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Patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) are often accompanied with varying degrees of renal diseases. The purpose of this study was to identify rs37369 polymorphism of AGXT2 specific to the renal function of CHF patients. A total of 1012 southern Chinese participants, including 487 CHF patients without history of renal diseases and 525 healthy volunteers, were recruited for this study. Polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) was used to determine the genotypes of AGXT2 rs37369 polymorphism. Levels of blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and serum creatinine (SCr) were detected to indicate the renal function of the participants. BUN level was significantly higher in CHF patients without history of renal diseases compared with healthy volunteers ( p = 0.000). And the similar result was also obtained for SCr ( p = 0.000). Besides, our results indicated that the level of BUN correlated significantly with SCr in both the CHF patients without renal diseases ( r = 0.4533, p < 0.0001) and volunteers ( r = 0.2489, p < 0.0001). Furthermore, we found that the AGXT2 rs37369 polymorphism could significantly affect the level of BUN in CHF patients without history of renal diseases ( p = 0.036, AA + AG vs GG). Patients with rs37369 GG genotype showed a significantly reduced level of BUN compared to those with the AA genotype ( p = 0.024), and the significant difference was still observed in the smokers of CHF patients without renal diseases ( p = 0.023). In conclusion, we found that CHF might induce the impairment of kidney and cause deterioration of renal function. AGXT2 rs37369 polymorphism might affect the renal function of CHF patients free from renal diseases, especially in patients with cigarette smoking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pristine and Cr-doped ZnO nanorods were successfully synthesized via a facile hydrothermal route. We found that the ethanol gas response of ZnO was improved significantly by Cr doping. In particular, the enhanced gas-sensing mechanism was investigated by first-principles calculations upon proposed surface adsorption models. The calculated results revealed that the Cr-doped ZnO (0 0 0 1) surface enabled transfer larger electrons and adsorb more oxygen molecules than that of undoped one, thus holding the potential for further enhancement in gas response of ZnO-based sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To precisely control the size of the droplets is quite important for the application of the droplet microfluidic systems. To date, the size of monodisperse droplets is usually measured by the method of image processing for droplet microfluidics, which requires expensive detection devices such as microscope and high-speed camera. In this paper, an electrical-detection droplet microfluidic closed-loop control system is demonstrated, where the flow rates of fluids are controlled by the pressure-driven microfluidic device and the droplet size can be obtained from the method of electrical detection. The mathematical model of the closed-loop control system is established. Compared with the method of image processing, both the measuring efficiency and accuracy of the droplet size are increased significantly by the electrical-detection method, which can improve the dynamic characteristics of the droplet microfluidic closed-loop control system. In particular, a PI controller is integrated into the closed-loop control system to improve the control precision of the droplet size. By varying the flow rates of the fluids, the effects of the droplet production rates on the dynamic characteristics of the closed-loop control system are studied, and the control precision and stability of the system can be obtained from the experimental measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel gas sensors with high sensing properties, simultaneously operating at room temperature are considerably more attractive owing to their low power consumption, high security and long-term stability. Till date, zinc oxide (ZnO) as semiconducting metal oxide is considered as the promising resistive-type gas sensing material, but elevated operating temperature becomes the bottleneck of its extensive applications in the field of real-time gas monitoring, especially in flammable and explosive gas atmosphere. In this respect, worldwide efforts have been devoted to reducing the operating temperature by means of multiple methods In this communication, room-temperature gas sensing properties of ZnO based gas sensors are comprehensively reviewed. Much more attention is particularly paid to the effective strategies that create room-temperature gas sensing of ZnO based gas sensors, mainly including surface modification, additive doping and light activation. Finally, some perspectives for future investigation on room-temperature gas-sensing materials are discussed as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The microencapsulation of bioactive neurotrophic factors in biodegradable poly(lactide- co -glycolide) (PLGA) microspheres has been a promising tool in the treatment of various nervous system disorders. However, challenges still exist; the PLGA burst drug release and acidic degradation products often limit clinical application. In this study, cores–shell PLGA-chitosan microparticles (MPs) were fabricated with a single shell of chitosan and multi - cores of PLGA using a re - emulsification method. The glial cell line - derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) was encapsulated at the PLGA cores of the cores–shell MPs. The cores–shell MPs prepared by different chitosan concentrations showed a rough surface, and the particle mean size varied between 32.3 and 45.2 μm. The fluorescence images indicated that Nile red - stained PLGA microspheres were uniformly distributed in the cores–shell MPs. Compared with PLGA microspheres, the cores–shell MPs were able to reduce the initial burst release of GDNF and neutralize the acidity of PLGA degradation products, which could be modulated by changing the chitosan concentrations. Further differentiation of PC12 cells toward a neuronal phenotype in vitro indicated that the cores–shell MPs were capable of maintaining the bioactivity of GDNF during preparation. Taken together, these findings highlight the possibility of using cores–shell PLGA-chitosan MPs for the sustained release of GDNF, which offers potential applications in nerve injury repair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The epigenetic silencing of tumor suppressor