Search

Room-temperature phosphorescent carbon dots (CDs) show the advanced property owing to their dual signal; howbeit, acquiring the efficient phosphorescence of CDs is still challengeable. Here, we proposed one type of CD doped with nitrogen through the microwave method, which exhibited the obvious blue fluorescence in aqueous solution and green phosphorescence immobilized on filter paper, while diethylenetriamine pentamethylene phosphonic acid provided the source of carbon and nitrogen. Importantly, introducing metronidazole (MNZ) into the CDs leads to their simultaneous decrease in both fluorescence and phosphorescence, and thus, we successfully established a dual-signal strategy for detecting MNZ. Likewise, this fluorescent detection showed the linear range of 2-200 μM and the phosphorescent way of 50-2000 μM. Meanwhile, the corresponding detection mechanism was also explored, and both the quenched fluorescence and phosphorescence of CDs were mainly due to the occurrence of the electron transfer and internal filtration effect between CDs and MNZ. Additionally, we employed these CDs as the fluorescent and phosphorescent inks for painting and information encryption.

China is the largest steel producer in the world. Effective methods to alleviate the contradiction between water supply and water demand of the iron and steel industry in China are to implement the recycling of wastewater from the iron and steel industry and develop unconventional water resources. This paper reviews the development of wastewater recycling in the iron and steel industry in China in the past 40 years (1980–2020). During this period, steel output has increased from 36 to 1,053 million tons, freshwater consumption per ton of steel has decreased from 35.9 to 2.45 tons, and water resources reuse has soared from 61.2 to 98.02%. Four typical cases, including the Anyang Steel Group, the Tangshan Steel Group, the Tianjin Steel Group, and the Taihang Steel Group, were analyzed. In addition, a water efficiency research project of iron and steel enterprises in China was carried out in 2019. Statistical analyses on wastewater recycling rate, reuse rate, direct cooling water circulation rate, and other indicators were performed. The recycling of wastewater in the iron and steel industry would be continuously improved by policy drivers, economic drivers, and technical drivers.

Background The tumor microenvironment (TME) plays an important role in cancer progression. We investigated TME-specific gene signatures and established a risk score to predict the outcome of medulloblastoma (MB) patients. Methods We evaluated TME parameters of 240 MB patients at Beijing Tiantan Hospital Capital Medical University with the ESTIMATE algorithm. Co-expression network analysis of differentially expressed and weighted genes (WGCNA) was used to identify intersecting genes. Using least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression and backward stepwise regression we obtained a TME-associated risk score (TMErisk) based on eight prognostic gene signatures (CEBPB, OLFML2B, GGTA1, GZMA, TCIM, OLFML3, NAT1, and CD1C), verified in a GEO dataset (GSE85217). Results The correlation between TMErisk and TME, immune checkpoint, mRNAsi, and tumor mutation burden (TMB) was analyzed. MB patients’ response to immunotherapy was evaluated using immune-phenoscore (IPS) and drug sensitivity. A high TMErisk score indicated a worse overall survival. TMErisk scores were negatively correlated with immune cells, immune checkpoints, and human leukocyte antigens. TMErisk scores correlated significantly negatively with TMB and IPS for specific molecular subtypes. Tumor mRNAsi was associated with TME-risk. Conclusions A prognostic model based on TME-specific gene signatures may be used as a biomarker for evaluating prognosis and predicting response to immunotherapy in MB patients.

Sivelestat sodium (SIV), a neutrophil elastase inhibitor, is mainly used for the clinical treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) or acute lung injury (ALI). However, studies investigating the effects of SIV treatment of ALI are limited. Therefore, this study investigated the potential molecular mechanism of the protective effects of SIV against ALI. Human pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells (HPMECs) were stimulated with tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), and male Sprague-Dawley rats were intratracheally injected with Klebsiella pneumoniae (KP) and treated with SIV, ML385, and anisomycin (ANI) to mimic the pathogenetic process of ALI in vitro and in vivo, respectively. The levels of inflammatory cytokines and indicators of oxidative stress were assessed in vitro and in vivo. The wet/dry (W/D) ratio of lung tissues, histopathological changes, inflammatory cells levels in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), and survival rates of rats were analyzed. The JNK/NF-κB (p65) and Nrf2/HO-1 levels in the HPMECs and lung tissues were analyzed by western blot and immunofluorescence analyses. Administration of SIV reduced the inflammatory factors levels, intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels and increased the levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) in lung tissues. Meanwhile, SIV alleviated pathological injuries, decreased the W/D ratio, and inflammatory cell infiltration in lung tissue. In addition, SIV also inhibited the activation of JNK/NF-κB signaling pathway, promoted nuclear translocation of Nrf2, and upregulated the expression of heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1). However, ANI or ML385 significantly reversed these changes. SIV effectively attenuated the inflammatory response and oxidative stress. Its potential molecular mechanism was related to the JNK/NF-κB activation and Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathway inhibition. This further deepened the understanding of the protective effects of SIV against ALI.

