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A novel and efficient strategy for the direct synthesis of 3-arylthioquinoline derivatives via radical induced tandem cyclization of propargylamines with diaryl disulfides was developed. This protocol undergoes a cascade sulfuration/ cyclization/ oxidation/ aromatization pathway to afford the desired products in a broad substrate scope using readily available starting materials under mild conditions. Based on this strategy, we further modified 3-arylquinolines to obtain two novel deep blue fluorescent molecules, QLSCz and QLSTCz, with good optical properties through two-step synthesis by oxidation and electron donor modification., (© 2025 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Layered transition metal oxides (LTMOs) are attractive cathode candidates for rechargeable secondary batteries because of their high theoretical capacity. Unfortunately, LTMOs suffer from severe capacity attenuation, voltage decay, and sluggish kinetics, resulting from irreversible lattice oxygen evolution and unstable cathode-electrolyte interface. Besides, LTMOs accumulate surface residual alkali species, like hydroxides and carbonates, during synthesis, limiting their practical application. Herein, a universal strategy is suggested to in situ convert surface residual alkali into a stable polymer coating layer for LTMOs, thus turning wastes into treasure. The formation process of polymer coating involves NH 4 F treatment to consume residual alkali, then utilizing generated fluorides to induce the ring-opening polymerization of tetrahydrofuran. Implementing this strategy to Li-rich Mn-based cathode materials (LRM) results in a notable reduction in voltage hysteresis, along with enhanced kinetics and cycling stability in lithium-ion batteries. With this layer of encapsulation, surface lattice oxygen release and layered-to-spinel phase transition of LRM are significantly alleviated with minimal mechanical degradation and surface parasitic reactions. Such strategy can also be applied to air-sensitive sodium-rich LTMOs in sodium-ion batteries, which showcases superior universality. This work might provide a promising solution to overcome residual alkali and interfacial instability issues for LTMOs in practical application., (© 2025 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Cancer heterogeneity, characterized by diverse populations of tumorigenic cells, involves the occurrence of differential phenotypes with variable expressions of receptor tyrosine kinases. Aberrant expressions of mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET) and recepteur d'origine nantais (RON) receptors contribute to the phenotypic heterogeneity of cancer cells, which poses a major therapeutic challenge. This study aims to develop a dual-targeting antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) that can act against both MET and RON for treating cancers with high phenotypic heterogeneity. Through immunohistochemical staining, we show that MET and RON expressions are highly heterogeneous with differential combinations in more than 40% of pancreatic and triple-negative breast cancer cases. This expressional heterogeneity provides the rationale to target both receptors for cancer therapy. A humanized bispecific monoclonal antibody specific to both MET and RON (PCMbs-MR) is generated through IgG recombination using monoclonal antibody sequences specific to MET and RON, respectively. Monomethyl auristatin E is conjugated to PCMbs-MR to generate a dual-targeting ADC (PCMdt-MMAE), with a drug-to-antibody ratio of 4:1. Various cancer cell lines were used to determine PCMdt-MMAE-mediated biological activities. The efficacy of PCMdt-MMAE in vivo is evaluated using multiple xenograft tumor models. PCMdt-MMAE shows a favorable pharmacokinetic profile, with a maximum tolerated dose of ~30 mg/kg in mice. Toxicological studies using Sprague-Dawley rats reveal that PCMdt-MMAE is relatively safe with slight-to-moderate, temporary, and reversible adverse events. Functionally, PCMdt-MMAE induces a robust internalization of both MET and RON and causes a large-scale cell death in cancer cell lines exhibiting MET and RON heterogeneous co-expressions. Both in vitro and in vivo studies demonstrate that the dual-targeting approach in the form of an ADC is highly effective with a long-lasting effect against tumors exhibiting MET/RON heterogeneous phenotypes. Hence, we can suggest that a dual-targeting ADC specific to both MET and RON can be employed as a novel therapeutic strategy for tumors with expressional phenotypic heterogeneity., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethical approval and consent to participate: The use of clinical samples was approved by the Ethics Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University (registration numbers: 2017-427-1), with all participants signing informed consent forms. Animal procedures were approved by the same ethics committee (registration numbers: 2017-400-1) and performed in accordance with the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of Zhejiang Province., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Background: The fat mass and obesity-associated protein (FTO) has been showed to be involved in the pathogenesis and progression of coronary artery disease (CAD). However, the effects of FTO variants on CAD risk remain poorly understood. We herein genotyped three SNPs (rs1121980, rs72803657, and rs4783818) in FTO to investigate the influence of FTO polymorphisms on individual susceptibility to CAD., Methods: Genotyping for the three SNPs (rs1121980, rs72803657, and rs4783818) was conducted in a cohort of 712 CAD cases with 349 myocardial infarction (MI) cases and 701 control participants, utilizing the polymerase chain reaction-ligation detection reaction (PCR-LDR) technique. The associations of these SNPs with CAD were analyzed using multivariate logistic regression, and the associations with lipid profiles were assessed by the Kruskal-Wallis or Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests., Results: The A allele (OR = 1.26, 95% CI = 1.01-1.57, and P = 0.044) and the AA genotype (OR = 3.13, 95% CI = 1.53-6.38, and P = 0.002) of FTO rs1121980 were significantly associated with an elevated risk of CAD. Similarly, the A allele (OR = 1.54, 95% CI = 1.18-2.02, and P = 0.002) and the AA genotype (OR = 5.61, 95% CI = 2.57-12.27, and P < 0.001) of rs1121980 exhibited increased MI risk. This SNP also showed significant associations under recessive genetic models for both CAD and MI (OR = 3.09, 95% CI = 1.52-6.27, P = 0.002 for CAD; OR = 5.40, 95% CI = 2.49-11.71, P < 0.001 for MI). However, the other two SNPs did not show significant associations with CAD or MI risks under any genetic model tested. Stratified analyses indicated a more pronounced association of the A allele with increased CAD/MI risk among younger participants, non-smokers, and non-drinkers. Interestingly, A allele carriers in younger subjects exhibited higher triglyceride (TG) levels and lower high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels compared to non-carriers (P < 0.05)., Conclusions: Our data provides the first evidence that the FTO rs1121980 polymorphism is associated with an increased risk of CAD in the Chinese population. This association is more significant in younger subjects, likely due to the elevated TG levels and reduced HDL-C levels., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

This article intends to study the asynchronous control problem for 2-D Markov jump systems (MJSs) with nonideal transition probabilities (TPs) under the Roesser model. Two practical considerations motivate the current work. First, considering that the system mode cannot always be observed accurately, a hidden Markov model (HMM) is adopted to describe the relationship between the mismatched modes. Second, considering that the TPs information related to the Markov process and the observation process is difficult to obtain, the nonideal TPs (unknown or uncertain) are simultaneously considered on the two processes. Under the considerations, several new sufficient conditions are developed for concerned closed-loop 2-D MJSs with nonideal TPs, by which the asymptotic mean square stability is ensured with an H ∞ performance index. A nonconservative separation strategy is utilized to decouple the system mode TPs and the observation TPs to facilitate the analysis of nonideal TPs. An unified LMI-based condition is finally developed for the concerned closed-loop 2-D MJSs with/without nonideal TPs, showing more satisfactory conservatism than that in the literature. In the end, we present two examples to validate the superiority of the proposed design method.