genes in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) can potentially confer a growth advantage to individual cellular clones. Currently, the recommended treatment for patients with high-risk MDS is the methylation agent decitabine (DAC), a drug that can induce the reexpression of silenced tumor suppressor genes. We investigated the effects of DAC treatment on the myeloid MDS cell line SKM-1 and investigated the role of FOXO3A, a potentially tumor-suppressive transcription factor, by silencing its expression prior to DAC treatment. We found that FOXO3A exists in an inactive, hyperphosphorylated form in SKM-1 cells, but that DAC both induces FOXO3A expression and reactivates the protein by reducing its phosphorylation level. Furthermore, we show that this FOXO3A activation is responsible for the DAC-induced differentiation of SKM-1 cells into monocytes, as well as for SKM-1 cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, and autophagy. Collectively, these results suggest that FOXO3A reactivation may contribute to the therapeutic effects of DAC in MDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We quantify different ecological indicators and obtain ecological security pattern and key regions. • Landscape connectivity is used to identify priority protected areas that meet future requirements. • We quantify the effectiveness of existing protected areas and identify isolated protected areas. • Future conservation measures are proposed from the perspectives of different priority conservation areas. Protected areas (PAs) play a key role in mitigating ecological crises. Currently, priority protected areas (PPAs) focus on biological conservation, and a few studies have considered the connectivity between patches. Few studies have formulated future conservation measures from the two dimensions of ecological security pattern (ESP) and reserve effectiveness. To fill this gap, this study considered the use of the ESP to identify areas that meet future conservation objectives. We take the Wuhan metropolitan area as the research area. We constructed a framework for formulating conservation development plans based on priority protected areas. The framework constructed a complete method system, and we focused on the construction of the evaluation index system based on landscape connectivity. Then, the effectiveness of the PAs could be evaluated, and the PPAs could be identified. The results showed that there were five isolated PAs among the existing PAs. Moreover, the total area of PPAs was 9328.91 km2, and they had high connectivity and ecological value. Due to the low protection rate of PPAs, PPAs are not the main protection target of PAs; thus, we take PPAs as a new area of future PAs. According to our plan, PPAs with different classes will achieve different functions in future protection work. Our framework focuses on achieving sustainable conservation and formulates new environmental protection and land planning measures to balance ecological conservation and urban development. It can provide key information to support the realization of the 2030 vision of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adsorption capacity and gas sensing mechanism of Ru 3 -modified SnS 2 monolayer toward four representative dissolved gases in insulating oil (H 2 , CO, C 2 H 2 and C 2 H 4) was investigated based on first-principles calculations. It can be found that Ru 3 -modified SnS 2 monolayer exhibits excellent gas sensing application prospect as an innovative gas detector to dissolved gases in insulating oil due to its outstanding adsorption properties. [Display omitted] • The optimal structure of Ru 3 -modified SnS 2 monolayer is Ru atom adsorbed above the T Sn site of pristine SnS2 monolayer. • Ru 3 -modified SnS 2 exhibits significantly better conductivity compared to the pristine SnS 2. • Results of desorption time further demonstrate the excellent application prospect of Ru 3 -SnS 2 monolayer in monitoring representative dissolved gases in insulating oil such as H 2 , CO, C 2 H 2 and C 2 H 4. Using gas sensitive materials to monitor the dissolved gas in transformer oil online can effectively evaluate the working state of oil immersed transformer. In this study, density functional theory (DFT) was adopted to analyze the adsorption energy, charge transfer, density of states, band structure and desorption so as to understand the adsorption and sensing behavior of four representative dissolved gases in insulating oil (H 2 , CO, C 2 H 2 , C 2 H 4) by Ru 3 -SnS 2. The outcomes indicate that the Ru 3 -SnS 2 has strong adsorption effect for CO, C 2 H 2 and C 2 H 4 , but weak adsorption effect for H 2. This study provides theoretical direction for exploring the application prospect of Ru 3 -SnS 2 in the operation condition evaluation of oil immersed transformer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Frailty is a dynamic process associated with adverse health outcomes. However, little is known about the long-term trajectories of frailty in older cancer survivors. Objectives To describe the trajectories of frailty phenotype over time amongst older cancer survivors and examine the socio-demographic and health-related predictors of different trajectories. Design Population-based longitudinal cohort study. Setting Community-dwelling older adults in the United States. Subjects 1,763 older adults who were diagnosed with cancer from the National Health and Ageing Trends Study. Methods Frailty was assessed by the Fried Frailty Phenotype. The group-based trajectory model was used to identify the trajectories of frailty. Multinomial logistic regression analyses were used to examine the socio-demographic and health-related predictors of different trajectories. Results Three frailty trajectories were identified; 52.8% of older cancer survivors had a sustained low risk of frailty over time, 25.0% had a low frailty risk at baseline but the risk increased steadily, and 22.3% had a high frailty risk with a slight change in the observed period. Older cancer survivors were at a high-risk frailty trajectory if they were older, female, African American, had lower education status, had lower annual income, were underweight or obese, self-rated poorer health, had more chronic conditions and difficulties with activities of daily living (ADL), and had worse cognitive functions (P  < 0.05). Conclusions Long-term frailty trajectories in older cancer survivors are heterogeneous. This study helps identify patients at high risk of sustained or deteriorating frailty and has the potential to inform targeted frailty management strategies addressing modifiable factors identified (e.g. body mass index, ADL). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The direct correlation between active sites and catalytic activity in multiple‐component metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs) is key to understanding their mechanism of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) but remains vague. Herein, supported multiple‐site MOFs are adopted as model catalysts to quantitatively study the composition‐dependent OER performance. Ni MOFs on Fe metal substrate possess the highest intrinsic OER activity with the Ni/Fe ratio of 1:2 in the presence of metal leaching of the substrate during synthesis. Further introducing a proper amount of Cu further boosts the OER performance of Cu‐doped NiFe MOFs with an impressively low overpotential of 200 mV at 10 mA cm−2. Spectroscopic analysis with theoretical study indicates that the copper doping within the NiFe MOFs induces electron redistribution for high valence Fe sites with an optimized balance of OH/OOH adsorption and decreased energy barrier for improved OER. This work sheds light on the active site tailoring of MOFs which highly correlates with the OER activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel series of 5‐substituted/unsubstituted [1,2,4]triazolo[3,4‐b][1,3,4] thiadiazine compounds has been achieved successfully through chemoselective reduction of the C = N bond, based on our prior work. Initial biological evaluation illustrated that the most active derivative 7j exhibited significant cell growth inhibitory activity toward MCF‐7, A549, HCT116, and A2780 with the IC50 values of 0.75, 0.94, 2.90, and 4.15 μM, respectively. Most importantly, all the representative analogs did not demonstrate obvious cytotoxic activity against the non‐tumoural cell line HEK‐293 (IC50 > 100 μM). The mechanism study revealed that 7j caused the G2/M phase arrest, induced cell apoptosis in HeLa cells in a concentration‐dependent manner, and also showed potent tubulin polymerization inhibitory effect. Meanwhile, 7j exerted significant antivascular activity in the wound‐healing and tube formation assays. These observations indicate that 5‐unsubstituted 6,7‐dihydro‐5H‐[1,2,4]triazolo[3,4‐b][1,3,4]thiadiazine scaffold might be considered as a potential lead for antitubulin inhibitors to develop highly efficient anticancer agents with potent selectivity over normal human cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Composed of the heart, cardiac valves and blood vessels, the blood circulation system can manage the aggregation and the movement of the blood regularly and efficiently. Due to the analogical fluidity of the charge carrier and the blood, such system may act as the inspiration to design the advanced gas-sensing material. As a proof-of-concept, firstly, the porous WO 3 monomer was synthesized and recombined with the one-dimensional NiO monomer through the P-N junction to construct a similar structure. Subsequently, a series of gas-sensing tests towards the ethanol were measured. The obtained result indicates this nature-inspired nanocomposite indeed shows an enhanced gas-sensing property towards the ethanol, testifying the rationality of our design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to the slenderness of the single spider silk and the fluffy arrangement of numerous monomers, the cobweb has the sufficient contact with the water vapor in air and can form dewdrops on it. Enlightened by this, WO 3 nanowires with a great length-diameter ratio and a non-compact assembly are inferred to possess an excellent gas-sensing property. As a proof-of-concept, the cobweb-like WO 3 was firstly synthesized through a facile solvothermal method using the water-ethanol mixed solution. The subsequent gas-sensing measurements testified this kind of cobweb-like WO 3 indeed displays an enhanced sensitivity towards the ethanol at a relatively low temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aim: Many studies have reported that genetic variants correlate with higher risk for coronary artery disease (CAD) or in-stent restenosis (ISR) after bare metal stent (BMS) implantation. However, there is limited data assessing the impact of these variants on ISR in patients treated with drug-eluting stent (DES). The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of genetic risk factors on ISR in Chinese Han patients treated with DES. Methods: A total of 425 patients with a diagnosis of CAD who underwent successful revascularization in native coronary arteries with DES were included in this retrospective study. Genotyping was performed on six single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the endothelial nitric oxide synthase gene (eNOS), the angiotensin converting enzyme gene (ACE), the angiotensin II type 1 receptor gene (AT1R), the transforming growth factor beta gene (TGF-β), and the vascular endothelial growth factor gene (VEGF). Quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) was performed during the follow-up period to detect ISR. Logistic regression models were used to test for association. Results: Fifty-four patients (12.7%) developed ISR during the follow-up period. Of the six analyzed SNPs, the frequency of the C allele of T786C polymorphism in eNOS was significantly higher in the ISR group (22.2%) compared to the non-ISR group (12.7%) (p<0.01). In the ISR group, the frequency of the TT, TC, and CC genotypes was 61.1%, 33.3%, and 5.6%, respectively, and in the non-ISR group, the frequencies were 76.8%, 21.0%, and 2.2%, respectively. The multivariable analysis adjusted for potential confounders and revealed that the T786C polymorphism increased the risk of ISR in both additive and dominant models with odds ratios of 1.870 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.079–3.240, p = 0.03) and 2.045 (95% CI: 1.056–3.958, p = 0.03), respectively. Conclusion: The eNOS T786C polymorphism was associated with ISR in Chinese Han patients treated with DES. Genotyping may be helpful to identify patients with higher risks of ISR after DES implantation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nuclear retinoid X receptor-α (RXRα) plays critical roles in cell homeostasis and in many physiological processes mainly through its transcriptional function. However, an N-terminal truncated form of RXRα, tRXRα, was frequently described in various cancer cells and tumor tissues, thus representing a new promising drug target. We recently demonstrated that triptolide (TR01) could target to the oncogenic activity of tRXRα. To improve its tumor selectivity, we developed