Carbonate has often been identified in aqueous carbonic inclusions in spodumene-bearing and other pegmatites, but its origin remains unclear. Here, the conditions at which carbonate and hydrogen carbonate can be generated from spodumene, CO2 and H2O, were studied using a hydrothermal diamond-anvil cell (HDAC) and Raman spectroscopy. In all experiments, spodumene persisted in aqueous carbonic solution up to the maximum temperature (600 to 800 °C). Heating of hydrogen carbonate/oxalate solutions produced CO2- and HCO3−-rich peralkaline fluids, which resulted in strong corrosion of spodumene (and polylithionite-trilithionite) and, in one run, formation of zabuyelite [Li2(CO3)] crystals at low temperatures. The experiments indicate that the reaction of spodumene with CO2 and H2O requires a peralkaline fluid to proceed rapidly. In addition, they show that spodumene crystallizes upon the heating of quartz, muscovite, and aqueous lithium carbonate solution. We conclude that if the aqueous fluid was rich in alkali hydrogen carbonate, zabuyelite in fluid inclusions in pegmatites can form both via a subsolidus reaction of CO2-bearing fluid inclusion with the spodumene host or by trapping a peralkaline fluid early in the evolution of simple or complex pegmatites. The results of our experimental study strengthen the conclusion that, although counterintuitive, hydrogen carbonate-rich peralkaline fluids may be involved in the evolution of peraluminous granitic pegmatites, in which peralkaline minerals are normally absent or very rare.

Melt inclusion (MI) homogenization experiments are essential for determining the pressure-volume-temperature-composition (P-V-T-X) parameters of magma systems. The hydrothermal diamond-anvil cell (HDAC) is currently the only equipment that can exert external pressure on MIs while allowing in situ observation of MI phase changes during heating. The HDAC’s pressure potentially prevents the MI diffusion that, under heating at one atmosphere, produces artificially elevated measurements of phase transition temperatures. It is important to compare the phase transition temperatures measured using HDAC at elevated external pressure with those obtained using conventional equipment at one atmosphere. Such a comparison not only helps assess the reliability of HDAC phase transition temperatures but also helps determine phase transition temperatures that are naturally occurring in MI during the natural history of cooling. In this study, we homogenized MIs hosted in quartz from the granitic porphyry in the Yixingzhai Au deposit, China, using HDAC at an elevated pressure of ~(140–230) MPa. We compared our experimental results with published data measured using a Linkam TS1500 stage at one atmosphere. The experiments show that the initial melting temperature (TIniM), total melting temperature (TTotM), and total homogenization temperature (ThTot) of the MIs are 695 ± 20, 780 ± 15, and 833 ± 17 °C, respectively. These phase transition temperatures are as much as 374 °C lower than the corresponding values measured at one atmosphere using the Linkam stage. Moreover, the temperatures measured using HDAC agree with actual values estimated using the linear extrapolation method based on correlations of MI size with phase transition temperatures measured using the Linkam stage. Based on the experimental HDAC results, we estimate that MIs in the Yixingzhai Au deposit were trapped at ~140 Ma and contained ~2 wt% H2O. These values are consistent with previously estimated emplacement pressures and H2O contents of granitic magmas in granitic porphyry-type Cu-Au deposits. Our results demonstrate that MI-homogenization experiments using HDAC at suitably elevated pressures can yield reliable naturally occurring phase transition temperatures in MI during the melt cooling process.

This paper presents a 20-Gb/s automatic gain control (AGC) amplifier in a 0.18-μm SiGe BiCMOS for high-speed applications. The proposed AGC amplifier compactly consists of a folded Gilbert variable-gain amplifier (VGA), a post amplifier (PA), a 50-Ω output buffer, and AGC loop including an open-loop peak detector (PD), a RC low-pass filter (LPF), and an error amplifier (EA). The AGC amplifier achieves the broadband characteristic by utilizing inductive peaking and capacitive degeneration as well as fT-doubler techniques to overcome the large parasitic capacitances. The proposed AGC circuits together with a linear VGA exhibits a wide gain control range of 45 dB for the received signal strength indication (RSSI). The measured AGC amplifier achieves a maximum gain of 21 dB and a -3-dB bandwidth (BW) of 20.6 GHz, which can support up to 25.4-Gb/s data rate. For the pseudorandom bit sequence (PRBS) length 231–1 with a bit-error rate (BER) of 10−12 at 20 Gb/s, the measured input dynamic range is 26 dB (20–400mVpp) and the peak-to-peak data jitter is less than 8 ps. The AGC amplifier consumes a power of 160 mW from a 3.3-V supply voltage and occupies an area of 850 μm × 850 μm.

