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Falls are a serious public health problem in the aging population because of the associated clinical and socioeconomic impact. Although previous studies have investigated fall-risk-increasing drugs (FRIDs), few studies have focused on dosage among adult inpatients. This study aimed to evaluate associations between fall risk and dosage of different FRIDs classes in hospital inpatients. Inpatients who experienced falls at medical or surgical wards of Changhua Christian Hospital from January 2017 to December 2021 were identified and matched by age, sex, and hospital ward to randomly selected controls (four per case). Anonymous patient data were extracted from the hospital medical data repository, including demographic characteristics, comorbidities, fall-risk scores, and drug prescriptions. Medication dosages were computed using the anatomical therapeutic chemical classification and the defined daily dose system of the World Health Organization. A total of 852 cases and 3408 controls were identified as eligible. Reducing the use of CNS-active medications, administering lower doses of sedative-hypnotics, prescribing sufficient dopaminergic anti-Parkinson agents, and using NSAIDs instead of opioids are imperative in preventing falls among hospitalized patients according to the findings in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a respiratory disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has brought an unprecedented public health crisis and continues to threaten humanity due to the persistent emergence of new variants. Therefore, developing more effective and broad-spectrum therapeutic and prophylactic drugs against infection by SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, as well as future emerging CoVs, is urgently needed. In this study, we screened several US FDA-approved drugs and identified phenothiazine derivatives with the ability to potently inhibit the infection of pseudotyped SARS-CoV-2 and distinct variants of concern (VOCs), including B.1.617.2 (Delta) and currently circulating Omicron sublineages XBB and BQ.1.1, as well as pseudotyped SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. Mechanistic studies suggested that phenothiazines predominantly inhibited SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus (PsV) infection at the early stage and potentially bound to the spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2, which may prevent the proteolytic cleavage of the S protein, thereby exhibiting inhibitory activity against SARS-CoV-2 infection. In summary, our findings suggest that phenothiazines can serve as a potential broad-spectrum therapeutic drug for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection as well as the infection of future emerging human coronaviruses (HCoVs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electroactive hydrogels, which exhibit intelligent deformation in response to electric fields, have garnered significant attention as potential actuating materials for flexible sensors, smart devices, soft actuators, and artificial muscles. In the process of converting mechanical energy to electrical energy, electroactive hydrogels can achieve efficient energy conversion and charge transfer due to their porous structure, high water solubility, flexibility, and electrical conductivity. However, the limited performance of single-functional electroactive hydrogels severely hampers their development prospects. To expand the application areas of these gels in self-powered devices, smart response devices, and other directions, there is a need to design electroactive hydrogels with multiple properties. In this paper, we present a systematic review of the mechanism and preparation strategies of electroactive hydrogels in response to electric fields. We also discuss the design strategy for electroactive hydrogels with multiple properties and provide an overview of the current progress in their applications. Furthermore, we analyze the role and advantages of electroactive hydrogels. Finally, we address the existing problems in electroactive hydrogel research and offer suggestions to solve them, and we hope that this design idea will inspire readers and researchers in the field. The article reviews the mechanism behind the generation of electroactive hydrogels and the design strategy of electroactive hydrogels with different properties, and describes the current status and challenges of their application areas. [Display omitted] • Exploring the mechanism and preparation of electroactive hydrogels. • Discussing the significance of electroactive hydrogels in various applications. • Examining the challenges and potential opportunities of electroactive hydrogels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wave energy is considered to be a kind of promising renewable energy due to its high energy density and enormous reserves. This study aims at examining the hydrodynamic performance of the multi-degree of freedom oscillating-buoy Wave Energy Converter (WEC). A three-dimensional numerical wave tank was developed using Star-CCM + software to investigate the interaction of waves with WEC. A mathematical model is built based on the structure of the multi-degree of freedom oscillating-buoy WEC. This paper investigated the variation in the device's energy conversion efficiency for different wave periods and spectral analyses of the motion of the floater. The effect of different elastic and damping coefficients on the device's performance was compared. The results demonstrate that the surge motion is the leading cause of the periodic variation in amplitude of floater motion. Heave motion is the main contributor to energy capture. Wave height has an influence on the contribution of the elastic and damping coefficients to the energy conversion efficiency. • Hydrodynamic performance of the multi-degree of freedom oscillating-buoy wave energy converter (WEC) is investigated. • A mathematical model is built based on the structure of the multi-degree of freedom oscillating-buoy WEC. • The effect of floater motion on the performance of WEC is analyzed. • The influence of PTO Parameters and wave height on Energy Conversion Efficiency is investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Toluene is widely used as a solvent and reactant in a wide range of industrial fields; however, gaseous toluene is toxic to humans, causing severe acute respiratory effects. In this case, Co3O4-based chemiresistive gas sensors are promising candidates for monitoring toluene. However, it is challenging to prepare Co3O4-based sensing materials with good toluene sensing performances on a large-scale. In this study, oxygen vacancy-rich Co3O4 materials were successfully synthesized via the reduction of commercial Co3O4 using NaBH4 as the reducing agent (designated as Co3O4-R), and the oxygen vacancy concentrations in Co3O4-R materials were effectively modulated by regulating the NaBH4 concentration. With an increase in oxygen vacancies, the optimal Co3O4-R-5 samples displayed better sensing performances toward 100 ppm toluene at 190 °C than that of the pristine commercial Co3O4, including an enhanced response value of 3.18 (vs. 1.22 for commercial Co3O4) and fast response time of 48 s and recovery time of 38 s. The combination of band structure analysis and chemisorption analysis indicated that the enhanced toluene sensing performances of Co3O4-R is attributed to the synergistic effect of reducing the band gap and activating the surface oxygen species. This work demonstrates the first utilization of commercial Co3O4 for toluene sensing applications, providing a universal and high-throughput preparation method to prepare gas sensing materials using commercial metal oxides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mycobacterium kansasii infections predominantly manifest in immunocompromised people and are primarily responsible for lung disease and systemic disseminated infection. Osteopathy is a rare consequence of M. kansasii infection. Here, we present imaging data from a 44-year-old immunocompetent Chinese woman diagnosed with multiple bone destruction, particularly of the spine, secondary to M. kansasii pulmonary disease, which is easily misdiagnosed. The patient underwent an emergency operation after experiencing unexpected incomplete paraplegia during hospitalization, indicating an aggravation of bone destruction. Preoperative sputum testing and next-generation sequencing of DNA and RNA of intraoperative samples confirmed the diagnosis of M. kansasii infection. Treatment with anti-tuberculosis therapy and the subsequent patient response supported our diagnosis. Given the rarity of osteopathy secondary to M. kansasii infection in immunocompetent individuals, our case offers some insight into this diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chemical formula of basic zinc chloride is Zn5(OH)8Cl2 · H2O (denoted as ZHC). It is a new type of zinc source additive, widely used in the feed industry. In this article, micron‐sized hexagonal flake ZHC with a diameter