several TR01 derivatives by introducing different amine ester groups on C-14-hydroxyl site. Interestingly, C-14 modification could differently affect the expression of tRXRα without interfering the level of its full length RXRα. Among the derivatives, TRC4 could strongly reduce tRXRα expression, while TRC5-7 increased it. The capability of inhibiting tRXRα expression was shown to be closely associated with its inactivation of AKT and induction of apoptosis in various cancer cells. Conversely, treatment of cancer cells with the tRXRα-stabilizing compounds TRC5-7 resulted in enhanced AKT activity and apoptosis-resistance. However, although TR01 could strongly reduce tRXRα expression and AKT activity, it also strongly inhibited the expression and transcriptional activity of RXRα in normal cells. Importantly, the tRXRα-selective TRC4 that did not significantly inhibit RXRα transcriptional function retained the most potency of the anticancer effect of TR01 and had no significant effect on the viability of normal cells. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that tRXRα-selective TRC4 will have potential clinical application in terms of drug target and side effects. Our findings will offer new strategies to develop improved triptolide analogs for cancer therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The NiO nanoflowers were prepared by a facile surfactant assisted hydrothermal method using Ni(NO 3 ) 2 –6H 2 O or NiCl 2 –6H 2 O as precursor compound. The microstructure of the samples was characterized by SEM and XRD. The gas sensing properties of the NiO nanoflowers toward ethanol was also investigated. The results show that surfactant plays a key role in the synthesis of flower-like NiO. The NiO nanoflowers show excellent sensing performances to ethanol gas. This morphology holds substantial promise for applying NiO as a potential gas sensing material for future sensor application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manner how nano building blocks assemble into hierarchical architectures exerts a tremendous influence on gas-sensing performance of the metal oxides. Herein, we focus on tuning the 1D nanorods into 3D hierarchical urchins with various assembly densities, aiming at investigating the effect between gas diffusion and charge transfer. Via modulating the additive amount of NaOH, loose-, moderate- and close-assembled SnO 2 nanourchins aggregated with nanorods were successfully prepared, respectively. The relationships of nanorond assembly behavior to specific surface and average pore size of the urchin-like nanostructures were discussed in detail. A comparison study reveals that an enhanced gas sensing performance for the sensor made of the moderate-assembled SnO 2 nanourchins towards ethanol occurs over the other two, implying that perhaps there exists an optimizing assembly density range which provides not only enough space for gas diffusion but also sufficient contact network for charge transfer, in terms of good contacts among nanorods in an urchin-like sphere and among nanorods from adjacent spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, hierarchical WO 3 ·H 2 O porous microspheres and conventional smooth WO 3 ·H 2 O microspheres were successfully fabricated via a simple hydrothermal process. The products were characterized by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope. Meanwhile, the possible evolution processes of the two products were discussed based on time-dependent experiments. Remarkably, hierarchical porous spherical architectures which possess abundant micro reaction rooms, exhibited improved gas-sensing performance compared to smooth sphere-like structures. It is believed that this unique nanostructure has great potential to enhance the gas-sensing properties of tungsten oxides and other semiconductor materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A facile hydrothermal route was developed for the preparation of well-aligned hierarchical flower-like NiO nanostructure with the assistance of SDS that served as a structure-directing agent as well as a capping agent in the process of aggregation and assembly. Notably, the NiO sensors exhibit enhanced gas-sensing performance towards ethanol, which could be explained in association with the ultrathin nanosheets that are close to Debye length (L D ) scale and thus get the majority carriers fully depleted due to the ionization of adsorbed oxygen, abundant effective gas diffusion paths as well as high surface-to-volume ratio to promote sufficient contact and reaction between the NiO sample and ethanol molecules, and numerous miniature reaction rooms assembled with nanosheets to make the test gas molecules stay long enough for completed gas-sensing reactions. Besides, a novel growth mechanism with the passage of reaction time was also proposed in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel WO 3 ·H 2 O nanostructure assembled by numerous one-dimensional nanorods as building units were synthesized successfully through a facile hydrothermal process. As a comparison, we also prepared the monodispersed WO 3 ·H 2 O nanorods. The crystal structures and morphologies of two products were characterized by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope. Furthermore, gas sensing experiments indicated that a superior gas-sensing property of aligned WO 3 ·H 2 O nanorods occurs over that of the monodispersed WO 3 ·H 2 O nanorods, which is likely attributed to large effective surface areas and abundant accessible diffusion channels provided by this special structure for sufficient gas reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manner how nano building blocks assemble into hierarchical architectures exerts a tremendous influence on gas-sensing performance of the metal oxides. Here, we focus on tuning the 2D SnO 2 nanosheets into 3D hierarchical nanoflowers by manipulating the presence of NaOH, and investigate their gas-sensing functionalities. We find that the blooming SnO 2 nanoflowers assembled by ultrathin nanosheets (∼50 nm) are shrunk into semi-blooming state, and that the semi-blooming nanoflowers based sensor shows enhanced gas-sensing performance towards the ethanol, which is attributed mainly to the confined effect due to numerous nano or micro reaction rooms by keeping oxygen and ethanol molecules to complete gas-sensing reactions. While the semi-blooming nanoflowers turn into ordered mesoporous via thermally removing the periodically arranged polyvinyl pyrrolidone micelles, their gas-sensing performance is found to be improved dramatically, indicating that sufficient amount