The primary focus of this article centers around the application of sliding mode control (SMC) to semi-Markov jumping systems, incorporating a dynamic event-triggered protocol (ETP) and singular perturbation. The underlying semi-Markov singularly perturbed systems (SMSPSs) exhibit mode switching behavior governed by a semi-Markov process, wherein the variation of this process is regulated by a deterministic switching signal. To simultaneously reduce the triggering rate and uphold the system performance, a novel parameter-based dynamic ETP is established. This protocol incorporates weight estimation of a radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) and introduces two internal dynamic variables. Following the Lyapunov's theory, sufficient criteria are established for ensuring the mean-square exponential stability of the resulting system. Additionally, an SMC scheme based on the convergence factor is designed to fulfill reachability conditions. Finally, two examples are carried out to validate the solvability and applicability of the attained control methodology.

This article proposes the two-layer asynchronous control scheme for a class of networked nonlinear jump systems. For the constructed system in a network environment, the data transmission may suffer from many restrictions, such as incomplete acceptable mode information and transition information, nonlinearity of system and inadequate bandwidth resources, etc. Then, the two-layer asynchronous controller is developed to stabilize the plant constructed by Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy method and semi-Markov theory (SMT). Herein, the hidden semi-Markov process with time-varying emission probability is introduced to establish the relation between the system modes and the controller modes, in which the interval segmentation method is presented to deal with this time-varying probability. Compared with some published results, this method can make full use of the transition rate information, which may lead to the reduction of conservatism in the proposed asynchronous control design. At the same time, the limited bandwidth problem in the communication channel is addressed by introducing the bilateral quantization strategy, and the new sufficient conditions are derived on the stochastic stability of the nonlinear jump system with/without incomplete transition and sojourn-time information. Finally, the numerical simulation examples about DC motor illustrate the effectiveness and the feasibility of the proposed approach.

The event-based H ∞ control problem is investigated for a class of nonhomogeneous Markov jump systems (MJSs) with partially unknown transition probabilities (TPs). The MJS is characterized by a piecewise nonhomogeneous Markovian chain, where the switching of the system TP matrix is governed by a higher-level chain. A hidden Markov model (HMM) is employed to observe the system mode, which cannot always be correctly detected in practice. Under this framework, the partially unknown TPs existing in both higher-level TPs (HTPs) and conditional TPs (CTPs) are taken into account for practical consideration. Additionally, an observed-mode-dependent event-triggered mechanism (ETM) is employed to design an asynchronous controller, which is expected to alleviate the burden of the communication network. Evidently, the considered scenario is fairly general and covers some special cases. With the above consideration, sufficient conditions are established to guarantee stochastic stability of the resulting closed-loop system with a prescribed H ∞ performance. Finally, two examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method.

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, is significantly influenced by intestinal flora. Understanding the genetic and microbiotic interplay is crucial for IBD prediction and treatment., Methods: We used Mendelian randomization (MR), transcriptomic analysis, and machine learning techniques, integrating data from the MiBioGen Consortium and various GWAS datasets. SNPs associated with intestinal flora were mapped to genes, with LASSO regression refining gene selection. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and immune infiltration patterns were identified through transcriptomic analysis. Six machine learning models were used for predictive modeling., Findings: MR analysis identified 25 gut microbiota classifications causally related to IBD. SNP mapping and gene expression analysis highlighted 24 significant genes. Drug target MR and colocalization validated these genes' causal relationships with IBD. Key pathways identified included the PI3K-Akt signaling pathway and epithelial-mesenchymal transition. Immune infiltration analysis revealed distinct patterns between high and low LASSO score groups. Machine learning models demonstrated high predictive value, with soft voting enhancing reliability., Interpretation: By integrating MR, transcriptomic analysis, and sophisticated machine learning approaches, this study elucidates the causal relationships between intestinal flora and IBD. The application of machine learning not only enhanced predictive modeling but also offered new insights into IBD pathogenesis, highlighted potential therapeutic targets, and established a robust framework for predicting IBD onset., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

The robust LQ optimal regulator problem for discrete-time uncertain singular Markov jump systems (SMJSs) is solved by introducing a new quadratic cost function established by the penalty function method, which combines the penalty function and the weighting matrices. First, the indefinite robust optimal regulator problem for uncertain SMJSs is transformed into the robust optimal regulator problem with positive definite weighting matrices for uncertain Markov jump systems (MJSs). The transformed robust LQ problem is settled by the robust least-squares method, and the condition of the existence and analytic form of the robust optimal regulator are proposed. On the infinite horizon, the optimal state feedback is obtained, which can guarantee the regularity, causality, and stochastic stability of the corresponding optimal closed-loop system and eliminate the uncertain parameters of the closed-loop system. A numerical example and a practical example of DC motor are used to verify the validity of the conclusions.

Congenital defects and genetic diseases in the fetus are the focus of prenatal screening and prenatal diagnosis. Obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, medical imaging (ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging), clinical laboratory, pathology, and other disciplines are mostly involved in this multidisciplinary work on maternal and infant health care, which aims to prevent birth defects in strict accordance with laws, regulations, and pertinent industry standards, such as the Notice of the National Health Commission on Issuing the Basic Standards for Prenatal Screening Technical Medical Institutions and the Basic Standards for Prenatal Diagnosis Technical Medical Institutions (Guowei Maternal and Child Letter [2019] No. 297). To further support the implementation of prenatal screening and diagnosis work and streamline workflow, this study has compiled the timing, inspection, and testing procedures of various projects in each link from the standpoint of the disease clinical laboratory diagnostic pathway. This approach improves communication amongst various disciplines in prenatal screening and diagnosis work and offers clinical service quality, and it also helps improve the standard of the birth population and prevent and controll severe birth defects.

In this article, we consider the cooperative tracking problem for a class of nonlinear multiagent systems (MASs) with unknown dynamics under denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. To solve such a problem, a hierarchical cooperative resilient learning method, which involves a distributed resilient observer and a decentralized learning controller, is introduced in this article. Due to the existence of communication layers in the hierarchical control architecture, it may lead to communication delays and DoS attacks. Motivated by this consideration, a resilient model-free adaptive control (MFAC) method is developed to withstand the influence of communication delays and DoS attacks. First, a virtual reference signal is designed for each agent to estimate the time-varying reference signal under DoS attacks. To facilitate the tracking of each agent, the virtual reference signal is discretized. Then, a decentralized MFAC algorithm is designed for each agent such that each agent can track the reference signal by only using the obtained local information. Finally, a simulation example is proposed to verify the effectiveness of the developed method.