of 10–60 µm is directly prepared by ammonia precipitation method using ZnCl2 as raw material. The products are characterized and analyzed by X‐ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and laser particle size analyzer. The effects of reaction temperature, ammonia flow rate, aging time, and reactant concentration on the product morphology are studied. Under the optimum reaction conditions, the ZnCl2 concentration is 2.0 mol L−1, NH3 flow rate is 300 mL min−1, the reaction time is 1 h, the reaction temperature is 80 °C, and the aging time is 5 h. Lastly, the yield reaches 49.06%. The growth habit of ZHC is theoretically analyzed by the Morphology program. The calculation results are in good agreement with the experimental results. The change of (003) crystal plane exposure caused by temperature is an important reason for the non‐ideality of macroscopic morphology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A tremella-like NiCo 2 O 4 @graphene quantum dots (GQDs) composite is prepared where the tremella-like NiCo 2 O 4 is homogeneously encapsulated by GQDs. Herein, the GQDs based on π-conjugated core with abundant edge sites, make NiCo 2 O 4 favorable for advanced electric energy storage (EES). In terms of the synergistic effect between the conductive GQDs and tremella-like NiCo 2 O 4 , the as prepared NiCo 2 O 4 @GQDs composite exhibits an excellent specific capacitance of 1242 F g−1 at 30 A g−1 in 2.0 M KOH electrolytes, much higher than that of pristine NiCo 2 O 4 (790 F g−1 at 30 A g−1). Also, it manifests outstanding cycle stability (99% capacitance retention after 4000 cycles). Furthermore, an asymmetric supercapacitor (ASC) is assembled by pairing NiCo 2 O 4 @GQDs composite as positive electrode and activated carbon (AC) as negative electrode (NiCo 2 O 4 @GQDs//AC), and its specific energy density is as high as 38 W h kg−1 at a power density of 800 W kg−1. Image 1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilient suppliers can reduce supply chain risk, effectively avoid supply chain disruption, and bring profits to enterprises. However, there is no united measuring index system to evaluate the resilient supplier under supply chain environment, and the assessment language sets are usually crisp values. Therefore, in order to fill the research gap, this paper proposes a hybrid method, which combines triangular fuzzy number, the best-worst method (BWM), and the modular TOPSIS in random environments for group decision-making (GMo-RTOPSIS) to solve the above problem. Firstly, the weight of decision-maker is calculated by using fuzzy BWM which can deal with triangular fuzzy numbers. Secondly, triangular fuzzy number is introduced into GMo-RTOPSIS, and combined with fuzzy BWM, alternatives are sorted to select the best resilient supply chain partner. Finally, the feasibility and universality of this method are proved by illustrative examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advancement of mobile crowd sensing systems and vehicular ad hoc networks, the human-carried mobile devices (e.g., smartphones, smart navigators, and smart tablets) equipped with a variety of sensors (such as GPS, accelerometer, and compass) can work together to collect sensory data consequently delivered to the cloud for processing purposes, which supports a wide range of promising applications such as traffic monitoring, path planning, and real-time navigation. To ensure the authenticity and privacy of data, privacy-preserving truth discovery has attracted much attention since it can find reliable information among uneven quality of data collected from mobile users, while protecting both the confidentiality of users’ raw sensory data and reliability. However, these methods always incur tremendous overhead and require all participants to keep online for interacting frequently with the cloud server. In this paper, we design an efficient and privacy-preserving truth discovery (EPTD) approach in mobile crowd sensing systems, which can tolerate users offline at any stage, while guaranteeing practical efficiency and accuracy under working process. More notably, our EPTD is the first solution to resolve the problem that users must be online all times during the truth discovery under a single cloud server setting. Moreover, we design a double-masking protocol to ensure the strong security of users’ privacy even if the cloud server colludes with multiple users. Extensive experiments conducted on real-world mobile crowd sensing systems also demonstrate the high performance of our proposed scheme compared with existing models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenge faced by complex process fault detection is how to adapt the knowledge acquired on a source domain to a new different but related target domain. And the situation of none labeled data in target domain is considered to be more practical and challenging. In this paper, we propose a novel unsupervised domain adaptation approach that reduces distribution shifts for cross-domain fault detection, referred to as Distribution Adaptation and Manifold Alignment (DAMA). In DAMA model, we learn two projection matrices that map the monitoring data of source domain (labeled data) and target domain (unlabeled data) into two low-dimensional subspaces where the distributional shift and structural shift are reduced simultaneously and then establish a monitoring model on the old process by LSSVM to monitor the new process data. The main contributions of the presented approach are as follows: 1) We introduce manifold alignment into unsupervised domain adaptation, which can preserve the neighborhood relationship within each set and make the distance of the corresponding points in the projection coordinates as close as possible. 2) It is also suitable for the complex process with nonlinear trait. 3) To our knowledge, it is a pioneering work to apply domain adaptation methods to the field of fault diagnosis. This method can obtain the results of fault detection and fault diagnosis in the monitoring process simultaneously. The experiments on TE process and real ore grinding-classification process verify the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, by means of numerical simulation and experimental analysis, the performance of the engulfment based annular coaxial powder feeding method and the particle behaviors were studied in the laminar plasma spraying process. First, numerical simulation methods are used to analyze the flow state of the laminar plasma jet and its interaction with the powder particles. Then, the laminar plasma spray was applied to deposit coatings based on the annular coaxial powder feeding method, and the performance of this method was evaluated by observing the coatings. The numerical simulation results show that the powder particles can be fed into the laminar plasma jet without affecting the flow state of the plasma jet, and can be sufficiently heated. The experimental results are consistent with the numerical simulation results. The surface morphologies of the coatings indicates that vapor phase deposition and liquid phase deposition occur simultaneously during the spraying process, and the laminar plasma spray - physical vapor deposition process has the potential to be applied in atmospheric environments. • Engulfment based annular coaxial powder feeding method is applied in laminar plasma spray. • The engulfment of the plasma jet was evaluated and the best feeding rate was confirmed. • The particle melting and evaporating behavior is numerically studied. • Vapor phase and cluster deposition structure can be observed in atmospheric environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to ensure the normal production of industries in an uncertain emergency environment has aroused a lot of concern in society. Selecting the best emergency material suppliers using the multicriteria group decision making (MCGDM) method will ensure the normal production of industries in this environment. However, there are few studies in emergency environments that consider the impact of the decision order of decision makers (DMs) on the decision results. Therefore, in order to fill the research gap, we propose an extended MCGDM method, whose main steps include the following: Firstly, the DMs give their assessment of all alternatives. Secondly, we take the AHP method and entropy weight method to weight the criteria and the DMs. Thirdly, we take the intuitionistic fuzzy hybrid priority weight average (IFHPWA) operator we proposed to aggregate evaluation information and take the TOPSIS method to rank all the alternatives. Finally, the proposed method is applied in a case to prove its practicability and effectiveness. The proposed method considers the influence of the decision order of the DMs on the decision results, which improves the accuracy and efficiency of decision-making results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: Evidence is limited regarding the associations between vitamin D status and microvascular complications in individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D), among whom vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency is particularly common. In this study we aimed to prospectively investigate the associations of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] and vitamin D receptor (VDR) polymorphisms with risk of diabetic microvascular complications. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: This analysis included 14,709 participants with T2D who were free of microvascular complications from the UK Biobank. Incidence of diabetic microvascular complications was ascertained via electronic health records. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs. RESULTS: Median serum 25(OH)D concentration was 40.7 nmol/L (interquartile range 27.5, 56.4). During a median of 11.2 years of follow-up, 1,370 people developed diabetic microvascular complications. Compared with participants with 25(OH)D <25 nmol/L, individuals with 25(OH)D ≥75 nmol/L had a multivariable-adjusted HR of 0.65 (95% CI 0.51, 0.84) for composite diabetic microvascular complications, 0.62 (0.40, 0.95) for diabetic retinopathy, 0.56 (0.40, 0.79) for diabetic nephropathy, and 0.48 (0.26, 0.89) for diabetic neuropathy. In addition, in comparisons with participants with 25(OH)D <25 nmol/L and minor allele homozygotes (TT of rs1544410 and GG of rs731236), the multivariable-adjusted HRs of composite diabetic microvascular complications were 0.54 (0.38, 0.78) and 0.55 (0.38, 0.80) for participants with serum 25(OH)D ≥50 nmol/L and major allele homozygotes (CC and AA), respectively, although no significant interaction was observed. CONCLUSIONS: Higher serum 25(OH)D concentrations were significantly associated with lower risk of diabetic microvascular complications, including diabetic retinopathy, diabetic nephropathy, and diabetic neuropathy. Our findings suggest a potential beneficial role of maintaining adequate vitamin D status in the prevention of diabetic microvascular complications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the recent advance in genome-wide association studies (GWAS), disease-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and copy number variants (CNVs) have been extensively reported. Accordingly, the issue of incorrect identification of recombination events that can induce the distortion of multi-allelic or hemizygous variants has received more attention. However, the potential distorted calculation bias or significance of a detected association in a GWAS due to the coexistence of CNVs and SNPs in the same genomic region may remain under-recognized. Here we performed the association study within a congenital scoliosis (CS) cohort whose genetic etiology was recently elucidated as a compound inheritance model, including mostly one rare variant deletion CNV null allele and one common variant non-coding hypomorphic haplotype of the TBX6 gene. We demonstrated that the existence of a deletion in TBX6 led to an overestimation of the contribution of the SNPs on the hypomorphic allele. Furthermore, we generalized a model to explain the calculation bias, or distorted significance calculation for an association study, that can be ‘induced’ by CNVs at a locus. Meanwhile, overlapping between the disease-associated SNPs from published GWAS and common CNVs (overlap 10%) and pathogenic/likely pathogenic CNVs (overlap 99.69%) was significantly higher than the random distribution (p < 1 × 10−6 and p = 0.034, respectively), indicating that such co-existence of CNV and SNV alleles might generally influence data interpretation and potential outcomes of a GWAS. We also verified and assessed the influence of colocalizing CNVs to the detection sensitivity of disease-associated SNP variant alleles in another adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) genome-wide association study. We proposed that detecting co-existent CNVs when evaluating the association signals between SNPs and disease traits could improve genetic model analyses and better integrate GWAS with robust Mendelian principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Memristor, based on the principle of biological synapse, is recognized as one of the key devices in confronting the bottleneck of classical von Neumann computers. However, conventional memristors are difficult to continuously adjust the conduction and dutifully mimic the biosynapse function. Here, TiO2 films with self-assembled Ag nanoclusters implemented by gradient Ag dopant are employed to achieve enhanced memristor performance. The memristors exhibit gradual both potentiating and depressing conduction under positive and negative pulse trains, which can fully emulate excitation and inhibition of biosynapse. Moreover, comprehensive biosynaptic functions and plasticity, including the transition from short-term memory to long-term memory, long-term potentiation and depression, spike-timing-dependent plasticity, and paired-pulse facilitation, are implemented with the fabricated memristors in this work. The applied pulses with a width of hundreds of nanoseconds timescale are beneficial to realize fast learning and computing. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy observations clearly demonstrate that Ag clusters redistribute to form Ag conductive filaments between Ag and Pt electrode under electrical field at ON-state device. The experimental data confirm that the oxides doped with Ag clusters have the potential for mimicking biosynaptic behavior, which is essential for the further creation of artificial neural systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The delivery time of order has become an important fact for customers to evaluate logistics services. Due to the diverse and large quantities of orders in the background of electronic commerce, how to improve the flexibility of distribution hub and reduce the waiting time of customers becomes one of the most challenging questions for logistics companies. With this in mind, this paper proposes a new method of flexibility assessment in distribution hub by introducing cost weighted time (CWT). The advantages of supply hub operation mode in delivery flexibility are verified by the approach: the mode has pooling effects and uniform distribution characteristics; these traits can reduce overlapping delivery time to improve the flexibility in the case of two suppliers. Numerical examples show that the supply hub operation mode is more flexible than decentralized distribution operation mode in multidelivery cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report controllable assembly of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) for patterning of silver microstructures. The assembly is induced by femtosecond laser direct writing (FsLDW). A tightly focused femtosecond laser beam is capable of trapping and driving Ag NPs to form desired micropatterns with a high resolution of ∼190 nm. Taking advantage of the ‘direct writing’ feature, three microelectrodes have been integrated with a microfluidic chip; two silver-based microdevices including a microheater and a catalytic reactor have been fabricated inside a microfluidic channel for chip functionalization. The FsLDW-induced programmable assembly of Ag NPs may open up a new way to the designable patterning of silver microstructures toward flexible fabrication and integration of functional devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To investigate patients' preference and the attitude towards physician attire in an internal medicine clinic in China. Methods. This study was conducted from 1 January 2021 to 30 June 2021 in a tertiary care hospital in China. We surveyed 126 patients in the hospital with 6 sets of pictures of commonly worn physician attires in the hospital setting with a two-part questionnaire. The first part listed respondent demographics to collect basic information. The second part of the questionnaire was administered to adult patients who received care in the internal medicine clinics (outpatients). Survey forms collected demographic data (age, gender, patient age, education, marital status, and employment status), asked questions regarding 6 specific attires (scrubs, scrubs and white coat, casual, casual and white coat, business suit, and formal and white coat), and behavioral items (professional, responsible, reliable, knowledgeable, succession rate, and medical safety), finally, to assess the preference of attire on overall perception. Results. Scrubs and white coat scored the highest through 6 domains about physicians' attire (professional, reliable, responsible, knowledgeable, medical safety, and succession rate, p < 0.05 for all comparisons). A casual suit without a white coat was the least preferred across the surveyed attributes. There was a significant preference gap between wearing a white coat and not wearing a white coat (p < 0.001). Physician attire to white coat was considered as more professional, reliable, responsible, knowledgeable, having greater medical safety, and a higher success rate than attires without white coat. Conclusion. Patients felt that the physician wearing a white coat was better than other attires. Scrubs and white