of gas diffusion is crucial to gas-sensing properties rather than the fast gas diffusion speed. As a final verification, we fabricate the sensors using the mesoporous semi-blooming SnO 2 nanoflowers and successfully monitor the existence of beer by a simple integrated device, making it a promising candidate in detecting drunk driving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, a novel hierarchical cactus-like WO 3 -SnO 2 nanocomposite was synthesized by a one-step hydrothermal route. It was a surprise to find that such nanostructure consisting of diminutive SnO 2 nanospheres decorated bulky WO 3 nanosphere exhibited a high gas response and fast response-recovery speed towards acetone, mainly attributed to their synergetic effect as well as the heterojunction at the interface between the bulky WO 3 nanosphere and diminutive SnO 2 nanosphere, resulting in adequate surface adsorption and efficient electron transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The designed nanosheet-assembled hollow NiO/ZnO microspheres have been successfully synthesized by a facile one-step hydrothermal process. Such constructions are developed and employed in ethanol gas detection. The measured results reveal that the hollow NiO/ZnO hierarchical heterostructure based sensor exhibits outstanding ethanol gas sensing performances with superior gas response and excellent repeatability, which are predominantly ascribed to the hierarchical hollow architectures as well as the formation of p-n heterojunction at the interface between the p-type NiO and n-type ZnO structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the hollow MoO 3 microcages were successfully synthesized using a one-step hydrothermal route, and their gas-sensing properties towards ethanol were further investigated. It was found that such MoO 3 microcages possessed excellent ethanol gas response, which benefited from their unique hollow structure with a less stacking aggregation, offering sufficient pathways for gas diffusion as well as abundant adsorption sites for surface chemical reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ZnO nanorods and nanosheets were synthesized via a facile hydrothermal route, and their gas sensing properties were tested to figure out the effect of surface morphologies on gas sensing performance. It was surprisely found that the ZnO nanorods exhibit quicker response and recovery speed towards ethanol, which may be ascribed to the better conductivity and lower potential barrier, whereas the nanosheets display larger ethanol gas response owing to its higher specific surface area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Malaria remains a major public health burden to children under five, especially in Eastern Africa (E.A), —a region that is also witnessing the increasing occurrence of floods and extreme climate change. The present study, therefore, explored the trends in floods, as well as the association of their occurrence and duration with the malaria incidence in children < 5 years in five E.A partner countries of Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), including Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Tanzania between 1990 and 2019. Methods: A retrospective analysis of data retrieved from two global sources was performed: the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) and the Global Burden of Diseases Study (GBD) between 1990 and 2019. Using SPSS 20.0, a correlation was determined based on ρ= -1 to + 1, as well as the statistical significance of P = < 0.05. Time plots of trends in flooding and malaria incidence were generated in 3 different decades using R version 4.0. Results: Between 1990 and 2019, the occurrence and duration of floods among the five E.A partner countries of FOCAC increased and showed an upward trend. On the contrary, however, this had an inverse and negative, as well as a weak correlation on the malaria incidence in children under five years. Only Kenya, among the five countries, showed a perfect negative correction of malaria incidence in children under five with flood occurrence (ρ = -0.586**, P-value = 0.001) and duration (ρ = -0.657**, P-value = < 0.0001). Conclusions: This study highlights the need for further research to comprehensively explore how different climate extreme events, which oftentimes complement floods, might be influencing the risk of malaria in children under five in five E.A malaria-endemic partner countries of FOCAC. Similarly, it ought to consider investigating the influence of other attributes apart from flood occurrence and duration, which also compound floods like displacement, malnutrition, and water, sanitation and hygiene on the risk and distribution of malaria and other climate-sensitive diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. This study investigated the effect of tumor size and other factors on the survival and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods. All HCC populations based on the National Cancer Institute's SEER database to receive from 2010 to 2016 were employed in the study. Results. This study enrolled a total of 14,634 HCC. Among them, 1,686 patients had tumors ≤ 2 cm, 6,169 patients had tumors 2–5 cm, and 6,779 patients had tumors > 5 cm. The results using univariate analysis showed that all factors were significant prognostic factors for overall survival and specific survival. Patients with tumor size ≤ 2 cm were more likely to survive, while patients with tumor size > 5 cm had a lower survival rate. Patients who had surgery or surgery plus chemotherapy had a higher chance of survival in stages I-II, and the survival rate declined smoothly during the 80 months. The change rate of the mortality rate increased rapidly during the period of 1–12 cm; afterwards, the mortality rate's HR was basically and smoothly maintained at a high level. Conclusions. Tumor size was positively correlated with the mortality rate of HCC. Survival rates were greater in patients with tumors ≤ 2 cm who underwent surgery or surgery plus chemotherapy. Patients with HCC in the early stage had a higher survival probability particularly when they had experienced surgery or surgery plus chemotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