Asymptotic observability of distributed Boolean networks (DBNs) is studied in this article. Via a parallel extension method, asymptotic observability of the original system is converted to reachability at a fixed point of the extended system. Based on the structure matrix of the extended system, a necessary and sufficient condition is presented for asymptotic observability. Further, for unobservable systems, mode-dependent pinning control is first introduced and applied to achieve asymptotic observability, including the selections of pinning nodes, the design of output feedback controls, and the adding approaches. Then, a set of matrices is defined for the construction of the desired structure matrix. Based on it, a necessary condition is given to guarantee the solvability of the corresponding output feedback controls and the adding approaches. Finally, a numerical example is presented to show the effectiveness of the obtained results.

Plant JASMONATE ZIM-DOMAIN (JAZ) genes play crucial roles in regulating the biosynthesis of specialized metabolites and stressful responses. However, understanding of JAZs controlling these biological processes lags due to numerous JAZ copies. Here, we found that two leaf-specific CwJAZ4/9 genes from Curcuma wenyujin are strongly induced by methyl-jasmonate (MeJA) and negatively correlated with terpenoid biosynthesis. Yeast two-hybrid, luciferase complementation imaging and in vitro pull-down assays confirmed that CwJAZ4/9 proteins interact with CwMYC2 to form the CwJAZ4/9-CwMYC2 regulatory cascade. Furthermore, transgenic hairy roots showed that CwJAZ4/9 acts as repressors of MeJA-induced terpenoid biosynthesis by inhibiting the terpenoid pathway and jasmonate response, thus reducing terpenoid accumulation. In addition, we revealed that CwJAZ4/9 decreases salt sensitivity and sustains the growth of hairy roots under salt stress by suppressing the salt-mediated jasmonate responses. Transcriptome analysis for MeJA-mediated transgenic hairy root lines further confirmed that CwJAZ4/9 negatively regulates the terpenoid pathway genes and massively alters the expression of genes related to salt stress signaling and responses, and crosstalks of multiple phytohormones. Altogether, our results establish a genetic framework to understand how CwJAZ4/9 inhibits terpenoid biosynthesis and confers salt tolerance, which provides a potential strategy for producing high-value pharmaceutical terpenoids and improving resistant C. wenyujin varieties by a genetic approach., (© 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

In this article, a synchronization control method is studied for coupled neural networks (CNNs) with constant time delay using sampled-data information. A distributed control protocol relying on the sampled-data information of neighboring nodes is proposed. Lyapunov functional is constructed to analyze the synchronization of CNNs with constant time delay. Using Park's integral inequality and improved free-weight matrix integral inequality, sufficient conditions are provided for CNNs to achieve synchronization with less conservatism. In addition, the maximum sampling interval is determined by transforming the sufficient conditions into an optimization problem, and an aperiodic sampling control technique is implemented to reduce the communication energy load. Finally, numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate that the proposed method is capable of achieving synchronization.

Bitterness, as one of the most important physiological sensations in animals, is primarily recognized through the mediation of bitter taste receptors. In recent years, it has been found that these receptors are not only expressed in taste bud cells on the tongue but also in the respiratory, cardiovascular, digestive, reproductive, and nervous systems. They are involved in regulating various fundamental physiological processes and are now considered important targets for the treatment of various diseases. This paper reviewed the structure, classification, distribution, and signaling pathways of bitter taste receptors, their relationship with different diseases, and the role of bitter taste receptors agonists, aiming to provide a basis for scientific research on bitter taste receptors.

Approximation models play a crucial role in model-based methods, as they enhance both accuracy and computational efficiency. This article studies distributed and asynchronous discretized models to approach continuous-time nonlinear systems. The considered continuous-time system consists of some distributed but physically coupled nonlinear subsystems that exchange information. We propose two Lebesgue approximation models (LAMs): 1) the unconditionally triggered LAM (CT-LAM) and 2) the CT-LAM. In both approaches, a specific LAM approximates an individual subsystem. The iteration of each LAM is triggered by either itself or its neighbors. The collection of different LAMs executing asynchronously together form the approximation of the overall distributed continuous-time system. The aperiodic nature of LAMs allows for a reduction in the number of iterations in the approximation process, particularly when the system has slow dynamics. The difference between the unconditionally and CT-LAMs is that the latter checks an "importance" condition, further reducing the computational effort in individual LAMs. Furthermore, the proposed LAMs are analyzed by constructing a distributed event-triggered system which is proved to have the same state trajectories as the LAMs with linear interpolation. Through this specific event-triggered system, we derive conditions on the quantization sizes in LAMs to ensure asymptotic stability of the LAMs, boundedness of the state errors, and prevention of Zeno behavior. Finally, simulations are carried out on a quarter-car suspension system to show the advantage and efficiency of the proposed approaches.

Background: Enteric glia are essential components of the enteric nervous system. Previously believed to have a passive structural function, mounting evidence now suggests that these cells are indispensable for maintaining gastrointestinal homeostasis and exert pivotal influences on both wellbeing and pathological conditions. This study aimed to investigate the global status, research hotspots, and future directions of enteric glia., Methods: The literature on enteric glia research was acquired from the Web of Science Core Collection. VOSviewer software (v1.6.19) was employed to visually represent co-operation networks among countries, institutions, and authors. The co-occurrence analysis of keywords and co-citation analysis of references were conducted using CiteSpace (v6.1.R6). Simultaneously, cluster analysis and burst detection of keywords and references were performed., Results: A total of 514 publications from 36 countries were reviewed. The United States was identified as the most influential country. The top-ranked institutions were University of Nantes and Michigan State University. Michel Neunlist was the most cited author. "Purinergic signaling" was the largest co-cited reference cluster, while "enteric glial cells (EGCs)" was the cluster with the highest number of co-occurring keywords. As the keyword with the highest burst strength, Crohns disease was a hot topic in the early research on enteric glia. The burst detection of keywords revealed that inflammation, intestinal motility, and gut microbiota may be the research frontiers., Conclusion: This study provides a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of enteric glia research. EGCs have emerged as a crucial link between neurons and immune cells, attracting significant research attention in neurogastroenterology. Their fundamental and translational studies on inflammation, intestinal motility, and gut microbiota may promote the treatment of some gastrointestinal and parenteral disorders., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Li, Yan, Li, Ye, Wu, Hou and Chen.)