coat was the most popular attire. Hospital or related authorities may promote the standardized wearing of white coats, leading in a greater patient-physician relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the growing demand for energy, oil extraction under complicated geological conditions is increasing. Herein, oil displacement by CO2 in wedge-shaped pores was investigated by molecular dynamics simulation. The results showed that, for both single and double wedge-shaped models, pore Ⅱ (pore size from 3 to 8 nm) exhibited a better CO2 flooding ability than pore Ⅰ (pore size from 8 to 3 nm). Compared with slit-shaped pores (3 and 8 nm), the overall oil displacement efficiency followed the sequence of 8 nm > double pore Ⅱ > single pore Ⅱ > 3 nm > double pore Ⅰ > single pore Ⅰ, which confirmed that the exits of the wedge-shaped pores had determinant effects on CO2 enhanced oil recovery over their entrances. "Oil/CO2 inter-pore migration" and "siphoning" phenomena occurred in wedge-shaped double pores by comparing the volumes of oil/CO2 and the center of mass. The results of the interaction and radial distribution function analyses indicate that the wide inlet and outlet had a larger CO2–oil contact surface, better phase miscibility, higher interaction, and faster displacement. These findings clarify the CO2 flooding mechanisms in wedge-shaped pores and provide a scientific basis for the practical applications of CO2 flooding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By pyrolyzed the products from hydrothermal reaction of 1, 4, 5, 8‐naphthalene tetramethyl anhydride, NaOH and FeSO4, the nanoparticles of FeFe2O4 were produced, and then its electrochemical performance of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) was evaluated in O2 saturated 0.1 M KOH solution. The results indicated that, among all the as‐prepared samples, FeFe2O4‐0.50 was mainly composed of uniformly dispersed spherical nanoparticles of 20‐30nm and behaved the best ORR catalytic performance. Its half‐wave potential and limiting diffusion current density was 0.61 V and −1.85 mA cm−2@0.4 V vs. RHE), respectively, higher about 20 mV and 1.29 mA cm−2 than that of FeFe2O4 (0.59 V and −0.56 mA cm−2@0.4 V vs. RHE). In addition, FeFe2O4‐0.50 also showed stronger stability as well as methanol/CO tolerance than that of commercial 20 % Pt/C. It was the evenly dispersed FeFe2O4 nanoscale and Fe−O bond in FeFe2O4‐0.50 that contributed its excellent electrochemical performance and tolerance for CO and methanol. The as‐prepare FeFe2O4‐0.50 might be a potential alternative catalyst for ORR in fuel cell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are emerging adsorbent materials for CO2 capture and separation due to their tunable pore size, periodic permutation, and chemical thermal stability. Herein, four functionalized 3D COF‐300s (COF‐300‐X, X = –SO3H, –NO2, –OH, and –NH2) for CO2 adsorption and separation are studied by using density functional theory and grand canonical Monte Carlo simulation. The results show that four functionalized COF‐300s could create a feasible environment for CO2 adsorption with high accessible surface area, suitable pore size, and high porosity. The CO2 adsorption capacity in COF‐300s could be significantly improved by functionalization. In comparison, the best performing COF‐300‐SO3H shows a superior CO2 adsorption capacity of 6.23 mmol g−1 and a high CO2/N2 selectivity of 393 at 298 K and 100 kPa. The adsorption heat and interaction analyses demonstrate that the CO2 affinity in COF‐300s is enhanced by the introduction of polar functional groups, which renders great CO2 adsorption and separation performances. The gas distribution shows that the adsorption sites are concentrated near the functional groups and the distribution of CO2 in COF‐300‐SO3H has a characteristic of multilayer adsorptions. This work highlights COF‐300‐SO3H as an outperforming adsorbent candidate for CO2 capture and separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The long chain non-coding RNA HOXA11-OS was recently identified. Increasing studies have shown that HOXA11-OS has regulatory effects on genes in gastric cancer, prostate cancer, and various kidney diseases, but research on its role in systemic lupus erythematosus is still lacking. The present study aimed to investigate the role of HOXA11-OS in the regulation of podocyte autophagy in the development of lupus nephritis (LN) and its potential molecular mechanism. Methods: mRNA and protein expression of the target gene (i.e., Cyr61) was detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, western blotting, and immunofluorescence. Mouse podocytes were induced using serum immunoglobulin G (IgG) from patients with lupus and their viability was detected using the cell counting kit-8 assay. The interaction of miR-124-3p with HOXA11-OS and Cyr61 was analyzed by double luciferase reporter gene assay. Serum autoantibody levels were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Pathological lesions in the kidney tissue were detected by hematoxylin–eosin and periodate-Schiff staining. The independent samples t-test was used for comparing two groups, and one-way analysis of variance for comparing multiple groups. Results: HOXA11-OS was highly expressed in LN tissues, serum, and cells, and the expression of some key autophagy factors and Cyr61 was significantly increased, while miR-124-3p expression was significantly decreased. In vitro, LN-IgG inhibited podocyte activity, increased autophagy and Cyr61 expression, and aggravated podocyte injury in a time- and dose-dependent manner. As a competitive endogenous RNA of miR-124-3p, HOXA11-OS promoted the expression of Cyr61, thus enhancing the autophagy increase induced by LN-IgG and aggravating podocyte injury. Knockdown of HOXA11-OS had the opposite effect. miR-124-3p mimic or Cyr61 knockdown restored the high expression of autophagy factors and Cyr61 induced by HOXA11-OS overexpression and alleviated podocyte injury. Further in vivo experiments showed that injection of sh-HOXA11-OS adeno-associated virus downregulated HOXA11-OS and significantly alleviated renal damage in lupus mice. Conclusions: HOXA11-OS is involved in the occurrence and development of LN by regulating podocyte autophagy through miR-124-3p/Cyr61 sponging, which may provide a good potential therapeutic target for LN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The RRAM-based accelerators have become very popular candidates for neural network acceleration due to they perform matrix-vector multiplication in-memory with high storage density and low latency. Many related works have used fixed-precision quantization to achieve the model compression and enhance the tolerance of process variation, but these methods still suffer a large accuracy degradation and poor robustness to nonideal effects. In this work, we propose a crossbar-aware mixed-precision quantization scheme, which enables to search for the optimal precision of each part of the network as a way to improve the accuracy and robustness to noise. First, we introduce a group quantization strategy that can flexibly adjust the group size dynamically according to the crossbar size. Then, we propose a detailed mixed-precision search flow to search for the optimal precision set of the network. Finally, we give a noise injection adaption training method to enhance the tolerance of noise. Experimental results show that our proposed method can improve inference accuracy by at least 2.04% compared to the fixed-precision quantization under the same resource cost. The searched architecture with the highest accuracy most accurate (MA) could achieve an accuracy of 92.39% and a resource saving of 93.30% compared to the full precision model. The searched architecture with the biggest resource savings most efficient (ME) could achieve an accuracy of 91.11% and a resource saving of 95.57% compared to the full precision model. And, the average precision of the ME mixed-precision architecture is only 1.4 bits. Besides, the results show the mixed-precision network with noise adaption training is more robust to noise than the fixed-precision network with noise adaption training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the effective ways to improve the electrochemical performance of supercapacitors is to fabricate a combined electric double layer capacitor (EDLC)-pseudocapacitance system. In this study, we synthesized the composite material FeCo 2 O 4 @PC by hydrothermal method, which can enhance the electrochemical performance of supercapacitors by the synergetic effect of EDLC and pseudocapacitance mechanisms. A series of physical characterizations including X-ray diffractometer (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used to demonstrate the successful compositing of FeCo 2 O 4 @PC. And FeCo 2 O 4 @PC was used for the testing of supercapacitor and the electrochemical performance was evaluated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galvanostatic charge-discharge (GCD). The results show that the composite FeCo 2 O 4 @PC-5 possesses larger