglomeration, these results are dependable. Moreover, the efficiency loss model discovered that pollution and wasteful resource usage were the main reasons behind the drop in ULUE in Northwest China. Finally, the GML index and its constituents revealed that the main force behind ULUE's growth in Northwest China is technological developments. This research provides important policy implications for reducing the gap between eastern and western regions, supporting high-quality development in northwest China, and protecting and intensively using urban land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]