Skin injury is a major problem threatening human physical and mental health, and how to promote wound healing has been the focus. Developing new wound dressings is an important strategy in skin regeneration. Aloe vera is a medicinal plant with a long history, complex constituents, and various pharmacological activities. Many studies have shown that A. vera plays an important role in promoting wound healing. Adding A. vera to wound dressing has become an ideal way. This review will describe the process of skin injury and wound healing and analyze the role of A. vera in wound healing. In addition, the types of wound dressing and the applications of A. vera in wound dressing will be discussed.

The research of thermoelectric materials is of great significance to solve the energy crisis and environmental problems. In this work, a series of pure SnSe bulk crystals were prepared by melting, high-energy ball milling, and hot pressing processes. The results show that the ZT value of the prepared pure SnSe polycrystalline material is up to 2.1 at 873 K. On the one hand, due to the reduction of grain size and lattice distortion caused by long-time high-energy ball milling, the lattice thermal conductivity is significantly reduced, which is only 0.18 W K-1 m-1 at 873 K. On the other hand, high-energy ball milling leads to the increase of Sn vacancies, which improves the conductivity of SnSe polycrystalline materials. Since the whole process of ball milling was carried out in a closed ball milling tank filled with high-purity argon, no oxidation of the SnSe powder is also a guarantee to obtain pure SnSe polycrystalline materials with high ZT value.

This paper attempts to address the trajectory following control problem of nonholonomic mobile AGV by proposing an improved sliding mode control approach in which, based on the kinematics and attitude deviations established for AGV, the motion characteristics are analyzed and a backstepping sliding mode control with a novel reaching law is designed. This reaching law integrates the merits of the power and exponential reaching laws and promotes the convergence rates of tracking errors. Moreover, with the improved sliding mode controller, the asymptotic stability of tracking deviations can be strictly guaranteed. The simulations have demonstrated the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed approach for mobile AGV.

The introduction of the Sepsis 3.0 guidelines in 2016 improved our understanding of sepsis diagnosis and therapy. Personalized treatment strategies and nursing methods for sepsis patients are recommended in the “Save Sepsis Campaign” in 2021. However, mortality in sepsis patients remains high. Patients with sepsis-related acute respiratory distress syndrome account for around 30% of them, with fatality rates ranging from 30 to 40%. Pathological specimens from individuals with sepsis-related ARDS frequently demonstrate widespread alveolar damage, and investigations have revealed that pulmonary epithelial and pulmonary endothelial injury is the underlying cause. As a result, the purpose of this work is to evaluate the mechanism and research progress of pulmonary epithelial and pulmonary endothelial damage in sepsis-related ARDS, which may provide new directions for future research, diagnosis, and therapy.

The brain of the domestic pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) has drawn considerable attention due to its high similarities to that of humans. However, the cellular compositions of the pig brain (PB) remain elusive. Here we investigated the single-nucleus transcriptomic profiles of five regions of the PB (frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe, occipital lobe, and hypothalamus) and identified 21 cell subpopulations. The cross-species comparison of mouse and pig hypothalamus revealed the shared and specific gene expression patterns at the single-cell resolution. Furthermore, we identified cell types and molecular pathways closely associated with neurological disorders, bridging the gap between gene mutations and pathogenesis. We reported, to our knowledge, the first single-cell atlas of domestic pig cerebral cortex and hypothalamus combined with a comprehensive analysis across species, providing extensive resources for future research regarding neural science, evolutionary developmental biology, and regenerative medicine.

Inversion techniques are conducted based on the tangential x-ray crystal spectroscopy (TXCS) geometry on EAST to obtain the local profiles of ion temperature (T i) and toroidal rotation velocity (v t). Firstly, local emissivity profiles of the impurity argon are obtained using the asymmetrical Abel inversion. Then, the local v t and T i profiles are calculated by considering the local emissivity profiles and the TXCS detailed geometry. In addition, how the changes in the v t profiles affect the accuracy in the T i profiles is discussed in detail. It is also found that the line-integrated T i profiles are becoming less accurate with the increase in the radial gradient in the local v t profiles. Nonetheless, accurate T i radial profiles are reconstructed after considering the effects of the emissivity and velocity, which are verified by comparing the inverted v t and T i profiles with those local profile measurements from the Charge eXchange Recombination Spectroscopy (CXRS) on EAST.