Enabled by the advances in communication networks, computational units, and control systems, cyber-physical power systems (CPPSs) are anticipated to be complex and smart systems in which a large amount of data are generated, exchanged, and processed for various purposes. Due to these strong interactions, CPPSs will introduce new security vulnerabilities. To ensure secure operation and control of CPPSs, it is essential to detect the locations of the attacked measurements and remove the state bias caused by malicious cyber-attacks such as false data inject attack, jamming attack, denial of service attack, or hybrid attack. Accordingly, this article makes the first contribution concerning the representation-learning-based convolutional neural network (RL-CNN) for intelligent attack localization and system recovery of CPPSs. In the proposed method, the cyber-attacks' locational detection problem is formulated as a multilabel classification problem for CPPSs. An RL-CNN is originally adopted as the multilabel classifier to explore and exploit the implicit information of measurements. By comparing with previous multilabel classifiers, the RL-CNN improves the performance of attack localization for complex CPPSs. Then, to automatically filter out the cyber-attacks for system recovery, a mean-squared estimator is used to handle the difficulty in state estimation with the removal of contaminated measurements. In this scheme, prior knowledge of the system state is obtained based on the outputs of the stochastic power flow or historical measurements. The extensive simulation results in three IEEE bus systems show that the proposed method is able to provide high accuracy for attack localization and perform automatic attack filtering for system recovery under various cyber-attacks.

This article investigates a nonlinear disturbance observer (NDO)-based fault-tolerant sliding-mode control (SMC) for 2-D plane vehicular platoon systems subjected to actuator faults with unknown time-varying fault direction (UTVFD), asymmetric nonlinear actuator saturation (ANAS), nonlinear unmodeled dynamics, and unknown external disturbance. The Nussbaum-type function approach is adopted to solve the problem of actuator faults with UTVFD. The designed NDO not only can estimate the lumped disturbance accurately but also can reduce the control peaking and chattering phenomena caused by the Nussbaum-type function. Then, an adaptive saturation compensator is designed to compensate for the influence of actuator saturation on the system. In addition, by combining SMC technology with the prescribed tracking performance (PTP) approach, a distributed fault-tolerant control scheme is developed to not only ensure collision avoidance and communication connectivity but also realize a variety of driving scenarios, such as multilane vehicle merging and vehicular platoon lane changing. Finally, simulation results are presented to show the proposed scheme's effectiveness and advantages.

This article considers the output tracking control problem of nonidentical linear multiagent systems (MASs) using a model-free reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm, where partial followers have no prior knowledge of the leader's information. To lower the communication and computing burden among agents, an event-driven adaptive distributed observer is proposed to predict the leader's system matrix and state, which consists of the estimated value of relative states governed by an edge-based predictor. Meanwhile, the integral input-based triggering condition is exploited to decide whether to transmit its private control input to its neighbors. Then, an RL-based state feedback controller for each agent is developed to solve the output tracking control problem, which is further converted into the optimal control problem by introducing a discounted performance function. Inhomogeneous algebraic Riccati equations (AREs) are derived to obtain the optimal solution of AREs. An off-policy RL algorithm is used to learn the solution of inhomogeneous AREs online without requiring any knowledge of the system dynamics. Rigorous analysis shows that under the proposed event-driven adaptive observer mechanism and RL algorithm, all followers are able to synchronize the leader's output asymptotically. Finally, a numerical simulation is demonstrated to verify the proposed approach in theory.

This article addresses the resilient consensus problem of multiagent systems subject to cyber attacks on communication links, where the attacks on different links may collude to maintain undetectable. For the case with noncollusive attacks on links, a distributed fixed-time observer is designed so that the attack on each link can be detected by the two associated agents. A necessary and sufficient condition is derived to ensure the isolation of attacked links and no mistaken isolation of normal ones. For the case with collusive attacks on links, a novel attack isolation algorithm is proposed by constructing extra observers on the basis of the previous designed distributed fixed-time observer via sequentially removing the information associated with one of the links. Based on the isolation of the attacked links, a control algorithm is designed, and a necessary and sufficient condition is provided to achieve resilient consensus. Numerical examples corroborate the effectiveness of the proposed strategies.

High-temperature lithiation is one of the crucial steps for the synthesis of Li- and Mn-rich layered metal oxide (LMLO) cathodes. A profound insight of the micromorphology and crystal structure evolution during calcination helps to realize the finely controlled preparation of final cathodes, finally achieving a desired electrochemical performance. In this work, two typical precursors (hydroxide and oxalate) were selected to prepare LMLO. It is found that the influence of the lithium source on reaction pathways is determined by the properties of precursors. In the case of hydroxide as a precursor, whatever lithium sources it is, the flake morphology of LMLO is inherited from hydroxide precursors. This is because the crystal structure of cathode products has a high similarity with its precursor in terms of the oxygen array arrangement, and the topological transformation occurs from hydroxide ( P- 3 ml ) to LMLOs ( C/2m and R 3 m ). Thus, the morphology and microstructure of LMLO cathodes could be well controlled only by tuning the properties of hydroxide precursors. Conversely, the decomposition of a lithium source has a great influence on the intermediate transformation when oxalate is used as the precursor. This is because a large amount of CO 2 is released from the oxalate precursor after the decomposition reaction, resulting in drastic structural changes. At this time, the diffusion ability of the lithium source leads to the competition between the spinel phase and layered phase. Based on this point, the formation of a spinel intermediate phase can be reduced by accelerating the decomposition of the lithium source, contributing to the generation of a highly pure layered phase, thus exhibiting higher electrochemical performance. These insights provide an exciting cue to the rational selection and design of raw materials and lithium sources for the controlled synthesis of LMLO cathodes., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest., (© 2024 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.)

The oncogenic role of circRNA in cancers including esophageal cancer (EC) has been well studied. However, whether and how circRNAs are involved in cancer cell metabolic processes remains largely unknown. Here, we reported that circRNA, circHIPK3, is highly expressed in ESCC cell lines and tissues. Knockdown of circHIPK3 significantly restrained cell proliferation, colony formation, migration, and invasion in vitro and inhibited tumor growth in vivo. Mechanistically, circHIPK3 was found to act as a ceRNA by sponging miR-637 to regulate FASN expression and fatty acid metabolism in ESCC cells. Anti-sense oligonucleotide (ASO) targeting circHIPK3 substantially inhibited ESCC both in vitro and in vivo. Therefore, these results uncover a modulatory axis constituting of circHIPK3/miR-637/FASN may be a potential biomarker and therapeutic target for ESCC in the clinic., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

D-A type axially chiral biphenyl luminescent molecules are directly constructed through ingenious functionalization of the octahydro-binaphthol skeleton without optical resolution. The circularly polarized organic light-emitting diodes based on them display remarkable circularly polarized electroluminescence emission, a high luminance of >10 000 cd m -2 , a maximum external quantum efficiency of 6.6%, and an extremely low-efficiency roll-off. This work provides a universal strategy for developing efficient and diverse axially chiral biphenyl emitters.