specific capacitance and excellent rate capability. This further confirms that the composite of the two materials can overcome their respective shortcomings and improve the overall capacitive performance of the electrode. The composite electrode material FeCo 2 O 4 @PC has great application potential and prospects in the field of supercapacitors. [Display omitted] • In composite material FeCo 2 O 4 @PC, PC and FeCo 2 O 4 are tightly combined. • FeCo 2 O 4 @PC can enhance specific capacitance and rate capabilities of supercapacitor. • The C s of FeCo 2 O 4 @PC electrode is up to 1046.4 F g−1 at a current density of 2 A g−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, a two-step electrodepostion method was carried out for in situ growth of Ag metal-reduced graphene oxide-carbon nanotube on indium tin oxide (Ag-rGO-CNT/ITO). Firstly, rGO-CNT hybrids have been synthesized on ITO electrode by electrodeposition of GO-CNT dispersion, and then, Ag metal has been deposited on the surface of rGO-CNT/ITO by the electrodeposition method. Combining unique properties of rGO-CNT hybrids and excellent catalytic activity of Ag metal, Ag-rGO-CNT/ITO exhibits good catalytic activity for electrocatalytic reduction of hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ). The non-enzymatic H 2 O 2 sensor based on Ag-rGO-CNT/ITO electrode shows the linear detection range about 0.05–1.40 mM (R = 0.999), and the detection limit is estimated to be 1.32 μM at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. Furthermore, the Ag-rGO-CNT/ITO electrode exhibits good anti-interference capability, compared to other interferences such as ascorbic acid, dopamine, uric acid, NaNO 3 , NaNO 2 and glucose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past few years, protein hydrogels have attracted more and more attention due to their unique physical, chemical and biological properties. They have a more complex molecular structure than traditional polymer hydrogels, which leads to special properties like excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability and responsiveness. The proteins used to construct hydrogels have similar structure and function with proteins in human body, which is an excellent bio-derived material with potential biological activities. Therefore, through the study of the flexible and diverse assembly mechanism of protein hydrogels, we can understand their special properties. This allows it to be used to construct rich and diverse biomaterials with a wide range of application prospect. In this review, we summarized the research progress of protein hydrogels. The different assembly mechanisms were briefly described, including self-assembly and co-assembly. Then we introduced properties based on protein, including responsiveness, adhesion property, biocompatibility, conductivity, self-healing and mechanical property. In addition, the applications of protein hydrogels in wound dressings, drug delivery, bioadhesion, and biosensing were reviewed. Finally, we summarized the current challenges in the field of protein hydrogels. The future development prospects in biomedicine, tissue repair, biosensing and so on were also prospected. [Display omitted] • Different assembly mechanisms of protein hydrogels were introduced. • Properties of protein hydrogels were summarized in detail. • Biological applications of protein hydrogels were elaborated. • Superiority of protein hydrogels compared to other hydrogels was described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability, as a trend of social development and the embodiment of corporate social responsibility, has begun to receive more attention. To achieve this goal, sustainable supplier selection (SSS) and order allocation (OA) are seen as the crucial activities in corporate management. In the process of SSS, the psychological behavior of decision-makers (DMs) could play a critical role in the evaluation results. Therefore, introducing it into the decision-making process may lead to decision in line with the actual situation. In the uncertain multi-criteria group decision-making (MCGDM) problem described by probability linguistic term sets (PLTS), the DMs can evaluate the criteria of each supplier based on his own preference and hesitation, which is useful to avoid the loss of information. For this reason, this study develops a novel multi-criteria group decision-making combined with fuzzy multi-objective optimization (MCGDM-FMOO) model for SSS/OA problems by considering the triple bottom line (TBL) in which includes economic, environmental and social factors. The proposed method includes four stages. (1) the best-worst method (BWM) and entropy weight method are utilized to assign the weights of criteria to obtain the comprehensive weight. According to the output weights, the an acronym for interactive and multi-criteria decision-making in Portugese (TODIM) approach is applied to rank the suppliers under PLTS environment; (2) a FMOO model that can effectively deal with uncertainties and dynamic nature of parameter is formulated for allocating optimal order quantities; (3) two novel approaches are utilized to solve the FMOO model in order to obtain the richer Pareto frontier; and (4) the final OA solution is achieved by technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method. Finally, the validity and practicability of proposed MCGDM-FMOO model are verified by an example and comparative analysis with other classical MCGDM methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The non-ideal characteristics at the interfaces of anti-ferroelectric (AFE) film and electrodes will greatly affect the potential performance in the way to embedded dynamic random-access memory applications. In this paper, we have proposed a high-performance AFE TiN/HfxZr1−xO2/TiN capacitor fabricated by fully atomic layer deposition grown and alcohol-thermal high-pressure annealing methods that have been employed to avoid exposure to the ambient atmosphere and cure the interface defects induced by the inevitable oxidization of electrodes. Due to the high improvement of the interface quality, the capacitors based on ultra-thin (∼6 nm) AFE film show competitive memory performances, such as low operating voltage (−0.6/1.8 V), high speed (10 ns), long retention time (103 s), and high endurance (1012). The final benchmark demonstrates that the proposed AFE TiN/HfxZr1−xO2/TiN capacitor is a promising candidate toward the next generation high-speed and high-density embedded memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the CW laser is used as a local heat source to simulate the extreme thermal environment generated by shock wave interference at discontinuities in spacecraft. The ablation behavior of the thermal protection material (C/SiC) is investigated under the combined impact of high-temperature airflow and the local extreme heat source. A novel multi-field coupling numerical computation software was presented to examine this strong coupling process of fluid-solid-thermal-ablation. The program was modified using the ALE + umeshmotion ablation calculation method in the ABAQUS software to mimic the process of the material's ablative boundary retreating under the action of the CW laser until the target was perforated. ANSYS Fluent software was used to do the numerical analysis of the high-speed airflow. The results of wind tunnel experiments and numerical simulations indicate that, compared to the effect of local heat sources in static air, irregular ablation pits are formed on the material surface under the action of local heat sources in high-temperature flow fields, resulting in higher ablation rates due to mechanical denudation effects. Analysis of the localization characteristics of the flow field near the ablation pit reveals that the shock wave generated downstream of the ablation pit leads to an increase in gas temperature, pressure, and density. When the ablation amount reaches a certain threshold, the gas in the ablation pit forms vortices, leading to an increase in local heat flow and pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two-dimensional conjugated aromatic polymer with S/P substitutions demonstrated significant balance of H 2 permeance and selectivities over CO 2 /CO/N 2 /CH 4 via the effects of pore size and gas-membrane interaction. [Display omitted] • High cohesive energies confirm high structural stabilities of CAP-1S/CAP-1P. • CAP-1P exhibits almost complete H 2 selectivity with high H 2 permeance. • S/P substitution creates large pore sizes and strong gas-membrane interactions. • The interaction and pore size render efficient H 2 purification jointly. Based on two-dimensional conjugated aromatic polymer (2D-CAP), CAP-1S/CAP-1P monolayers were designed by substituting N with S/P atoms for H 2 purification. By using MD and DFT approaches, the H 2 purification performance and separation mechanisms of CAP-1S/CAP-1P membranes were investigated. Results showed that ultrahigh H 2 permeances of 3.546 × 10−5 and 2.593 × 10−4 mol m−2 s−1 Pa−1 were obtained in CAP-1S/CAP-1P, which were almost 104–105 times larger