ObjectiveGamma-glutamyl dipeptides are bioactive peptides involved in inflammation, oxidative stress, and glucose regulation. Gamma-glutamyl-leucine (Gamma-Glu-Leu) has been extensively reported to be associated with the risk of cardio-metabolic diseases, such as obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes. However, the causality remains to be uncovered. The aim of this study was to explore the causal-effect relationships between Gamma-Glu-Leu and metabolic risk.Materials and methodsIn this study, 1,289 subjects were included from a cross-sectional survey on metabolic syndrome (MetS) in eastern China. Serum Gamma-Glu-Leu levels were measured by untargeted metabolomics. Using linear regressions, a two-stage genome-wide association study (GWAS) for Gamma-Glu-Leu was conducted to seek its instrumental single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). One-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses were performed to evaluate the causality between Gamma-Glu-Leu and the metabolic risk.ResultsFour SNPs are associated with serum Gamma-Glu-Leu levels, including rs12476238, rs56146133, rs2479714, and rs12229654. Out of them, rs12476238 exhibits the strongest association (Beta = −0.38, S.E. = 0.07 in discovery stage, Beta = −0.29, S.E. = 0.14 in validation stage, combined P-value = 1.04 × 10–8). Each of the four SNPs has a nominal association with at least one metabolic risk factor. Both rs12229654 and rs56146133 are associated with body mass index, waist circumference (WC), the ratio of WC to hip circumference, blood pressure, and triglyceride (5 × 10–5 < P < 0.05). rs56146133 also has nominal associations with fasting insulin, glucose, and insulin resistance index (5 × 10–5 < P < 0.05). Using the four SNPs serving as the instrumental SNPs of Gamma-Glu-Leu, the MR analyses revealed that higher Gamma-Glu-Leu levels are causally associated with elevated risks of multiple cardio-metabolic factors except for high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (P > 0.05).ConclusionFour SNPs (rs12476238, rs56146133, rs2479714, and rs12229654) may regulate the levels of serum Gamma-Glu-Leu. Higher Gamma-Glu-Leu levels are causally linked to cardio-metabolic risks. Future prospective studies on Gamma-Glu-Leu are required to explain its role in metabolic disorders.

Olfaction, the sense of smell, is a fundamental trait crucial to many species. The olfactory bulb (OB) plays pivotal roles in processing and transmitting odor information from the environment to the brain. The cellular heterogeneity of the mouse OB has been studied using single-cell RNA sequencing. However, the epigenetic landscape of the mOB remains mostly unexplored. Herein, we apply single-cell assay for transposase-accessible chromatin sequencing to profile the genome-wide chromatin accessibility of 9,549 single cells from the mOB. Based on single-cell epigenetic signatures, mOB cells are classified into 21 clusters corresponding to 11 cell types. We identify distinct sets of putative regulatory elements specific to each cell cluster from which putative target genes and enriched potential functions are inferred. In addition, the transcription factor motifs enriched in each cell cluster are determined to indicate the developmental fate of each cell lineage. Our study provides a valuable epigenetic data set for the mOB at single-cell resolution, and the results can enhance our understanding of regulatory circuits and the therapeutic capacity of the OB at the single-cell level.

A new multi-channel motional Stark effect (MSE) diagnostic system has been developed on the upgraded EAST tokamak, which was installed on the port C to observe a tangential neutral beam. A telecentric imaging lens was deployed to ensure uniform illumination from the core to the boundary. A square fiber head which contained 23 fiber bundles was mounted to this imaging lens; each fiber bundle contained 19 fibers and two of them were assigned to CXRS and BES spectrometer, respectively. The angle tuning method was used for matching the Doppler shift of the σ component’s wavelength which was caused by the beam voltage. At the present stage, the MSE system only contains ten channels that would be extended to 23 channels in the future, covering a measurement range from R = 1.8 to R = 2.27 m with a temporal resolution of 10 ms and a spatial resolution of 3 cm. The polarization angle-constrained q profiles and current density profiles were reconstructed with EFIT equilibrium reconstructions. In the sawtooth discharges, the q = 1 surface position was validated by the ECE signals, which further verified the rationality of the MSE measurement.

Beryl and phenakite are important industrial beryllium minerals. In the hydrous melt of the BeO–Al2O3–SiO2–H2O (BASH) system, experiments using quench-type high-temperature and high-pressure equipment have revealed that the different activities of Al2O3 and SiO2 (αAl2O3 and αSiO2) are the main factors that lead to different beryllium mineral assemblages. In this study, we attempted in situ observation of the crystallization process of phenakite and beryl in an aqueous solution of the BASH system using a hydrothermal diamond-anvil cell. Experimental results indicate that phenakite and beryl can crystallize faster in this regime (i.e., 2.93–0.58 × 10−5 cm/s in length and 22.39–3.23 μm3/s in volume) than from a hydrous melt. In addition, in the phenakite and beryl crystallization, pressure–temperature conditions were greater than 467 °C and 220 MPa and 495 °C and 221 MPa, respectively, and their upper temperatures and pressures attained 845–870 °C and 500–1300 MPa. These features indicate that temperature is not the main factor that controls the stability of phenakite and beryl in the BASH system. This stability can be attributed to the diffusion of components in aqueous solution that change αSiO2 and αAl2O3 during the heating and cooling processes. During heating, αSiO2 increases while beryl is dissolving, which leads to phenakite crystallization; during cooling, αSiO2 and αAl2O3 are sufficient for the remaining beryl to recrystallize. Therefore, the transition between phenakite and beryl in the aqueous solution in the BASH system may be different during heating and cooling processes. This reasoning can explain the abundance of phenakite in miarolitic cavities and the occurrence of phenakite, rather than beryl, in hydrothermally altered pegmatites, volcanic rocks, and other beryllium-rich rocks.