VOC has brought a lot of troubles to human life. They are the main factors that cause smog and photochemical pollution. SnO 2 -based gas sensors have many good qualities, such as good sensitivity, good response/recovery time, and good stability. Therefore, in this review, we will focus on detecting SnO 2 -based chemical sensors for indoor formaldehyde, ethanol related to road traffic safety, acetone that can detect human health and other significant VOC. The sensing mechanism, performance, etc., of the SnO 2 -based gas sensor, which can selectively detect these gases, are discussed in detail. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on the synthesis of pristine and Cu-doped SnO 2 spheres using a facile hydrothermal method and investigate their microstructures and gas-sensing response. We focus on how Cu doping can have an impact on gas-sensing behavior of SnO 2 -based sensors toward H 2 S. We find that Cu doping can enhance significantly the gas response of SnO 2 toward H 2 S, the origin of which can be clarified with a proposed adsorption model. First-principles calculations reveal that adsorption energy of H 2 S on Cu-doped surface is lower than that on undoped one and the interaction between adsorbed H 2 S and Cu-doped surface is stronger than that between adsorbed H 2 S and pure surface, which consequently improves gas-sensing performances of SnO 2 toward H 2 S. Such a combined experimental and calculational study offers an explanation on how Cu doping affects gas-sensing performances of SnO 2 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sparsely and closely flower-like WO 3 ·H 2 O hierarchical architectures were successfully synthesized via a one-step hydrothermal process. The obtained samples are both WO 3 ·H 2 O nanoflowers assembled by ultrathin nanosheets with the thickness less than electron deletion layer. And the possible formation processed was proposed based on the comparative studies. Furthermore, gas sensing experiments demonstrated that the closely WO 3 ·H 2 O nanoflowers which possess numerous semi-closed spaces have a superior gas-sensing performance compared with the sparsely one. We believe this unique structure will critically enhance the gas sensing properties of WO 3 ·H 2 O nanomaterials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanomaterials with hierarchical architectures consisting of two-dimensional nanostructures have attracted considerable attention for their potential applications in recent years. In current work, flake-flower NiO architectures self-assembled by aggregative nanosheets have been successfully synthesized via the hydrothermal route. It is notable that the NiO sensors exhibit excellent gas sensing performances owing to the open and well-defined structure as well as abundant micro reaction rooms built by two-dimensional ultrathin nanosheets, which are thinner than the thickness of electron depletion layer. Moreover, a possible growth mechanism for the interactions between PVP and Ni 2+ ions in the synthesis of the precursors Ni(OH) 2 and the novel morphology evolution of the NiO nanoflowers are proposed in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treatment of 1,2-C 6 H 4 (SiH 3 )(SiH 3 ) ( 1 ) with [Pt(depe)(PEt 3 ) 2 ] (depe = Et 2 PCH 2 CH 2 PEt 2 ) in the ratio of 1:1 yields the complex [Pt II {1,2-C 6 H 4 (SiH 2 )(SiH 2 )}(depe)] ( 2 ), which has unique reactivity towards sterically unhindered alcohol to form an unusual tetra-alkoxy substituted silyl platinum(II) compound ( 3 ). Only 2 examples of bis(silyl)platinum(II) complexes prepared from this chelating hydrosilane ligand have been registered in the Cambridge Structural Database. The structure of complex ( 3 ) was unambiguously determined by multinuclear NMR spectroscopic studies and single crystal X-ray analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, WO 3 ·H 2 O with different nanostructures from 0D to 3D were successfully synthesized via a simple yet cost-effective hydrothermal method with the assistance of surfactants. The structures and morphologies of products were investigated by XRD and SEM. Besides, we systematically explained the evolution process and formation mechanisms of different WO 3 ·H 2 O morphologies. It is noted that both the kinds and amounts of surfactants strongly affect the formation of WO 3 ·H 2 O crystals, as reflected in the tailoring of WO 3 ·H 2 O morphologies. Furthermore, the gas sensing performance of the as-prepared samples towards methanol was also investigated. 3D flower-like hierarchical architecture displayed outstanding response to target gas among the four samples. We hoped our results could be of great benefit to further investigations of synthesizing different dimensional WO 3 ·H 2 O nanostructures and their gas sensing applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federated cloud systems increase the reliability and reduce the cost of computational support to an organisation. However, the resulting combination of secure private clouds and less secure public clouds impacts on the overall security of the system as applications need to be located within different clouds. In this paper, the entities of a federated cloud system as well as the clouds are assigned security levels of a given security lattice. Then a dynamic flow sensitive security model for a federated cloud system is introduced within which the Bell–LaPadula rules and cloud security rule can be captured. The rest of the paper demonstrates how Petri nets and the associated verification techniques could be used to analyse the security of information flow in federated cloud systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impulsive processes frequently occur in many fields, such as radar, sonar, communications, audio and speech processing, and biomedical engineering. In this paper, we propose a nonconvex linear regression (NLR) based minimum dispersion beamforming technique for impulsive signals to achieve significant performance improvement over the conventional minimum variance beamformer. The proposed beamformer minimizes the \ellp-norm of the output with p<1 subject to a linear distortionless response constraint, resulting in a difficult nonconvex and nonsmooth optimization problem. The constrained optimization problem is first reduced to a multivariate linear regression via constraint elimination. As a major contribution of this paper, a coordinate descent algorithm (CDA) is devised for solving the resultant NLR problem of \ellp-minimization with p<1 at a computational complexity of \cal O(MN^2), where M is the number of sensors and N is the sample size. At each inner iteration of the CDA, an efficient algorithm is designed to find the global minimum of each subproblem of univariate linear regression. The convergence of the CDA is analyzed. The NLR beamformer with a single constraint is further generalized to the case of multiple linear constraints, which is robust against model mismatch. Simulation results demonstrate