In this article, a data-efficient off-policy reinforcement learning (RL) approach is proposed for distributed output tracking control of heterogeneous multiagent systems (HMASs) using approximate dynamic programming (ADP). Different from existing results that the kinematic model of the exosystem is addressable to partial or all agents, the dynamics of the exosystem are assumed to be completely unknown for all agents in this article. To solve this difficulty, an identifiable algorithm using the experience-replay method is designed for each agent to identify the system matrices of the novel reference model instead of the original exosystem. Then, an output-based distributed adaptive output observer is proposed to provide the estimations of the leader, and the proposed observer not only has a low dimension and less data transmission among agents but also is implemented in a fully distributed way. Besides, a data-efficient RL algorithm is given to design the optimal controller offline along with the system trajectories without solving output regulator equations. An ADP approach is developed to iteratively solve game algebraic Riccati equations (GAREs) using online information of state and input in an online way, which relaxes the requirement of knowing prior knowledge of agents' system matrices in an offline way. Finally, a numerical example is provided to verify the effectiveness of theoretical analysis.

The neural network-based adaptive backstepping method is an effective tool to solve the cooperative tracking problem for nonlinear multiagent systems (MASs). However, this method cannot be directly extended to the case without continuous communication. It is because the discontinuous communication results in discontinuous signals in this case, the standard backstepping method is inapplicable. To solve this problem, a hierarchical design scheme that involves distributed cooperative estimators and neural network-based decentralized tracking controllers is proposed. By introducing a dynamic event-triggered mechanism, cooperative intermediate parameter estimators are first designed to estimate the unknown parameters of the leader. By using the interpolation polynomial method, these estimators are extended to smooth estimators with high-order derivatives to guarantee that the backstepping method is applicable. Based on the state of the smooth estimators, a backstepping-based decentralized neural network tracking controller is designed. It is shown that the tracking errors are asymptotically convergent and all the signals in the closed-loop systems are bounded. Compared with the existing cooperative tracking results for nonlinear MASs with event-triggered communication, a more general class of MASs is considered in this article and a better performance in terms of asymptotic tracking is achieved. Finally, a simulation example is given to show the effectiveness of our developed method.

Recently, boron (B)/nitrogen (N)-embedded polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), characterized by multiple resonances (MR), have attracted significant attention owing to their remarkable features of efficient narrowband emissions with small full width at half maxima (FWHMs). However, developing ultra-narrowband pure-green emitters that comply with the Broadcast Service Television 2020 (BT2020) standard remains challenging. Precise regulation of the MR distribution regions allows simultaneously achieving the emission maximum, FWHM value, and spectral shape that satisfy the BT2020 standard. The proof-of-concept molecule TPABO-DICz exhibited ultrapure green emission with a dominant peak at 515 nm, an extremely small FWHM of 17 nm, and Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.17, 0.76). The corresponding bottom-emitting organic light-emitting diode (OLED) exhibited a remarkably high CIEy value (0.74) and maximum external quantum efficiency (25.8 %). Notably, the top-emitting OLED achieved nearly BT2020 green color (CIE: 0.14, 0.79) and exhibited a state-of-the-art maximum current efficiency of 226.4 cd A -1 , thus fully confirming the effectiveness of the above strategy., (© 2023 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

To evaluate the feasibility of temporomandibular disorder (TMD) diagnosis with panoramic radiography, and provide standardized data for artificial intelligence-assisted diagnosis by measuring the differences in the condylar and mandibular ramus heights. A total of 500 panoramic radiographs (219 male and 281 female participants) of healthy individuals were examined. The panoramic machine compatible measurement software, SCANORA 5.2.6, was used to measure the bilateral condylar height and mandibular ramus height, and SPSS 27.0 was used to calculate the left- and right-side differences in condylar height and mandibular ramus height of healthy individuals. Magnetic resonance images of the temporomandibular joint region obtained from 46 outpatients in the Stomatology Department were selected along with their corresponding panoramic radiographs. The left- and right-sided differences were measured and compared with the magnetic resonance imaging results. The measurement data are expressed as mean ± standard deviation (mm). t Tests were used to analyze data from healthy male and healthy female groups. The findings revealed that while there was no significant difference (P > .05) in the height of the condyle between men and women, there was a significant difference (P  < .05) in the height of the mandibular ramus. In healthy population, the difference in height between the left and right condyle was 1.09 ± 0.99 mm. The difference in height of mandibular ramus in men was 1.26 ± 0.85 mm and that in women was 1.19 ± 0.87 mm. For the diagnosis of TMD, the sensitivity of panoramic radiographs was 94.74% (36/38), specificity was 75.00% (6/8), and diagnostic accuracy was 91.30% (42/46). The height of the right and left lateral condyles was not identical in healthy individuals, resulting in a discernible height discrepancy. In addition, the height of the mandibular ramus varied. By considering the left-right lateral height differences identified in this study along with clinical examination, it is possible to employ this metric as a preliminary screening tool for patients with TMD. Further, the use of panoramic radiographs for initial TMD screening is both viable and significant., Competing Interests: The authors have no funding and conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2024 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Background and Aims: The older people bears a severe burden of disease due to frailty and depressive symptoms, however, the results of association between the two in the older Chinese people have been conflicting. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the developmental trajectories and interactions of frailty and depressive symptoms in the Chinese middle-aged and older adults., Methods: The study used four waves of data from 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2018 in the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) database, focused on middle-aged and older people ≥ 45 years of age, and analyzed using latent growth models and cross-lagged models., Results: The parallel latent growth model showed that the initial level of depressive symptoms had a significant positive predictive effect on the initial level of frailty. The rate of change in depressive symptoms significantly positively predicted the rate of change in frailty. The initial level of frailty had a significant positive predictive effect on the initial level of depressive symptoms, but a significant negative predictive effect on the rate of change in depressive symptoms. The rate of change in frailty had a significant positive predictive effect on the rate of change in depressive symptoms. The results of the cross-lagged analysis indicated a bidirectional causal association between frailty and depressive symptoms in the total sample population. Results for the total sample population grouped by age and gender were consistent with the total sample., Conclusions: This study recommends advancing the age of concern for frailty and depressive symptoms to middle-aged adults. Both men and women need early screening and intervention for frailty and depressive symptoms to promote healthy aging., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Herein, a base metal-enabled chemodivergent cyclization of propargylamines for the atom-economic construction of nitrogen heterocycles has been developed. Due to the different modes of activation of metal to propargylamine, copper-catalyzed 6 -endo-dig cyclization generates functionalized 2-substitued quinoline-4-carboxylates, while iron-promoted cascade amino Claisen rearrangement, aromatization, and aza-Michael addition afford diverse 2-substituted indole-3-carboxylate derivatives. Excellent selectivity, broad functional group tolerance, mild conditions, and flexible late-stage functionalization illustrate the high efficiency and synthetic utility of this chemodivergent reaction.