In the current complex economic situation, production enterprises are facing manyuncertainties. Reasonable planning of the ordering and transportation of raw materials to ensure the stable operation of the production supply chain is the key to the sustainable development of enterprises. In this paper, a TOPSIS model based on entropy weight and a raw material ordering and transportation model for production enterprises based on multi-objective programming are proposed to provide reference for raw material ordering and transportation selection of production enterprises. In this model, the supply characteristics of suppliers are quantitatively analyzed, and on the basis of the demand of production enterprises, the supplier is determined based on the principle of minimum number of suppliers. Then, the future transshipment loss rate of the transporter is predicted based on the time series, and then the corresponding transporter and transshipment scheme are determined with the lowest loss rate as the target. The research on the model of suppliers and transporter has a good guiding significance for the ordering and transportation of raw materials in manufacturing enterprises.

BACKGROUND: Reduning (RDN) is a common Chinese medicine preparation with antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiviral and immunomodulatory effects in respiratory infectious diseases. Clinically, it is used in combination with antibiotics, but its synergistic effect and mechanism in treating severe pneumonia remain unclear. METHODS: A rat model of severe pneumonia and an in vitro coculture model consisting of A549 and THP-1 cells were used to observe the synergistic effect of RDN on severe pneumonia. The inflammatory cytokines were tested by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The localization of Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) in A549 cells was observed by immunofluorescence, and the interaction of AhR and signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) proteins was observed by co-immunoprecipitation. AhR-Src tyrosine kinase (Src)-STAT3 pathway in rats and A549 cells were examined by Western Blot. Histopathological changes were observed by Hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining, X-ray and survival rates were used to evaluate the effects of paclitaxel on severe pneumonia rats. RESULTS: RDN regulation of Src–STAT3–interleukin 10 (IL-10) signaling pathway activation and macrophage polarization were mediated through the nuclear receptor AhR. The expression of AhR was significantly increased after RDN treatment, and this effect was accompanied by STAT3 expression increasing. Coimmunoprecipitation confirmed an interaction between AhR and STAT3 and upregulated IL-10 expression. Silencing AhR decreased Src, STAT3, and IL-10 expression. RDN activated AhR and increased Src, STAT3, and IL-10 expression. In addition, RDN regulated the polarization of macrophages RDN combined with cefmetazole sodium significantly reduced the pulmonary bacterial load, alleviated lung injury, and reduced o inflammatory factors expression, improving their survival. CONCLUSIONS: RDN can synergistically enhance the effect of cefmetazole sodium treatment in severe pneumonia, and the mechanism may involve increasing the expression level of IL-10 mediated through the AhR-Src-STAT3 pathway, driving the polarization of macrophages, and attenuating the cytokine storm to control inflammation in severe pneumonia.

Injectable Hydrogels with adhesive, antioxidant and hemostatic properties are highly desired for promoting skin injury repair. In this study, we prepared a multi-functional carboxymethyl chitosan/hyaluronic acid-dopamine (CMC/HA-DA) hydrogel, which can be crosslinked by horseradish peroxidase and hydrogen peroxide. The antioxidation, gelation time, degradability, rheology and antihemorrhagic properties of hydrogels can be finely tuned by varying composition ratio. The cytocompatibility test and hemolysis test confirmed that the designed hydrogel holds good biocompatibility. More importantly, the repair effect of the hydrogel on full-thickness skin injury model in mice was studied. The results of wound healing, collagen deposition, immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence showed that CMC/HA-DA hydrogel could significantly promote angiogenesis and cell proliferation at the injured site. Notably, the inflammatory response can also be regulated to promote the repair of full-thickness skin defect in mice. Results indicate that this injectable CMC/HA-DA hydrogel holds high application prospect for promising wound healing.

Multiferroic materials, coexisting of ferroelectric, ferromagnetic and ferroelastic properties, possess potential applications in functional devices. BiFeO3 (BFO) is a unique room temperature multi...