than the industrially acceptable standard. The selectivities of H 2 over CO 2 /CO/CH 4 /N 2 ranged from 5.719 × 1018 to 3.683 × 1039 in CAP-1S and 4.554 × 1013 to 2.153 × 1033 in CAP-1P. From a statistic viewpoint, the CAP-1S/CAP-1P membranes exhibited complete selectivities of H 2 over CO 2 /CO/CH 4 /N 2. The cohesive energies confirmed the high stabilities of CAP-1S/CAP-1P membranes. The minimum energy pathways, energy profiles, electron density, and charge density difference were analyzed to illustrate the significant impact of precise pore size on the H 2 separation performance. From a statistic mechanics view, the interaction between gases and CAP-1S/CAP-1P membranes indicated that the long-range Coulomb interactions dominated the gas diffusion processes. Results of this work highlighted CAP-1P as a promising H 2 separation membrane and elucidated the promotion mechanism by fine-tunning pore size and interaction between gases and membranes to balance the H 2 permeance and selectivity jointly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oleylamine modified Fe(OH) 3 can be converted into α-Fe 2 O 3 in situ during the catalytic reaction and contribute to the viscosity reduction of Shengli extra heavy crude oil. [Display omitted] • Oleylamine modified ferric oxide and ferric hydroxide were synthesized. • The ratio of oleylamine to Fe3+ influences the crystal structure of the catalyst. • Oleylamine modifier contributes to the dispersing of the catalysts in heavy oil. • Oleylamine modified Fe(OH) 3 was converted into α-Fe 2 O 3 during the catalytic reaction. • In-situ formed α-Fe 2 O 3 exhibits higher activity for viscosity reduction of heavy oil. Cis-9-Octadecenylamine modified α-Fe 2 O 3 and Fe(OH) 3 nanoparticles were successfully synthesized by using a one-step synthetic method. XRD results revealed that lower ratio of oleylamine to Fe3+ introduce forming hematite phase but higher ratio introduce forming Fe(OH) 3 phase. FTIR, TGA, contact angle, and XPS results indicated that olelyamine were modified on the surface of α-Fe 2 O 3 or Fe(OH) 3. A larger amount of oleylamine modifier is conducive to the dispersion of the catalysts in heavy oil. Oleylamine modified Fe(OH) 3 can be transformed into α-Fe 2 O 3 in situ during the catalytic reaction and shows higher catalytic activity in the viscosity reduction of Shengli extra heavy crude oil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emulsion separation through fibrous media is a popular and complex process, and certain factors significantly affect the separation performance. This research investigates the influence of inlet droplet size distribution and redispersion on quantitative separation efficiency. The gravity settling method was developed to analyze the water droplet size distribution, and a novel grade efficiency curve was used to demonstrate the impact of redispersion. In addition, other critical factors, including specific surface area, bed permeability, degree of saturation, superficial velocity and bed depth were investigated. The results are useful for elucidating emulsion transport in fibrous media and identifying the optimum media and operating conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel NO 2 gas sensor has been constructed using Ag nanoparticles-SnO 2 nanoparticles-reduced graphene oxide (AgNPs-SnO 2 -rGO) hybrids as sensing materials. AgNPs-SnO 2 -rGO hybrids were prepared by a two-step wet-chemical method. Firstly, SnO 2 -rGO hybrids were synthesized by hydrothermal treatment of aqueous dispersion of GO in the presence of SnCl 4 . Then, AgNPs-SnO 2 -rGO hybrids were obtained by in situ reduction of AgNO 3 on the surface of SnO 2 -rGO hybrids. The combined characterizations of UV–vis spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDX), elemental mapping, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Raman spectra were used to investigate the structure of AgNPs-SnO 2 -rGO hybrids. Most importantly, the sensor based on AgNPs-SnO 2 -rGO hybrids exhibits good sensing performance for NO 2 sensing operating at room temperature. For example, the response time and recovery time of the sensor based on AgNPs-SnO 2 -rGO hybrids for 5 ppm NO 2 are 49 s and 339 s, which are much shorter than that of SnO 2 -rGO hybrids (415 s and 740 s), indicating that the sensing performances for NO 2 sensing at room temperature have been tremendously enhanced by introduction of AgNPs into SnO 2 -rGO hybrids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To achieve a drug delivery system combining the programmable long circulation and targeting ability, surface engineering nanoparticles (NPs), having a sandwich structure consisting of a long circulating outmost layer, a targeting middle layer and a hydrophobic innermost core were constructed by mixing a matrix metalloproteinase MMP2 and MMP9-sensitive copolymers (mPEG-Pep-PCL) and folate receptor targeted copolymers (FA–PEG–PCL). Their physiochemical traits including morphology, particle size, drug loading content, and in vitro release profiles were studied. In vitro studies validated that the inhibition efficiency of tumor cells was effectively correlated with NP concentrations. Furthermore, The PEG layer would detach from the NPs due to the up-regulated extracellular MMP2 and MMP9 in tumors, resulting in the exposure of folate to enhance the cellular internalization via folate receptor mediated endocytosis, which accelerated the release rate of CPT in vivo . The antitumor efficacy, tumor targeting ability and bio-distribution of the NPs were examined in a B16 melanoma cells xenograft mouse model. These NPs showed improved tumor target ability and enhanced aggregation of camptothecin (CPT) in tumor site and prominent suppression of tumor growth. Thus this mPEG-Pep-PCL@FA–PEG–PCL core–shell structure NP could be a better candidate for the tumor specific delivery of hydrophobic drug. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic skins (e‐skins) are a promising design paradigm for health care systems and human–machine interactions. Piezoresistive sensors made with simple structures, high sensitivity, mass production methods, light weight, and comfort for long‐term wearing and physiological signal monitoring remain a challenge and are urgently desirable. Here, a breathable and lightweight all‐nanofiber piezoresistive (ANFP) sensor is presented, which is composed of three layers of electrospun nanofibers (NFs). A specific interpenetrating network of conductive polyvinylpyrrolidone NFs coated by polypyrrole (PVP@PPy) and insulating polyacrylonitrile NFs is constructed by controlling the vapor growth position of PPy to enhance the sensitivity. The ANFP sensor can achieve the real‐time monitoring of multiple parts of physiological signals, and a wireless detection system is designed for the online monitoring of human pulses. The NF network endows excellent breathability and heat dissipation to the ANFP sensors during practical application, which ensures comfort and device stability during long‐term wearing. Finally, a pressure sensing array with 5 × 5 pixels is fabricated to demonstrate the potential applications in spatial pressure detection. This work provides a viable strategy to improve the wearability of e‐skins, which can promote health care and human–machine interaction applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although biomass-derived metal-free electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) have garnered increasing attention, their ORR performance is lower than that of commercial 20% Pt/C. To improve their ORR performance, a series of porous carbons with high N contents are prepared by pyrolyzing a mixture of spinach leaf powder and urea at different mass ratios (1:0, 1:5, 1:10, and 1:15) at a high temperature; the resultant materials are labeled as S-850, S-850-5, S-850-10, and S-850-15, respectively. The results indicate that the N contents in the as-synthesized S-850, S-850-5, S-850-10, and S-850-15 products are 5.43, 5.74, 5.93, and 5.93 at%, respectively, which gradually increase with increasing urea contents, while the P and S contents (0.7 and 0.3 at%, respectively) show no change. Among all the as-synthesized products, the sample obtained by the addition of 10 wt.% urea (S-850-10) exhibits the best ORR catalytic performance in an O2-saturated 0.1 M KOH solution with a half-potential of 0.748 V and a diffusion-limited current density of −4.76 mA cm − 2 at 0.4 V. The half-potential and diffusion-limited current density of S-850-10 are improved by 0.53% and 8.61% compared to those of S-850 (0.744 V and −4.35 mA cm − 2 at 0.4 V, respectively). These findings indicate that urea can be used as an N resource to increase the N content of biomass-derived metal-free porous carbon, enhancing its ORR performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three-dimensional reduced graphene oxide (3D-rGO) materials have been successfully prepared by a template-assisted self-assembly method using polystyrene spheres (PSs) as sacrificial templates. PSs-rGO hybrids were prepared by self-assembly of PSs and GO through the π–π interaction, followed by reduction of such hybrids using hydrazine as reducing agent. 