This article studies the optimized fuzzy prescribed performance control problem for nonlinear nonstrict-feedback systems under denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. A fuzzy estimator is delicately designed to model the immeasurable system states in the presence of DoS attacks. To achieve the preset tracking performance, a simper prescribed performance error transformation is constructed considering the characteristics of DoS attacks, which helps obtain a novel Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation to derive the optimized prescribed performance controller. Furthermore, the fuzzy-logic system, combined with the reinforcement learning (RL) technique, is employed to approximate the unknown nonlinearity existing in the prescribed performance controller design process. An optimized adaptive fuzzy security control law is then proposed for the considered nonlinear nonstrict-feedback systems subject to DoS attacks. Through the Lyapunov stability analysis, the tracking error is proved to approach the predefined region by the preset finite time, even in the presence of DoS attacks. Meanwhile, the consumed control resources are minimized due to the RL-based optimized algorithm. Finally, an actual example with comparisons verifies the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.

This article investigates the asynchronous proportional-integral observer (PIO) design issue for singularly perturbed complex networks (SPCNs) subject to cyberattacks. The switching topology of SPCNs is regulated by a nonhomogeneous Markov switching process, whose time-varying transition probabilities are polytope structured. Besides, the multiple scalar Winner processes are applied to character the stochastic disturbances of the inner linking strengths. Two mutually independent Bernoulli stochastic variables are exploited to characterize the random occurrences of cyberattacks. In a practical viewpoint, by resorting to the hidden nonhomogeneous Markov model, an asynchronous PIO is formulated. Under such a framework, by applying the Lyapunov theory, sufficient conditions are established such that the augmented dynamic is mean-square exponentially ultimately bounded. Finally, the effectiveness of the theoretical results is verified by two numerical simulations.

In this article, we address the asynchronous H ∞ control problem of a class of hidden Markov jump systems (HMJSs) subject to actuator saturation in the continuous-time domain. A bunch of convex hulls is utilized to represent the saturated nonlinearity. Considering that there is an asynchronous mode mismatch between the system and the controller, we establish a hidden Markov model (HMM) to simulate the situation. By means of the Lyapunov theory, sufficient conditions are presented to ensure that the resultant closed-loop HMJS is stochastically mean square stable within the domain of attraction with a prescribed H ∞ performance index. Furthermore, the state feedback gain matrix and the estimation of the domain of attraction are given by solving an optimization problem, which is constructed via linear matrix inequality (LMI) techniques. Finally, the reliability and validity of the derived results are examined by a numerical example.

This study focused on the asynchronous event-triggered output-feedback controller design problem for discrete-time singular Markov jump systems (MJSs). A hidden Markov model (HMM) was employed to estimate the system mode, which cannot always be ideally detected in practice. Because the full state is also difficult to obtain in practical scenarios, an output-feedback control scheme was used. In addition, an HMM-based event-triggered mechanism was also employed in the design of the controller to reduce the communication burden of the networked system. Sufficient conditions for the stochastic admissibility of a closed-loop singular MJS with a prescribed H ∞ performance index were established using the Lyapunov functional technique. Finally, design procedures for an asynchronous event-triggered controller were summarized as a linear-matrix-inequality-based optimization algorithm. Two examples were considered to verify the effectiveness of the asynchronous event-triggered output-feedback controller design method.

This paper is devoted to dealing with the problem of global attitude synchronization for quaternion-based multiple rigid bodies, regardless of the general directed topologies of networks and arbitrary initial orientations of rigid bodies. A novel canonical quaternion is constructed to represent all physical attitudes of rigid bodies such that the pseudo-synchronization of their quaternion representations (namely, the quaternions' vector parts of all rigid bodies reach agreement on some identical value, whereas their scalar parts do not) can be precluded. Moreover, to reduce unnecessary communication requirements of rigid bodies, a hybrid triggering mechanism involving both the time regulation and neighbors' non-real-time information is proposed, with which a distributed protocol is developed by leveraging the constructed canonical quaternion. It is shown that the presented protocol for rigid bodies over directed networks can simultaneously realize the global attitude synchronization and naturally exclude the Zeno behavior. In addition, these observations are also validated via the application of our hybrid triggering protocol to networked spacecraft., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

O -Phosphination of α-dicarbonyls via sequential in situ formation of a Kukhtin-Ramirez adduct and a P(NMe 2 ) 3 -catalyzed process has been exploited for the synthesis of α-phosphoryloxy carbonyls. A range of P(O)-H derivatives, including diarylphosphine oxides, arylphosphinates, and phosphinates, are competent candidates to be introduced into the α-dicarbonyls in this transformation, and various α-phosphoryloxy carbonyls are obtained. This approach possesses advantages of mild conditions, simple operations, atom economy, high efficiency, and gram-scale synthesis, which make it promising in the synthesis toolbox.

This work deals with the dynamic-memory event-triggered-based load frequency control issue for interconnected multiarea power systems (IMAPSs) associated with random abrupt variations and deception attacks. To facilitate the transient faults, a semi-Markov process is addressed to model the dynamic behavior of IMAPSs. In order to modulate transmission frequency, a novel area-dependent dynamic-memory event-triggered protocol (DMETP) is scheduled by resorting to a set of the historically released packets (HRPs), which ensures better dynamic performance. From the viewpoint of the defender, the randomly occurring deception attack is taken into account, which is regulated by a Bernoulli-distributed scalar. Benefitting from the DMETP scheduling, a novel framework of the memory-based asynchronous control strategy is formulated, in which the hidden semi-Markov model is adopted to reveal the mode mismatches. Based on the Lyapunov theory, sufficient conditions are established to ensure the stochastic stability of the resulting systems. In the end, the simulation result is presented to reveal the efficiency of the proposed dynamic-memory event-triggered-based approach.

For a class of nonstrict-feedback stochastic nonlinear systems with the injection and deception attacks, this article explores the problem of adaptive neural network (NN) fixed-time control ground on the self-triggered mechanism in a pioneering way. After developing the self-triggered mechanism and the delay-error-dependence function, a neural adaptive delay-constrained fault-tolerant controller is proposed by employing the backstepping technique. The self-triggered mechanism does not require an additional observer to determine the time of the data transmission, which reduces the consumption of the system resources more efficiently. In addition, the whole Lyapunov function with the delay-error-dependence term is developed to solve the deferred output constraint problem. Under the proposed controller, it can be proven that all the signals within the closed-loop system are semiglobally uniformly bounded in probability, while the convergence time is independent of the initial state and the deferred output constraint control performance is achieved. The feasibility and the superiority of the proposed control strategy are shown by some simulations.