Ore-forming fluids enriched in alkali carbonate are commonly observed in natural melt and fluid inclusions associated with tin mineralization, particularly in granitic pegmatite. However, the roles of alkali carbonates remain unclear. Hence, to investigate the roles of alkali carbonate, herein, cassiterite (SnO2) crystallization experiments in SnO2–Li2CO3–H2O and SnO2–Na2CO3–H2O systems were conducted using a hydrothermal diamond-anvil cell. The results showed that SnO2 could dissolve into the alkali carbonate aqueous solution during heating, and long prismatic cassiterite crystals grew during the subsequent cooling stage at average rates of 0.61 × 10–6 to 8.22 × 10–6 cm/s in length and 3.40–19.07 μm3/s in volume. The mole fraction of cassiterite crystallized from the SnO2–Li2CO3–H2O system ranges from 0.03 to 0.41 mol%, which depends on the Li2CO3 content dissolved in the aqueous solution. In situ Raman analysis of the alkali carbonate-rich aqueous solution in the sample chamber suggests that the dissolution of SnO2 can be attributed to the alkaline conditions produced by hydrolysis of alkali carbonate in which Sn(OH)62− may be a potential tin-transporting species. The cassiterite crystallization conditions obtained in our SnO2–alkali carbonate–H2O systems primarily fell within the 400–850 °C and 300–850 MPa temperature and pressure ranges, respectively; furthermore, cassiterite crystallization ended in rare metal pegmatite-forming conditions. These crystallization features of cassiterite are similar to those formed in tin-mineralized granitic pegmatites. It indicates that an alkali carbonate-rich aqueous solution or hydrous melt can work as a favorable transport medium for tin and provides the necessary conditions for cassiterite crystallization in granitic pegmatite, bearing the roles in decreasing the viscosity of hydrous melts and enhancing the solubility of SnO2 in ore-forming melts or fluids. These roles of alkali carbonate can also be extended for the mineralization of other rare metals (e.g., Li and Be) in granitic pegmatite.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) pose a serious threat to human health, which are characterized by high disability and mortality rate globally such as myocardial infarction (MI), atherosclerosis, and heart failure. Although stem cells transplantation and growth factors therapy are promising, their low survival rate and loss at the site of injury are major obstacles to this therapy. Recently, the development of hydrogel scaffold materials provides a new way to solve this problem, which have shown the potential to treat CVD. Among these scaffold materials, environmentally responsive hydrogels have great prospects in repairing the microenvironment of cardiovascular tissues and vascular regeneration. They provide a new method for the treatment of cardiovascular tissue repair and space-time control for the release of various therapeutic drugs, including small-molecule drugs, growth factors, and stem cells. Herein, this article reviews the occurrence and current treatment of CVD, as well as the repair of cardiovascular injury by several environmental responsive hydrogels systems currently used, mainly focusing on the delivery of growth factors or the application of cell therapy to revascularization. In addition, we will also discuss the enormous potential and personal perspectives of environmentally responsive hydrogels in cardiovascular repair.

Purpose To characterize the genetic landscape of patients with suspected retinitis pigmentosa (RP) in the Chinese population. Design Cohort study. Participants A total of 1243 patients of Chinese origin with clinically suspected RP and their available family members (n = 2701) were recruited. Methods All patients and available family members were screened using multigene panel testing (including 586 eye disease-associated genes), followed by clinical variant interpretation. Main Outcome Measures Diagnostic yield, the 17 most commonly implicated genes, age at onset, de novo mutations, and clinical usefulness of genetic testing. Results Overall, 72.08% of patients received a molecular diagnosis, and the 17 top genes covered 75.63% of diagnostic cases. Diagnostic yield was higher among patients in the early-onset subgroup (≤5 years old, 79.58%) than in the childhood or adolescence-onset subgroup (6–16 years old, 73.74%) and late-onset subgroup (≥17 years old, 65.99%). Moreover, different genes associated with different onset ages and subgroups with different onset ages showed a diverse mutation spectrum. Only 11 de novo mutations (3.18%) were identified. Furthermore, 16.84% of the patients who received a molecular diagnosis had refinement of the initial clinical diagnoses, and the remaining 83.16% received definite genetic subtypes of RP. Conclusions This large cohort study provides population-based data of the genome landscape of patients with suspected RP in China. The diagnostic yield was significantly higher than that in previous studies, and the mutation spectrum is completely different with other populations. Genetic testing improves the chance to establish a precise diagnosis, identifies features not previously determined, and allows a more accurate refinement of risk to family members. Our results not only expand the existing genotypic spectrum but also serve as an efficient reference for the design of panel-based genetic diagnostic testing and genetic counseling for patients with suspected RP in China.

BackgroundBestrophin-1 (BEST1) gene is associated with a wide range of ocular phenotypes, collectively termed as bestrophinopathy. The aim of the current study was to identify the mutation spectrum ofBEST1in a large cohort of Chinese patients with bestrophinopathy.MethodsPatients clinically suspected of bestrophinopathy were screened using multigene panel testing. AllBEST1variants were confirmed by Sanger sequencing, and validated in the families.FindingsA total of 92 patients (Best vitelliform macular dystrophy (BVMD)=77; autosomal recessive bestrophinopathy (ARB)=15) from 58 unrelated families of Chinese origin and their available family members (n=65) were recruited. Overall, 39 distinct disease-causingBEST1variants were identified, including 13 novel variants, and two reported variants but novel for ARB. Of them, 14 were associated with ARB, 23 with BVMD and two (c.604C>T and c.898G>A) with both BVMD and ARB. Most mutations associated with BVMD were missense (97.78%), while ARB was associated with more complex mutations, including missense (88.46%), splicing effect (3.85%), and frameshifts (15.38%).BEST1hotspots were c.898G>A and c.584C>T among BVMD and ARB patients, respectively. Hot regions were located in exons 8, 2 and 6 in BVMD patients, and in exons 5 and 7 in ARB patients. The overall penetrance ofBEST1in our cohort was 71.30%, no de novo mutations were identified.ConclusionThis is the largest study to date that provides major population-based data of theBEST1mutation spectrum in China. Our results can serve as a well-founded reference for genetic counselling for patients with bestrophinopathy of Chinese origin.