the superior performance of nonconvex optimization based beamformer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous reports demonstrate that sensors based on multiple nanowires exhibit improved gas-sensing performance compared to a single nanowire based sensor due to the potential barrier modulation at nanojunctions, however, little attention has been paid to the effect between junction and electronic transport. Herein, junction-rich 2D SnO 2 network assembled by nanorods and transfer-favored network assembled by nanowires were controllably synthesized, which were applied to ethanol detection. In comparison, sensor based on the transfer-favored 2D network exhibited significantly superior performance than that of the junction-rich one, not only in terms of the sensitivity but also the response/recovery time, which seems inclined to reveal that effective electronic transport contributes more in the gas-sensing process than that of potential barrier modulation at interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a successful synthesis of three hierarchical NiO nanoflowers via a surfactant-assisted hydrothermal method. We find that the NiO hierarchical architectures are self-assembled by uniform nanosheets with different petal thicknesses. Moreover, we develop gas sensors based upon the nanomaterials and demonstrate that the nanoflower with the thinnest petal exhibits the best gas-sensing functionalities. By conducting a comprehensive characterization of microstructures and morphologies of the nanomaterials, we propose a possible nucleation-growth mechanism and explain how the petal thickness affects the gas-sensing properties of the nanoflowers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previously, hollow Cu 2 O configurations have been fabricated with the use of template or etchant. However, in this study, simply mixing aqueous sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), CuCl 2 , NaOH, and NH 2 OH·HCl in the order listed, Cu 2 O polyhedron with empty interior arise, which is rarely reported. Observations made on the novel particles confirm the hollow polyhedral feature and reveal that the uniform particles exhibit a narrow size distribution at around 300–400 nm in diameter and ca. 50 nm in wall thickness. It was recorded that, upon the addition of reductant (NH 2 OH·HCl), the solution color changed orderly from light blue to green, yellow, and then orange within 1 h, while the basic mixture solution turned to acid immediately. We have reason to attribute the formation of hollow polyhedron to the surfactant role of SDS and the co-etching effect of oxidative etching and acidic etching, acting on dissolving Cu 2 O nanocrystals via oxidation with oxygen and reaction with HCl (from NH 2 OH·HCl). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mucilage extracted from the Asplenium australasicum (bird's nest fern) edible fronds with single/dual enzymatic modification was characterized. Protein content and sugar composition analysis revealed that both trichloroacetic acid and proteinase treatment could effectively remove the proteinaceous matter of mucilage, accompanied with an increase in carbohydrate content. Furthermore, the lateral portion of the proteinaceous matter bound with larger size polysaccharide may contain short segments of glucose. The four glycoside hydrolase studied, including galactanase, mannanase, arabinanase and xylanase, all diminished the levels of glucose, arabinose and rhamnose significantly, but to a different extent, particularly for sample with xylanase treatment. After the removal of protein with proteinase, some physical properties of A . australasicum mucilage were improved, for instance, solubility, turbidity and intrinsic viscosity, though the interfacial activity and average molecular weight decreased. Moreover, after dual enzymatic modification, the intrinsic viscosity and moisture holding capability of A . australasicum mucilage were further increased. This is possibly due to the production of mucilage with higher purity and less branched polysaccharide chains by structural modification that leading to more intermolecular interactions and higher hydration capacity. Among the dual enzymatic modification studied, proteinase + xylanase treatment was most effective in terms of structural modification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greedy pursuit, which includes matching pursuit (MP) and orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP), is an efficient approach for sparse approximation. However, conventional greedy pursuit algorithms designed for inner product space are not robust against outliers. In this paper, we devise a new definition of correlation in \ell p-space with p>0, called \ell p-correlation, and introduce the concept of orthogonality in \ell p-space. Based on the \ell p-correlation and \ell p-orthogonality, which are generalizations of the absolute inner product and orthogonality of inner product space, respectively, we develop three greedy pursuit algorithms, namely, \ell p-MP, \ell p-OMP, and weak \ell p-MP, for robust sparse approximation in the presence of outliers. The convergence of the three algorithms is proved. In particular, the \ell p-norm of the residual of each algorithm decays exponentially. It is revealed that the exponential decay factor in the worst case is related to the minimal \ell p-correlation of the residual and the dictionary. Numerical examples on sparse signal recovery and harmonic retrieval in impulsive noise demonstrate that the \ell p-greedy pursuit algorithms with 0< p< 2 are more outlier-resistant than their counterparts in inner product space. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Quasi-one-dimensional (1D) heterostructures act as promising gas-sensing materials due to their high surface-to-volume ratio, large depletion area, and synergistic behaviors of the two components that contribute to dramatic change in resistance. To date, the noble metals and p-type metal oxides, a component of the heterostructure systems, have been extensively applied as good catalysts owing to their excellent selectivity and sensitivity to analyte gases. In particular, much effort has been devoted to the fabrication and processing of nanoscale quasi-1D metal-oxide-based heterostructural materials for a variety of practical applications especially as gas sensors. In this review, we first introduce the two-step preparation process of various quasi-1D nanostructures and then discuss how the primary parameters, e.g. the amount of activated adsorption sites, the gas diffusion ability, and the coverage the secondary materials, can have an impact on the gas-sensing performances. We finally review gas-sensing mechanism in terms of the species of heterojunctions, such as the Schottky-junction, p – n or n – p junction, and n – n or p – p junction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, nanocone-assembled hedgehog-like SnO 2 was synthesized via a facile hydrothermal process. Once under UV irradiation, the response of the as-prepared 3D SnO 2 towards 100 ppm H 2 at low temperature (50 ° C) was improved almost 3.5 times ( S =9.5) over that in dark. The enhancement may be attributed to the co-effect from three aspects: (1) the heavy electron depletion induced by oxygen chemisorption due to the Debye length scale dimensions of nanocones; (2) vast reaction sites and sufficient diffusion spaces provided by the 1D–3D configuration; (3) the possibility that the refreshed photoinduced oxygen ions on the surface of SnO 2 are more energetic than chemisorbed oxygen ions and promote the photo-catalytic reaction of H 2 even at low temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treatment of 1,2-C6H4(SiMe2H)(SiH3) (1) with Pt(dcpe)(PEt3)2(dcpe = Cy2PCH2CH2PCy2) in dry toluene at room temperature in the ratio of 1 : 1 leads to {1,2-C6H4(SiMe2)(SiH2)}PtII(dcpe) (2), which can react with sterically unhindered alcohol to form a dimethoxy substituted silyl platinum(II) compound (3). There are only five examples of bis(silyl) platinum(II) complexes prepared from this silyl ligand with such structural features registered in the Cambridge Structural Database. The structures of2and3were unambiguously determined by single-crystal X-ray analysis and multinuclear NMR spectroscopic studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the synthesis of novel nest-like MoO 3 hierarchical structures with nanobelts as building blocks via a facile hydrothermal process. A comparison study reveals that an enhanced gas sensing performance for the sensor made of nanobelt-assembled nest-like MoO 3 towards ethanol occurs over that of the monodispersed MoO 3 nanobelts. The improved gas sensing properties are mainly attributed to the well-aligned nanoporous structures with a less stacking configuration, which provides sufficient nano or micro reaction rooms for chemical reaction as well as effective diffusion channels for gases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common approach to time-delay estimation (TDE) and joint delay-Doppler estimation (JDDE) for target localization is matched filtering, which is equivalent to the cross correlation of the received and transmitted signals. The conventional correlation in Hilbert space is statistically optimal in white Gaussian noise. However, its performance significantly degrades in the presence of non-Gaussian noise or clutter. In this paper, two new concepts called \ellp-correlation and \ellp-ambiguity functions, which generalize the conventional matched filtering from Hilbert space to \ellp-space, are proposed. In addition, several important mathematical properties of the \ellp-correlation and \ellp-ambiguity functions are given and proved. Compared with conventional ambiguity function, the time-frequency concentration of the \ellp-ambiguity function is significantly enhanced, i.e., the delay-Doppler resolution is improved and the sidelobes are suppressed. Based on these two newly defined functions, a family of TDE and JDDE algorithms that are robust against impulsive noise or clutter are developed. Furthermore, the Cramér–Rao bounds of TDE and JDDE for non-Gaussian noise with arbitrary probability distribution are derived. Simulation results under several impulsive noise models demonstrate that the performance in terms of robustness, resolution, and estimation accuracy is substantially improved when compared with the conventional matched filtering and fractional lower-order moment based methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-assembly of one-dimensional nanoscale building blocks into functional three-dimensional super-structures has attracted vast interests. In current work, novel NiO flower-like architectures have been successfully synthesized via a facile hydrothermal method and subsequent calcination. Notably, it has been observed that the sodium oxalate plays a vital role on the aggregation of needles and a novel growth mechanism of needle-flower NiO has been proposed in detail based on the experimental results. More importantly, it is noted that the gas sensing properties of the flower-like architectures are superior to needle-like structures on the basis of the investigation. Such a synthetic way may open up an avenue to tailor the morphologies of some other metal oxides and enhance their gas sensing performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A unique hierarchical SnO 2 nanoflower was successfully synthesized via a facile one-step hydrothermal method. The nanoflower was analyzed in detail using X ray diffraction, field-emission electron microscope and transmission electron microscope. It was found that the nanoflowers are all assembled from nanosheets. The nanosheet thickness could be precisely controlled by tuning the dosage of NaOH. Gas sensing tests demonstrated that the thickness of the sheet significantly affects the gas sensing performance. The improved gas sensing properties are attributed to the thinned petals as well as their pores and defects. These results show that the thickness and morphology of hierarchical nanostructures affect the functionality of gas sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monodisperse WO 3 ·H 2 O square nanoplates were controlled synthesized under hydrothermal conditions with the adding of malic acid. The powders obtained under two different hydrothermal reaction times were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The thickness of the nanoplates would increase due to the prolongation of reaction time. In addition, the differences of exposure of crystal facets of this orthorhombic WO 3 ·H 2 O square nanoplates were researched and its influence on the gas sensing properties were also discussed. Gas sensor based on the two obtained WO 3 ·H 2 O square nanoplates powders was prepared and the gas responses to serious concentrations of C 2 H 5 OH gas were carried out. These kinds of nanoplates show excellent ethanol gas sensing and it can be influenced by the crystal facet percentage in nanoplates. This works show great significance to the control synthesis of semiconductor metal oxides and their applications in gas sensor research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]