The problem of the model-free adaptive resilient control (MFARC) for nonlinear cyber-physical systems (CPSs) suffered from aperiodic jamming attacks is investigated in this article. First, the MFARC framework subject to aperiodic jamming attacks is established, and an intermediate variable method is introduced to avoid using the unavailable time-varying parameter and further eliminate an extra assumption on the sign limit of it. Then, a MFARC scheme is devised to track the desired output, where the problem of the tracking control can be transformed into solving a feasibility problem, and the controller parameters can be obtained with the aid of the linear matrix inequality technique. What is more, a novel attack compensation mechanism is developed in the MFARC scheme to mitigate the impact of aperiodic jamming attacks. In the last, an example is provided to verify the effectiveness of the devised MFARC scheme.

Developing new organic reactions with excellent atom economy and high selectivity is significant and urgent. Herein, by ingeniously regulating the reaction conditions, highly selective transformations of propargylamines have been successfully implemented. The palladium-catalyzed cyclization of propargylamines generates a series of functionalized quinoline heterocycles, while the base-promoted isomerization of propargylamines affords diverse 1-azadienes. Both reactions have good functional group tolerance, mild conditions, excellent atom economy and high yields of up to 93%. More importantly, these quinoline heterocycles and 1-azadienes could be flexibly transformed into valuable compounds, illustrating the validity and practicability of the propargylamine-based highly selective reactions.

This work investigates the protocol-based synchronization of inertial neural networks (INNs) with stochastic semi-Markovian jumping parameters and image encryption application. The semi-Markovian jumping process is adopted to characterize INNs under sudden complex changes. To conserve the limited available network bandwidth, an adaptive event-driven protocol (AEDP) is developed in the corresponding semi-Markovian jumping INNs (S-MJINNs), which not only reduces the amount of data transmission but also avoids the Zeno phenomenon. The objective is to construct an adaptive event-driven controller so that the drive and response systems maintain synchronous relationships. Based on the appropriate Lyapunov functional, integral inequality, and free weighting matrix, novel criteria are derived to realize the synchronization. Moreover, the desired adaptive event-driven controller is designed under a semi-Markovian jumping process. The proposed method is demonstrated through a numerical example and an image encryption process.

Obstructive azoospermia is a kind of common clinical disease, which often happens in epididymis, vas deferens and ejaculatory duct obstruction and accounts for male infertility. Azoospermia, which is caused by obstruction of the ejaculatory duct, is relatively rare. but the development of endoscopic technology now allows the disease to be resolved by surgery. In the past, transurethral resection of ejaculatory duct (TURED) has been used to treat patients with ejaculatory duct obstruction and azoosperm-free disease. But with the further study of TURED operation in recent years, as well as in patients with postoperative follow-up results showed that the urine - tube reflux and retrograde ejaculation ejaculation the incidence of iatrogenic injury is higherduring the TURED.therefore, in recent years, some experts committed to seeking a less damage and better effect of the surgical method. With the continuous development of endoscopic technology, seminal vesiculoscopy has come into being, which also creates conditions for further understanding the structure and function of the seminal vesicle and distal seminal duct, accurate diagnosis and minimally invasive treatment of the currently discovered diseases. In this article, we summarized the semen abnormalities associated with seminal vesiculoscopy in the treatment of ejaculatory duct obstruction, and also reviewed the surgical methods, clinical application and research progress of seminal vesiculoscopy.

Objective: To explore the mediating effect of coping style between illness perception and fear of cancer recurrence in patients undergoing radical prostatectomy., Methods: A questionnaire survey was carried out in 254 eligible patients who underwent radical prostatectomy in the urology department of two comprehensive tertiary hospitals in Wenzhou City from June 2022 to December 2022. The questionnaires include the general data questionnaire, brief illness perception questionnaire (BIPQ), Medical Coping Modes Questionnaire (MCMQ) and Fear of Progression Questionnaire-Short Form (FoP-Q-SF). A structural equation model was used to analyze the mediating effect of coping style between illness perception and fear of cancer recurrence., Results: The score of fear of cancer recurrence in prostate cancer patients is (30.08 ± 10.11). Illness perception, avoidance, and surrender coping styles could forward prediction fear of cancer recurrence (P=0.001, P=0.019, P=0.001); facing coping styles can negatively predict fear of cancer recurrence (P=0.001). Coping style played a part of the mediating role between illness perception and fear of cancer recurrence, and the mediating effect is 0.150，which accounted for 47.62% of the total effect., Conclusion: Coping style is a mediator between illness perception and fear of cancer recurrence in patients undergoing radical prostatectomy. Doctors and nurses should reduce patients' negative perception, guide them to adopt positive coping strategies, and thereby reduce their fear of cancer recurrence.

Objective: To evaluate the location and characterization value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in the detection of sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) in malignant melanoma., Methods: SLNs and the lymph node network were tracked by subcutaneous injection of ultrasonic contrast agent around the tumor and preoperative localization, and qualitative analyses were performed. The SLNs were also detected by the intraoperative subcutaneous injection of carbon nanoparticles, and the findings were compared with lymph nodes located by CEUS. The accuracy of the preoperative lymph node identification was evaluated by the results of postoperative pathology, which served as the gold standard of detection., Results: In 47 patients with malignant melanoma, the mean number of SLNs detected by CEUS was 1.72 ± 0.10, while that by carbon nanoparticle administration it was 1.79 ± 1.07 (P = .371 > .05). Seven cases of lymph node metastasis were detected by CEUS, with a sensitivity of 70.0%, specificity of 97.3%, positive predictive value of 87.5%, negative predictive value of 92.3%, and accuracy of 91.5%. There was high consistency between the findings of CEUS and pathology in differentiating benign and malignant lymph nodes (kappa = 0.726, χ 2  = 25.243, P < .001)., Conclusions: CEUS can localize and differentiate SLNs in malignant melanoma, and thus, may potentially guide clinical treatment in the future., (© 2022 American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine.)

In order to solve the trajectory tracking problem for robotic manipulators with dynamic uncertainty, external disturbance and input saturation, a novel second-order sliding mode control scheme based on neural network is proposed in this paper. First of all, a model-based second-order non-singular fast terminal sliding mode controller (SONFTSMC) is designed to overcome the chattering problem under the consideration of uncertain parameters. Then attention is focused on the scenario that all those nonlinear uncertainties are unknown, and a new fuzzy wavelet neural network (FWNN) is designed to estimate those unknown uncertainties via lumping them into one compounded uncertainty. In addition, all parameters in FWNN are adjusted autonomously by using an adaptive method. The proposed second-order non-singular fast terminal sliding mode (SONFTSM) control method not only improves the convergence speed and tracking accuracy of the robotic manipulator, but also enhances its robustness. Finally, the advantages of SONFTSM control strategy over existing sliding mode control methods are verified with comparative simulations., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In this article, the l 1 -induced performance of the stochastic switched Boolean control network (BCN) is investigated. The switched signal is considered to follow a time-varying probability distribution, the switching of which is considered to have a random dwell time. The asynchronous state feedback control (SFC) is studied to achieve the control objective. This kind of control can avoid the failure of the control due to the inconsistency between the system mode and the control mode, so the results obtained are more general. Using the semitensor product of matrices, the algebraic form of the considered BCN is represented. Under this framework, sufficient conditions are obtained to ensure that the closed-loop system is stochastic stabilized with a prescribed l 1 -induced performance level γ . Parameters can be solved by inequalities. In addition, when the dwell time converges to infinity, the probability distribution of the switched signal becomes fixed. Necessary and sufficient conditions are presented to ensure the stabilization of the closed system under asynchronous SFC as well as the design of the asynchronous SFC. Then, sufficient condition is obtained for the prescribed l 1 -induced performance level. Examples are presented to show the effectiveness of the obtained results.