In this paper, a fourth-order elliptic equation with a sign-changing weight function is investigated. By the modified logarithmic Sobolev inequality and Nehari manifold it is shown that the problem...

The human retina, located in the innermost layer of the eye, plays a decisive role in visual perception. Dissecting the heterogeneity of retinal cells is essential for understanding the mechanism of visual development. Here, we performed single-cell RNA-seq to analyze 194,967 cells from the donors of infants and young children, resulting in 17 distinct clusters representing major cell types in the retina: rod photoreceptors (PRs), cone PRs, bipolar cells (BCs), horizontal cells (HCs), amacrine cells (ACs), retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), Müller glial cells (MGs), microglia, and astrocytes (ASTs). Through reclustering, we identified known subtypes of cone PRs as well as additional unreported subpopulations and corresponding markers in BCs. Additionally, we linked inherited retinal diseases (IRDs) to certain cell subtypes or subpopulations through enrichment analysis. We next constructed extensive intercellular communication networks and identified ligand-receptor interactions that play crucial roles in regulating neural cell development and immune homeostasis in the retina. Intriguingly, we found that the status and functions of PRs changed drastically between the young children and adult retina. Overall, our study offers the first retinal cell atlas in infants and young children dissecting the heterogeneity of the retina and identifying the key molecules in the developmental process, which provides an important resource that will pave the way for research on retinal development mechanisms and advancements in regenerative medicine concerning retinal biology.

An active bidirectional mixer performing the up/down conversion has been proposed at K band with a 130-nm CMOS in this paper. With 2-dBm local oscillator drives, the mixer achieves the conversion gain, noise figure, and output P ldB of −2.5~-1.2 dB, 14.2~16 dB, and −9.2~-8 dBm from 23 to 25 GHz in up-conversion mode, respectively. In down-conversion mode, the mixer exhibits the conversion gain, noise figure, and input PldB of 1.3~3 dB, 15.2~19.3 dB, and −0.6~0 dBm from 23 to 25 GHz, respectively. The chip area is 0.75 × 0.8 mm2, which consumes 10.5 mW from a supply of 1.5 V.

To address the problems in remote sensing image change detection such as missed detection of features at different scales and incomplete region detection, this paper proposes a high-resolution remote sensing image change detection model (Multi-scale Attention Siamese Network, MASNet) based on a Siamese network and multi-scale attention mechanism. The MASNet model took the Siamese structure of the ResNet-50 network to extract features of different simultaneous images and then applied the attention module to feature maps of different scales to generate multi-scale feature representations. Meanwhile, an improved contrastive loss function was adopted to enhance the learning of change features and improving the imbalance problem between unchanged and changed samples. Furthermore, to address the current time-consuming and laborious phenomenon of manually annotating datasets, we provided a change detection dataset from Yunnan Province in China (YNCD) that contains 1540 pairs of 256 × 256 bi-temporal images with a spatial resolution of 1 m. Then, model training and change detection applications were studied by expanding a small number of experimental area samples into the existing public datasets. The results showed that the overall accuracy of the MASNet model for change detection in the experimental area is 95.34%, precision rate is 79.78%, recall rate is 81.52%, and F1 score is 80.64%, which are better than those of six comparative models (FC-EF, FC-Siam-Diff, FC-Siam-Conc, PAN, MANet, and STANet). This verifies the effectiveness of the MASNet model as well as the feasibility of change detection by expanding existing public datasets.

Background To date, certain efforts have been made to investigate the clinical and genetic characteristics of patients with EYS mutations. However, data for Chinese patients are limited. Objectives To perform a detailed phenotyping and genetic characterization of 55 Chinese patients with EYS-RD, and to identify risk factors for these clinical data. Methods A total of 55 patients with EYS-RD were recruited. Best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), patient age, age at symptom onset, disease duration, and genetic information were collected. Results Thirty-six novel variants, three hot mutations of EYS (30.3%, c.6416G>A, c.6557G>A, c.7492G>C) and one hot region (49.06%, Laminin G domains) were identified. In all, 36.84% of the mutations occurred at base G site, and majority of mutations (56.56%) were missense. Late-truncating mutations are significantly more prevalent (41.30%). The mean age of onset was 15.65 ± 14.67 years old; it had no significant correlation with genotype. The average BCVA was 0.73 ± 0.93 LogMAR, and 61.8% of eyes had a BCVA better than 0.52 logMAR. BCVA was positively correlated with disease duration time. The mean MD was 23.18 ± 7.34 dB, MD showed a significant correlation with genotype and age. Cataract was present in 56.45% of patients, and 42.59% of patients showed an absence of pigmentation in the retina. Cataract and hyperpigmentation both showed a significant correlation with age. Conclusions EYS-RD is associated with a moderate phenotype with onset around adolescence, but great variability. Our study largely enhances the current knowledge of phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of EYS-RD, which could pave the way for better management of these patients.