3D-rGO materials were obtained after removal of PSs in PSs-rGO hybrids by toluene. The combined characterizations of field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) indicate the successful preparation of 3D-rGO materials. More importantly, 3D-rGO materials thus obtained exhibit good sensing performances for electrochemical detection of dopamine (DA), leading to a high-performance DA sensor. The DA sensor based on 3D-rGO materials has been evidenced to exhibit a better sensing performances than that of rGO and poly-(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP)-stabilizing rGO. Furthermore, differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) indicates that the 3D-rGO-based DA sensor could be effectively used for DA sensing in the presence of ascorbic acid (AA) and uric acid (UA), indicating high selectivity of the DA sensor based on 3D-rGO materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a correction notice for an article titled "Patient Biochemistry and Treatment Need in Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection Across Three Continents: Retrospective Cross-Sectional Cohort Studies." The original article was published without open access, but the error has been resolved and the article is now available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The correction also includes the removal of a duplicate reference and the addition of an affiliation for one of the authors. The publisher, Springer Nature, remains neutral in terms of jurisdictional claims and institutional affiliations. [Extracted from the article]

Background: Lung cancer is a kind of malignancy with high morbidity and mortality worldwide. Paclitaxel (PTX) is the main treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and resistance to PTX seriously affects the survival of patients. However, the underlying mechanism and potential reversing strategy need to be further explored. Methods: We identified ALDH2 as a PTX resistance-related gene using gene microarray analysis. Subsequently, a series of functional analysis in cell lines, patient samples and xenograft models were performed to explore the functional role, clinical significance and the aberrant regulation mechanism of ALDH2 in PTX resistance of NSCLC. Furthermore, the pharmacological agents targeting ALDH2 and epigenetic enzyme were used to investigate the diverse reversing strategy against PTX resistance. Results: Upregulation of ALDH2 expression is highly associated with resistance to PTX using in vitro and in vivo analyses of NSCLC cells along with clinicopathological analyses of NSCLC patients. ALDH2-overexpressing NSCLC cells exhibited significantly reduced PTX sensitivity and increased biological characteristics of malignancy in vitro and tumor growth and metastasis in vivo. EHMT2 (euchromatic histone lysine methyltransferase 2) inhibition and NFYA (nuclear transcription factor Y subunit alpha) overexpression had a cooperative effect on the regulation of ALDH2. Mechanistically, ALDH2 overexpression activated the RAS/RAF oncogenic pathway. NSCLC/PTX cells re-acquired sensitivity to PTX in vivo and in vitro when ALDH2 was inhibited by pharmacological agents, including the ALDH2 inhibitors Daidzin (DZN)/Disulfiram (DSF) and JIB04, which reverses the effect of EHMT2. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that ALDH2 status can help predict patient response to PTX therapy and ALDH2 inhibition may be a promising strategy to overcome PTX resistance in the clinic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The α-Fe 2 O 3 /SnO 2 -RGO-15 possessed a competitive sensing performance with a high response of 7.4 towards 1 ppm NO 2 at room temperature. [Display omitted] As promising sensing materials, reduced graphene oxide (RGO)-based nanomaterials have drawn considerable attention in the fields of gas monitoring owing to their low operating temperature. However, constructing RGO-based room-temperature gas sensors possessing ppb-level limit of detection with high sensitivity remains challenging. In this work, a series of highly sensitive NO 2 sensors were fabricated using α-Fe 2 O 3 and SnO 2 co-decorated RGO hybrids (designated as α-Fe 2 O 3 /SnO 2 -RGO) as sensing materials. They were rationally synthesized by a one-pot hydrothermal method. Compared to SnO 2 modified RGO hybrids (SnO 2 -RGO with bandgap of 3.88 eV), the bandgap energy of α-Fe 2 O 3 /SnO 2 -RGO hybrids (3.53 eV) was reduced by adding α-Fe 2 O 3; the narrower bandgap facilitated the sensing materials to release more electrons and form more oxygen ions at room temperature. Besides, the high carrier migration of RGO, which served as continuous phase, identical structure with ultrasmall particle size of α-Fe 2 O 3 and SnO 2 (about 3–6 nm), and abundant chemisorbed oxygen species on the surface (20.8%) of the sensing materials, as well as their suitable bandgap (3.53 eV) in the sensing materials, significantly improved NO 2 response at room temperature. Among the sensors fabricated, α-Fe 2 O 3 /SnO 2 -RGO-15-based NO 2 sensor had the highest response of 7.4 with a short response time of 59 s towards 1 ppm NO 2 ; it could even reach a response of 2.6 towards 100 ppb NO 2. Notably, α-Fe 2 O 3 /SnO 2 -RGO-15 sample has excellent capability to recognize NO 2 , where the response value (7.4) towards 1 ppm NO 2 is about 7 times higher than that of 100 ppm ammonia and common volatile organic compounds (formaldehyde, toluene, ethanol and acetone). Such NO 2 sensor has superior repeatability with negligible response deviation towards 1 ppm NO 2 for four reversible cycles. This makes it to have a great potential application in the field of NO 2 detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the internal mechanism of CO2 adsorption and separation of COF adsorbent materials is of great significance for high-efficiency carbon capture and storage (CCS). Herein, polyarylether-based covalent organic frameworks (PAE-COFs) structures with functionalized –CN, –COOH, and –C(NH2)NOH groups were evaluated for CO2 adsorption and separation over N2 by using grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulation and density functional theory (DFT). Our calculation results showed that the adsorption and separation performance of CO2 in COF frameworks was related to the physical characteristics of pores, the types of gas molecules, and the interaction between COFs and gas molecules. JUC-505 modified by –CN functional group provided a feasible microporous environment with moderate specific surface area and porosity, presenting a high CO2 adsorption capacity of 5.14 mmol/g at 273 K and 1 bar. The PAE-COFs structures had good CO2/N2 separation performance, in which the CO2/N2 selectivity of JUC-505-COOH reached up to 90 at 273 K and 1 bar. Interactions analysis showed that the van der Waals and Coulomb interactions between CO2 and the framework were significantly stronger than those between N2 and the framework. Therefore, CO2 had a higher adsorption heat, which led to the larger adsorption capacity and the high selectivity of CO2 over N2. The gas radial distribution functions and 2D density distribution displayed that the CO2 adsorption corresponded to a multi-layer adsorption in frameworks, leading to the high performances of PAE-COFs for CO2 capture and separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydropower generation is an important part of global renewable energy development. The vertical axis hydrokinetic turbine (VAHT) is a typical device to capture the kinetic energy of water. The optimization of its hydrodynamic performance can improve power coefficient. In this study, the Taguchi method was used to optimize the typical parameters of the vertical axis turbine, i.e., airfoil (NACA), pitch angle (β), enwinding ratio (ϖ), solidity ratio (σ), and small shaft position (O). An orthogonal array with five parameters and four levels was established; then, sixteen runs were simulated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software. A signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio analysis of the CFD simulation results was carried out, and the hydrodynamic performance of the optimized VAHT was studied. The results show that the influence strength order of each parameter on the power coefficient of the VAHT is featured by the relation NACA > σ > O > ϖ > β. According to the S/N ratio, the optimal combination of the five factors is as follows: NACA = 0020, β = 0°, ϖ = 1.25, σ = 0.382, and O = 0.5. In comparison with the initial design, the optimized minimum self-starting torque coefficient of the turbine is increased by 15.9%, which means that the self-starting performance is optimized. The power coefficient (C P) of optimized turbine is 0.1951, which is 17.59% higher than in the initial design, and the power coefficient fluctuation is 87.56% lower. Finally, the research findings could provide a reference for the optimal design of vertical axis turbines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The bats skin