The low salt adsorption capacities (SACs) of benchmark carbon materials (usually below 20 mg g -1 ) are one of the most challenging issues limiting further commercial development of capacitive deionization (CDI), an energetically favorable method for sustainable water desalination. Sodium superionic conductor (NASICON)-structured NaTi 2 (PO 4 ) 3 (NTP) materials, especially used in combination with carbon to prepare NTP/C materials, provide emerging options for higher CDI performance but face the problems of poor cycling stability and dissolution of active materials. In this study, we report the development of the yolk-shell nanoarchitecture of NASICON-structured NTP/C materials (denoted as ys -NTP@C) using a metal-organic framework@covalent organic polymer (MOF@COP) as a sacrificial template and space-confined nanoreactor. As expected, ys -NTP@C exhibits good CDI performance, including exemplary SACs with a maximum SAC of 124.72 mg g -1 at 1.8 V in the constant-voltage mode and 202.76 mg g -1 at 100 mA g -1 in the constant-current mode, and good cycling stability without obvious performance degradation or energy consumption increase over 100 cycles. Furthermore, X-ray diffraction used to study CDI cycling clearly exhibits the good structural stability of ys -NTP@C during repeated ion intercalation/deintercalation processes, and the finite element simulation shows why yolk-shell nanostructures exhibit better performance than other materials. This study provides a new synthetic paradigm for preparing yolk-shell structured materials from MOF@COP and highlights the potential use of yolk-shell nanoarchitectures for electrochemical desalination.

Objective: To compare neoadjuvant chemotherapy (nCT) with CAPOX alone versus neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) with capecitabine in locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) with uninvolved mesorectal fascia (MRF)., Background Data: nCRT is associated with higher surgical complications, worse long-term functional outcomes, and questionable survival benefits. Comparatively, nCT alone seems a promising alternative treatment in lower-risk LARC patients with uninvolved MRF., Methods: Patients between June 2014 and October 2020 with LARC within 12 cm from the anal verge and uninvolved MRF were randomly assigned to nCT group with 4 cycles of CAPOX (Oxaliplatin 130 mg/m2 IV day 1 and Capecitabine 1000 mg/m2 twice daily for 14 d. Repeat every 3 wk) or nCRT group with Capecitabine 825 mg/m² twice daily administered orally and concurrently with radiation therapy (50 Gy/25 fractions) for 5 days per week. The primary end point is local-regional recurrence-free survival. Here we reported the results of secondary end points: histopathologic response, surgical events, and toxicity., Results: Of the 663 initially enrolled patients, 589 received the allocated treatment (nCT, n=300; nCRT, n=289). Pathologic complete response rate was 11.0% (95% CI, 7.8-15.3%) in the nCT arm and 13.8% (95% CI, 10.1-18.5%) in the nCRT arm ( P =0.33). The downstaging (ypStage 0 to 1) rate was 40.8% (95% CI, 35.1-46.7%) in the nCT arm and 45.6% (95% CI, 39.7-51.7%) in the nCRT arm ( P =0.27). nCT was associated with lower perioperative distant metastases rate (0.7% vs. 3.1%, P =0.03) and preventive ileostomy rate (52.2% vs. 63.6%, P =0.008) compared with nCRT. Four patients in the nCT arm received salvage nCRT because of local disease progression after nCT. Two patients in the nCT arm and 5 in the nCRT arm achieved complete clinical response and were treated with a nonsurgical approach. Similar results were observed in subgroup analysis., Conclusions: nCT achieved similar pCR and downstaging rates with lower incidence of perioperative distant metastasis and preventive ileostomy compared with nCRT. CAPOX could be an effective alternative to neoadjuvant therapy in LARC with uninvolved MRF. Long-term follow-up is needed to confirm these results., (Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Background: Despite neuroinflammation being an important component of the pathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD), effective therapies to alleviate neuroinflammation are still lacking. Many animal experiments in AD have found that acupuncture may ameliorate cognition by decreasing neuroinflammation and modulating cytokines, but its effects have not been systematically examined. We aimed to assess its efficacy on neuroinflammation in AD and to investigate the potential mechanisms., Materials and Methods: The following databases were searched from inception until 24 August 2022: Web of Science, EMBASE, PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure. Animal studies that reported the efficacy of acupuncture on neuroinflammation in AD were included. The SYRCLE Robt was utilized to evaluate methodological quality. Stata 17 was utilized to conduct a meta-analysis of cytokine levels and the results of the Morris water maze., Results: 23 studies were included, with a total of 417 rats/mice. The overall quality of all included reports was medium. The results indicated that acupuncture significantly reduced the expressions of pro-inflammatory cytokines which included IL-1β [SMD = -3.50, 95% CI (-4.31, -2.69); I 2 = 78.6%] ( P < 0.05), TNF-α [SMD = -3.05, 95% CI (-3.86, -2.24); I 2 = 69.6%] ( P < 0.05), IL-6 [SMD = -3.22, 95% CI (-4.62, -1.81); I 2 = 77.6%] and enhanced the expressions of anti-inflammatory cytokines including IL-4 [SMD = 2.77, 95% CI (1.95, 3.59); I 2 = 33.9%] ( P < 0.05), IL-10 [SMD = 1.84, 95% CI (1.20, 2.49); I 2 = 41.0%] ( P < 0.05) in an animal model of AD. Regarding the Morris water maze, compared to the control group, the acupuncture group showed a shorter escape latency [SMD = -2.23, 95% CI (-2.89, -1.57); I 2 = 79.2%] ( P < 0.05), longer duration in platform quadrant [SMD = 2.34, 95% CI (1.44, 3.23); I 2 = 81.7%] ( P < 0.05), and increased platform crossing number [SMD = 2.79, 95% CI (2.06, 3.53); I 2 = 71.9%] ( P < 0.05)., Conclusion: Acupuncture may reduce neuroinflammation in AD by modulating cytokine expression. This modulation significantly improved cognitive function in animal models of AD., Systematic Review Registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/, identifier CRD42022354878., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Wu, Huang, Wang, Deng, Xu and Tang.)