Background The retinoid isomerohydrolase RPE65 has received considerable attention worldwide since a successful clinical gene therapy was approved in 2017 as the first treatment for vision loss associated with RPE65-mediated inherited retinal disease. Identifying patients with RPE65 mutations is a prerequisite to assessing the patients’ eligibility to receive RPE65-targeted gene therapies, and it is necessary to identify individuals who are most likely to benefit from gene therapies. This study aimed to investigate the RPE65 mutations frequency in the Chinese population and to determine the genetic and clinical characteristics of these patients. Results Only 20 patients with RPE65 mutations were identified, and RPE65 mutations were determined to be the 14th most common among all patients with genetic diagnoses. Ten novel variants and two hotspots associated with FAP were identified. A literature review revealed that a total of 57 patients of Chinese origin were identified with pathogenic mutations in the RPE65 gene. The mean best Snellen corrected visual acuity was worse (mean 1.3 ± 1.3 LogMAR) in patients older than 20 years old than in those younger than 15 years old (0.68 ± 0.92 LogMAR). Bone spicule-like pigment deposits (BSLPs) were observed in six patients; they were older than those without BSLP and those with white-yellow dots. Genotype–phenotype analysis revealed that truncating variants seem to lead to a more severe clinical presentation, while best corrected visual acuity testing and fundus changes did not correlate with specific RPE65 variants or mutation types. Conclusions This study provides a detailed clinical-genetic assessment of patients with RPE65 mutations of Chinese origin. These results may help to elucidate RPE65 mutations in the Chinese population and may facilitate genetic counseling and the implementation of gene therapy in China.

Bi-Fe-O amorphous nanoparticles were synthesized via a facile sol-gel method using tartaric acid as the chelating agent. The samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission elec...

Niobium and tantalum are critical mineral resources in the world. Although they have coherent geochemical behavior, they can be separated to some degree during ore-forming processes. The alkaline property of the host rock is one main factor to control the separation of Nb-Ta. As a result, niobium and tantalum resources can be divided into tantalum-dominated deposits in a peraluminous granitic magma system, including granite-type and granitic pegmatite-type deposits, and into niobium-dominated deposits in alkaline and carbonate magmatic systems, including carbonate-type, carbonate-weathering crust-type and alkaline rock-type deposits. In China, tantalum and niobium resources are mainly present in granite (e.g., the Yichun deposit in Jiangxi), granitic pegmatite (e.g., the Renli deposit in Hunan), alkaline rock (e.g., the Ba’erzhe deposit in Inner Mongolia), and carbonate (e.g., Miaoya in Hubei); however, currently, there are no occurrences of carbonate-weathering crust niobium resources. In China, tantalum deposits of the peraluminous granitic magma system are primarily located in the tantalum-metallogenic belts of Altay, Songpan-Ganze, Jiangnan paleocontinent, Nanling, southern Tibet-western Yunnan with mineralizations in the Caledonian, Indosinian and Yanshanian, and few cases in the Himalayas. The niobium deposits of alkaline and carbonate magma systems are primarily located in the niobium-metalogenic belts of Talimu-Northern China, Qinling, and western Yangtze block with mineralizations from Hercynian to Indianian with a few cases from the Proterozoic. Deposits of the peraluminous granitic magma system are primarily located in flysch sedimentary formations with a huge thickness that can be melted into rare metal-rich granitic magma during the orogenic process in a compressional tectonic environment. However, deposits of the alkaline and carbonate magma systems are primarily distributed along deep fractures or rift regions, bearing features of ore-forming material sourced from the mantle. These features show niobium and tantalum mineralization separation and alternation with spatial and temporal distributions, which can be controlled via compression-extension histories of different blocks in China. Although the reserves of niobium and tantalum in China are huge, most niobium and tantalum deposits in China usually bear low grades of Ta5O2 and Nb2O5 and are difficult to utilize. Therefore, in the exploration of niobium and tantalum resources in China, we should pay attention to high-grade granitic pegmatite-type tantalum deposits in the Songpan-Ganze, Jiangnan, Qinling, southern Tibet, and western Yunnan regions. Additionally, we can explore carbonate-type niobium deposits in Talimu-Northern China. The associated niobium and tantalum resources in tungsten and tin deposits may have great potential for exploration in the Nanling, western Yunnan, and Qinling regions.