microbiota plays an important role in reducing pathogen infection, including the deadly fungal pathogen Pseudogymnoascus destructans, the causative agent of white‐nose syndrome. However, the dynamic of skin bacterial communities response to environmental perturbations remains poorly described. We characterized skin bacterial community over time and space in Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, a species with high resistance to the infection with P. destructans. We collected environmental covariate data to determine what factors influenced changes in community structure. We observed significant temporal and spatial shifts in the skin bacterial community, which was mainly associated with variation in operational taxonomic units. The skin bacterial community differed by the environmental microbial reservoirs and was most influenced by host body condition, bat roosting temperature and geographic distance between sites, but was not influenced by pathogen infection. Furthermore, the skin microbiota was enriched in particular taxa with antifungal abilities, such as Enterococcus, Burkholderia, Flavobacterium, Pseudomonas, Corynebacterium and Rhodococcus. And specific strains of Pseudomonas, Corynebacterium and Rhodococcus even inhibited P. destructans growth. Our findings provide new insights in characterizing the variation in bacterial communities can inform us about the processes of driving community assembly and predict the host's ability to resist or survive pathogen infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] The metal oxides-based chemiresitive gas sensors have attracted enormous interest because of their exellent sensing perforamcnes, which have emerged as very promising candidates for gas monitoring. However, from the view of organophosphorus compounds detection, a unique combination of low detection limit and fast respons/recovery rate remains challenging. Herein, the synersgitic effects of oxygen vacancy engineering and surface gold decoration enabling excellent sensing performances for detection of dimethyl methyl phosphonate (DMMP, a typical organophosphorus) is reported. To demonstrate the proof of concept, Au nanoparticles (NPs) decorated oxygen vacancy-enriched SnO 2 hybrids (designated as Au-O-SnO 2) were designed as sensing materials, where the O-SnO 2 samples were fabricated by introduction of oxygen vacancies onto commercial SnO 2 through organometallic chemistry-assisted approach using (CH 3) 2 SnCl 2 as precursor, followed by deposition of Au NPs by an in-situ reduction routine. After optimizing Au NPs content in hybrids (1 wt%, 3 wt%, 5 wt% and 7 wt%), O-SnO 2 decorated with 5 wt% Au NPs (designated as Au-O-SnO 2 -5) exhibits excellent DMMP sensing performances, such as, an enhanced recoverable response of 1.67 to 680 ppb DMMP, low detection limit of 4.8 ppb, short response time of 26 s and recovery time of 32 s, as well as good selectivity, which are much better than that of commercial SnO 2 (C-SnO 2) and O-SnO 2 , and Au NPs decorated C-SnO 2. Based on the detailed investigation, the enhanced DMMP sensing performances of Au-O-SnO 2 hybrids can be mainly ascribed to the synergistic effect of increasing surface active sites induced by oxygen vacancies, the chemical and electronic sensitization of Au NPs. As a result, Au-O-SnO 2 -5 hybrids display relatively low activation energy of 24.11 kJ/mol for DMMP oxidization, which is lower than that of O-SnO 2 (35.54 kJ/mol). Our results provide a feasible method for boosting sensing performances for DMMP detection, paving new way for fabrication of metal oxides-based gas sensors for rapid detection of trace organic compounds with complexed structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: White‐nose syndrome, a disease that is caused by the psychrophilic fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans, has threatened several North America bat species with extinction. Recent studies have shown that East Asian bats are infected with P. destructans but show greatly reduced infections. While several factors have been found to contribute to these reduced infections, the role of specific microbes in limiting P. destructans growth remains unexplored. We isolated three bacterial strains with the ability to inhibit P. destructans, namely, Pseudomonas yamanorum GZD14026, Pseudomonas brenneri XRD11711 and Pseudomonas fragi GZD14479, from bats in China. Pseudomonas yamanorum, with the highest inhibition score, was selected to extract antifungal active substance. Combining mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy analyses, we identified the active compound inhibiting P. destructans as phenazine‐1‐carboxylic acid (PCA), and the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) was 50.12 μg ml−1. Whole genome sequencing also revealed the existence of PCA biosynthesis gene clusters. Gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry (GC‐MS) analysis identified volatile organic compounds. The results indicated that 10 ppm octanoic acid, 100 ppm 3‐tert‐butyl‐4‐hydroxyanisole (isoprenol) and 100 ppm 3‐methyl‐3‐buten‐1‐ol (BHA) inhibited the growth of P. destructans. These results support that bacteria may play a role in limiting the growth of P. destructans on bats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self‐rectifying memristor has no need for selector devices, but possesses the one‐way transmission behaviour and multi‐level non‐volatile memory characteristics, which makes it a promising candidate for electronic synapse. In this letter, the authors propose a novel self‐rectifying memristor based on a Pt/Hf0.5Zr0.5O2/TiN structure. The devices show large memory window (104) and high rectifying ratio (104), which can block the sneak current in a passive crossbar array without any additional hardware overhead. Moreover, the devices demonstrate excellent multi‐level states modulation capability, low power consumption, high endurance and long retention. The final benchmark demonstrates that the proposed Pt/Hf0.5Zr0.5O2/TiN self‐rectifying memristor is a promising candidate for electronic synapse application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Naturally abundant seawater mineral was employed to engineer banana pseudostem and bamboo biochars through pyrolysis at different low temperatures for improving their adsorption capabilities for methylene blue (MB) and tetracycline (TC). The adsorption capabilities were greatly enhanced as the biochars were pyrolyzed at 300 °C with 50/1 (mL/g) dosage of seawater to biomass. For instance, the engineered banana pseudostem biochar exhibited 8.00 and 6.54 times higher adsorption capabilities than the corresponding pristine biochar for MB (447.79 mg/g vs 55.96 mg/g) and TC (100.59 mg/g vs 16.75 mg/g) at 25 °C, respectively. The characterization results indicated that a large number of carboxylates, lactone acid salts, and alkoxides were generated on the engineered biochar and a high cation exchange capacity was gained. The adsorption of MB was mainly attributed to cation exchange complying with hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interaction, whereas the adsorption of TC was realized by hydrogen bonding and complexation. [Display omitted] • Oxygen containing groups were regulated by seawater mineral-promoted pyrolysis. • Carboxylates, lactonic salts and alkoxides were massively generated. • High cation exchange capacity was obtained. • High adsorption capabilities were achieved for methylene blue and tetracycline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gastric ulcer (GU) is the injury of the gastric mucosa caused by the stimulation of various pathogenic factors penetrating the deep mucosal muscle layer. An increasing number of studies have shown that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is highly effective in treating GU due to its multitarget, multilevel, and multi-pathway effects. To review the latest research progress in the treatment of GU by TCM, including clinical and experimental studies, focusing on the target and mechanism of action of drugs and providing a theoretical basis for the treatment of GU by natural herbs. Electronic databases (PubMed, Elsevier, Springer, Web of Science, and CNKI) were searched using the keywords "gastric ulcer", "gastric mucosal lesion", "TCM" and or paired with "peptic ulcer" and "natural drugs" for studies published in the last fifteen years until 2023. TCM, including single components of natural products, Chinese patent medicines (CPM), and TCM decoction, is expected to treat GU by regulating various mechanisms, such as redox balance, inflammatory factors, angiogenesis, gastric mucosal protective factors, intestinal flora, apoptosis, and autophagy. We discussed and summarized the mechanism of TCM in the treatment of GU, which provided a sufficient basis for TCM treatment of GU. [Display omitted] • GU is a complex and multifactor process. • TCM has multitarget, multilevel, and multi-pathway effects in treating GU. • This review provided a sufficient basis for TCM treatment of GU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]