Search

Background: Benign prostatic diseases (BPDs), such as benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) and prostatitis, harm the quality of life of affected patients. However, observational studies exploring the association between thyroid function and BPDs have hitherto yielded inconsistent results. In this study, we explored whether there is a causal genetic association between them using Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis. Methods: We used publicly available summary statistics from the Thyroidomics Consortium and 23andMe on thyrotropin (TSH; 54,288 participants), thyroxine [free tetraiodothyronine (FT4); 49,269 participants], subclinical hypothyroidism (3,440 cases and 49,983 controls), overt hypothyroidism (8,000 cases and 117,000 controls), and subclinical hyperthyroidism (1,840 cases and 49,983 controls) to screen for instrumental variables of thyroid function. Results for BPD such as prostatic hyperplasia (13,118 cases and 72,799 controls) and prostatitis (1,859 cases and 72,799 controls) were obtained from the FinnGen study. The causal relationship between thyroid function and BPD was primarily assessed using MR with an inverse variance weighted approach. In addition, sensitivity analyses were performed to test the robustness of the results. Results: We found that TSH [OR (95% CI) = 0.912(0.845-0.984), p =1.8 x 10-2], subclinical hypothyroidism[OR (95% CI) = 0.864(0.810-0.922), p =1.04 x 10-5], and overt hypothyroidism [OR (95% CI) = 0.885 (0.831-0. 944), p =2 x 10-4] had a significant effect on genetic susceptibility to BPH, unlike hyperthyroidism [OR (95% CI) = 1.049(0.990-1.111), p =1.05 x 10-1] and FT4 [OR (95% CI) = 0.979(0.857-1.119), p = 7.59 x 10-1] had no effect. We also found that TSH [OR (95% CI) =0.823(0.700-0.967), p = 1.8 x 10-2] and overt hypothyroidism [OR (95% CI) = 0.853(0.730-0.997), p = 4.6 x 10-2] significantly influenced the prostatitis, whereas FT4 levels [OR (95% CI) = 1.141(0.901-1.444), p = 2.75 x 10-1], subclinical hypothyroidism[OR (95% CI) =0. 897(0.784-1.026), p = 1.12 x 10-1], and hyperthyroidism [OR (95% CI) = 1.069(0.947-1.206), p = 2.79 x 10-1] did not have a significant effect. Conclusion: Overall, our study results suggest that hypothyroidism and TSH levels influence the risk of genetically predicted BPH and prostatitis, providing new insights into the causal relationship between thyroid function and BPD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we problematize the growing literature on hybrid organizing to demonstrate that research on hybrids and entrepreneurship can benefit from considering the degree of hybridity in organizing the exploitation of potential opportunities for the creation of both economic and social value. Recent work has moved beyond discrete categorization of organizations as hybrid (or not) to conceptualize hybridity as a continuum anchored by a strong social logic at one end and a strong economic logic at the other end. We take the conceptualization of hybridity one step further by acknowledging that organizations can differ in the relative importance they ascribe to the economic logic vis-à-vis the social logic and that both the economic and social logics can be held at varying levels of intensity. The main purpose of reconceptualizing the degree of hybridity is to develop a framework for future research. This framework highlights the importance of understanding how entrepreneurs can both directly and indirectly (through the co-construction of potential opportunities) influence the degree of hybridity, and how differences in degree of hybridity affect organizational outcomes in terms of success and failure in creating economic and social value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gray mold caused by Botrytis cinerea is detrimental to plants and fruits. Endophytes have been shown to modify plant disease severity in functional assays. We conducted this study to investigate the endophytic strain Bacillus K1 with excellently antagonistic B. cinerea from the wild grape endosphere. We identified a wild grape endophytic strain K1 with high antifungal activity against B. cinerea both in vitro and in vivo. Combining the phylogenetic results based on 16S rDNA and genome sequencing, K1 was assigned as Bacillus subtilis. The in vitro results displayed that K1 and its volatile substances could significantly inhibit the mycelia growth of B. cinerea. Grape fruit inoculated with Bacillus K1 showed lower gray mold during treatment. The higher levels of defense-related enzymes, including peroxidase, polyphenol oxidase, and phenylalanine ammonia lyase, were induced in grapes after inoculation. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) suggested that K1 inhibited mycelial growth via bacterial colonization and antibiosis in grapes. The gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis identified 33 volatiles in which dibutyl phthalate was the major compound accounting for 74.28%. Dibutyl phthalate demonstrated strong activity in suppressing the mycelia growth of B. cinerea. Genome bioinformatics analysis revealed that the K1 chromosome harbored many known biosynthesis gene clusters encoding subtilosin, bacillaene, bacillibactin, bacilysin, and fengycin. This study provides a potential biological agent to control diseases of post-harvest grape fruit and improves our understanding of the possible biocontrol mechanisms of the Bacillus strain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, we for the first time report a hydrogen-bonding and acid cooperative catalysis strategy for the benzylation of arenes with benzyl alcohols over Brønsted acid ionic liquids (ILs, e.g., 1-propylsulfonate-3- methylimidazolium trifluoromethanesulfonate, [SO3H-PMIm][OTf]). [SO3H-PMIm][OTf] shows much better performance than acid catalysts (e.g., triflic acid, H2SO4), and is tolerant to a wide range of benzyl alcohols, affording various diarylmethanes in good to excellent yields, with some chemicals that are difficult to access. It was discovered that the IL cation activates benzyl alcohol to form a benzyl cation via acid and/or hydrogen-bonding catalysis, and the anion as a hydrogen bond acceptor activates the C-H bond in the benzene ring of arenes, which cooperatively realizes the benzylation of arenes to access diarylmethanes. Notably, the unique phase behavior of the reaction system makes the reaction proceed at the interfaces between the IL-based phase and the arene-based phase, and the IL spontaneously separates after the reaction. This simple, metal-free and green protocol has great potential for application in industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microfinance is a promising tool for addressing the grand challenge of global poverty. Yet, while many studies have examined how microfinance loans affect poor borrowers, we know little about how microfinance organizations (MFOs) themselves finance their lending activities. This is a significant oversight because most MFOs do not self-fund their lending, but, rather, rely on loans from external funders. To better understand microfinance funding, we apply and extend the institutional logics perspective to analyze the lending practices of commercial and public funders, who together provide most of the capital for global microfinance. We argue that these funders adhere to financial and development logics, respectively, and that this leads them to invest in different types of MFOs. Yet, in the face of uncertainty, we suggest that the practices motivated by these logics will start to converge in ways that are problematic for a nation's microfinance sector. Using a proprietary database of all traceable loans to MFOs from 2004 to 2012, we find strong support for our hypotheses. In particular, our findings show that the relationship between institutional logics and organizational practices is contextually contingent, and this insight contributes important understanding about the efficacy of microfinance as a poverty-reduction tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many social problems reflect sets of beliefs and practices--or "institutional logics"--that operate at the societal level and rationalize the marginalization of certain categories of people. Studies have examined the consequences this has for individuals, but have largely overlooked how organizations that address such issues are affected. To understand this, we apply and extend the institutional logics perspective. Our approach recognizes that practices within different sectors of a society may be shaped by different organizing principles. However, we suggest practices are also likely to reflect--to varying degrees--broader societal logics. Based on this, we argue that societal logics may work through multiple influence channels and affect organizations in non-obvious ways, depending on how, where, and with what intensity they manifest in society. We test our theory by analyzing how patriarchy, as a societal-level logic, affects outreach to women by microfinance organizations in 115 nations. We find that patriarchy supports practices in the family, religion, professions, and state that suppress this outreach. Yet, in some nations, patriarchy is differently evident across sectors. The resulting contrasts draw attention to women's issues, motivate redress efforts, and catalyze resource flows to microfinance organizations. The greatest outreach to women is in these nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of FORUM is the property of John Benjamins Publishing Co. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While lithium--sulfur batteries are poised to be the next-generation high-density energy storage devices, the intrinsic polysulfide shuttle has limited their practical applications. Many recent investigations have focused on the development of methods to wrap the sulfur material with a diffusion barrier layer. However, there is a trade-off between a perfect preassembled wrapping layer and electrolyte infiltration into the wrapped sulfur cathode. Here, we demonstrate an in situ wrapping approach to construct a compact layer on carbon/ sulfur composite particles with an imperfect wrapping layer. This special configuration suppresses the shuttle effect while allowing polysulfide diffusion within the interior of the wrapped composite particles. As a result, the wrapped cathode for lithium--sulfur batteries greatly improves the Coulombic efficiency and cycle life. Importantly, the capacity decay of the cell at 1000 cycles is as small as 0.03% per cycle at 1672 mA g-1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct integration of acceleration often causes unrealistic drifts in velocity and displacement. A method of integration on acceleration data to acquire realistic velocity and displacement is proposed. In this approach, drifts are estimated by using the mean of the upper and lower envelopes of signals after integration from acceleration into velocity and displacement. The experimental results obtained by using simulated data and real world signals are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heteropolyanion-based ionic liquids with -SO3H functionalized cations and PMo11VO404- anions were synthesized and applied in the conversion of cellulose into formic acid (FA). It was demonstrated that the as-prepared ILs showed enhanced activity for catalysing cellulose conversion to FA in the presence of oxygen in water compared to H4PMo11VO40. A high FA yield over 50% accompanied by a FA concentration of ~10% in reaction solution was obtained at 180 °C and in an oxygen pressure of 1.0 MPa. The possible pathway of FA production from cellulose was investigated. It was indicated that the resulting ILs served as bifunctional catalysts with cations catalysing the cellulose hydrolysis to glucose and anions catalysing glucose oxidation to FA. These ILs may find more applications in cellulose conversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fluorinated microporous organic polymers (F-MOPs) were designed, showing twice higher CO2 adsorption capacity than corresponding non-fluorous MOPs. The incorporation of phenanthroline moieties into F-MOPs afforded them the ability to coordinate with Ag(I), and the resultant F-MOP-Ag(I) displayed high efficiency for the reaction of CO2 with propargyl alcohols to forma-alkylidene cyclic carbonates at 25 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interface enhanced superconductivity at two dimensional limit has become one of most intriguing research directions in condensed matter physics. Here, we report the superconducting properties of ultra-thin FeSe films with the thickness of one unit cell (1-UC) grown on conductive and insulating SrTiO3 (STO) substrates. For the 1-UC FeSe on conductive STO substrate (Nb-STO), the magnetization versus temperature (M-T) measurement shows a drop crossover around 85 K. For the FeSe films on insulating STO substrate, systematic transport measurements were carried out and the sheet resistance of FeSe films exhibits Arrhenius TAFF behavior with a crossover from a single-vortex pinning region to a collective creep region. More intriguing, sign reversal of Hall resistance with temperature is observed, demonstrating a crossover from hole conduction to electron conduction above TC in 1-UC FeSe films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fluoro-functionalized polymeric ionic liquids (F-PILs) with imidazolium cations and bromide or chloride anions were designed for cycloaddition reactions of CO2 with epoxides. It was found that the fluorine content in F-PILs significantly influenced the catalytic activity of the catalysts, and F-PIL-Br showed three times higher activity for CO2 reacting with styrene oxide than non-fluorous PIL-Br. Moreover, F-PIL-Br could be extended to catalyse a broad range of reactants under 1 MPa CO2 pressure, producing a series of cyclic carbonates in excellent yields (93-99%). In addition, it showed high stability and easy recyclability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report transport studies on the 5 nm thick Bi2Se3 topological insulator films which are grown viamolecular beam epitaxy technique. The angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy data show that the Fermi level of the system lies in the bulk conduction band above the Dirac point, suggesting important contribution of bulk states to the transport results. In particular, the crossover from weak antilocalization to weak localization in the bulk states is observed in the parallel magnetic field measurements up to 50 Tesla. The measured magneto-resistance exhibits interesting anisotropy with respect to the orientation of parallel magnetic field B// and the current I, signifying intrinsic spin-orbit coupling in the Bi2Se3 films. Our work directly shows the crossover of quantum interference effect in the bulk states from weak antilocalization to weak localization. It presents an important step toward a better understanding of the existing three-dimensional topological insulators and the potential applications of nano-scale topological insulator devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gold-catalyzed synthesis of benzimidazoles from 2-nitroanilines and CO2 in the presence of H2 was reported, and a series of benzimidazoles were obtained under relatively mild conditions. Several supported Au catalysts including Au/TiO2, Au/Al2O3, Au/ZnO, Au/polyurea and Au/hydrotalcite were examined for the synthesis of benzimidazole from the reaction of 2-nitroaniline with CO2 and H2, among which Au/TiO2 displayed the best performance. The reaction mechanism was investigated, and it was found that the production of benzimidazole underwent the formation of o-phenylenediamine via the hydrogenation of 2-nitroaniline, followed by the cyclization of o-phenylenediamine with CO2 and H2. This work provides a CO2-involved route for the synthesis of benzimidazoles, which may widen the applications of CO2 in the chemical synthesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of much work on topological insulators (TIs), systematic experiments for TI/TI heterostructures remain absent. We grow a high quality heterostructure containing single quintuple layer (QL) of Bi2Se3/Bi2Te3 on 19 QLs of Bi2Te3 and compare its transport properties with 20 QLs Bi2Se3/Bi2Te3 and 20 QLs Bi2Te3. All three films are grown on insulating sapphire (0001) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). In situ angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) provides direct evidence that the surface state of 1 QL Bi2Se3/Bi2Te3/19 QLs Bi2Te3 heterostructure is similar to the surface state of the 20 QLs Bi2Se3/Bi2Te3 and different with that of the 20 QLs Bi2Te3. In ex situ transport measurements, the observed linear magnetoresistance (MR) and weak antilocalization (WAL) of the hybrid heterostructure are similar to that of the pure Bi2Se3/Bi2Te3 film and not the Bi2Te3 film. This suggests that the single Bi2Se3/Bi2Te3 layer on top of 19 QLs Bi2Te3 dominates its transport properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a method of oxygen plasma treatment to realize normally-off p-GaN/AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors. The fabricated device features an oxide surface passivation layer and a high-resistivity GaN cap layer at the access region, both transformed from p-GaN by the oxygen plasma treatment technique. With optimized treatment conditions, a low sheet resistance of 682 Ω/□ has been successfully obtained and the fabricated device shows high performance with a positive threshold voltage of +1.02 V, a maximum drain current of 301 mA mm−1, a high on/off ratio of ∼108, a breakdown voltage of 660 V, and low current collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work improved the anisotropically etching profile of GaN with Cl2 ICP by adjusting etching pressure and gas flow. High etching rate is achieved by lowering pressure and gas flow instead of increasing etching power. High etching power is unfavorable because it may cause physical damages on the surface. In addition, it is noticed that the material of the carrier, used for holding samples during etching, has significant effects on the morphology and profile of the etched GaN surface. A smooth and large-area GaN surface was achieved by proper ICP etching with a big piece of Si carrier; whereas, with other kinds of carriers, various nano-structures were formed on the GaN surfaces after etching. In fact, it is the etching resistance of carrier materials that impacts the surface profile of etched GaN. Needle-like and grass-like nanostructures on etched GaN surfaces were observed with Al and sapphire carriers, of which the process is very similar to RIE-grass or black-silicon technology. This controllable maskless dry-etching process for the GaN nanostructured surface may show more potential applications in GaN devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]