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Ship-based multi-axis differential optical absorption spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) measurements were conducted along the marginal seas of China from 19 April to 16 May 2018 to measure the vertical profiles of aerosol, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and nitrous acid (HONO). Along the cruise route, we found five hot spots with enhanced tropospheric NO2 vertical column densities (VCDs) in the Yangtze River Delta, Taiwan Strait, Guangzhou–Hong Kong–Macau Greater Bay Area, port of Zhanjiang, and port of Qingdao. Enhanced HONO concentrations could usually be observed under high-level aerosol and NO2 conditions, whereas the reverse was not always the case. To understand the impacts of relative humidity (RH), temperature, and aerosol on the heterogeneous reaction of NO2 to form HONO in different scenarios, the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (CAMS) and Southern University of Science and Technology (SUST) MAX-DOAS stations were selected as the inland and coastal cases, respectively. The RH turning points in CAMS and SUST cases were both ∼ 65 % (60 %–70 %), whereas two turning peaks (∼ 60 % and ∼ 85 %) of RH were found in the sea cases. As temperature increased, the HONO / NO2 ratio decreased with peak values appearing at ∼ 12.5∘C in CAMS, whereas the HONO / NO2 gradually increased and reached peak values at ∼ 31.5∘C in SUST. In the sea cases, when the temperature exceeded 18.0∘C, the HONO / NO2 ratio rose with increasing temperature and achieved its peak at ∼ 25.0∘C. This indicated that high temperature can contribute to the secondary formation of HONO in the sea atmosphere. In the inland cases, the correlation analysis between HONO and aerosol in the near-surface layer showed that the ground surface is more crucial to the formation of HONO via the heterogeneous reaction of NO2; however, in the coastal and sea cases, the aerosol surface contributed more. Furthermore, we discovered that the conversion rate of NO2 to HONO through heterogeneous reactions in the sea cases is larger than that in the inland cases in higher atmospheric layers (> 600 m). Three typical events were selected to demonstrate three potential contributing factors of HONO production under marine conditions (i.e., transport, NO2 heterogeneous reaction, and unknown HONO source). This study elucidates the sea–land and vertical differences in the forming mechanism of HONO via the NO2 heterogeneous reaction and provides deep insights into tropospheric HONO distribution, transforming process, and environmental effects.

Powdery mildew severely affects several important crops and cash plants. Disruption of mildew resistance locus O ( MLO) genes elevates resistance against powdery mildew in several plants. However, whether rubber tree ( Heveae brasiliensis) MLO proteins are linked to susceptibility remains unknown, owing to technical limitations in the genetic manipulation of this woody plant. A previous study showed that the H. brasiliensis MLO-like protein HbMLO12 demonstrates high amino acid sequence similarity with the known Arabidopsis MLO protein AtMLO12. In this study, we investigated whether HbMLO12 regulates susceptibility to powdery mildew. H. brasiliensis leaves take up exogenously synthesized double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs), and foliar application of dsRNA homologous to HbMLO12 gene specifically induces HbMLO12 silencing in H. brasiliensis leaf tissues. Notably, HbMLO12 silencing inhibited fungal infection and elevated the immune response during interaction with the rubber tree powdery mildew fungus. Furthermore, the heterologous expression of HbMLO12 suppressed bacterial flg22– and fungal chitin–induced immune responses and enhanced bacterial infection in Arabidopsis. Our study provides evidence that HbMLO12 contributes to susceptibility to powdery mildew. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license .

In this paper, the predictive model of stroke based on decision tree is implemented to predict the stroke probability of ten samples by using Python language. The dataset of stroke is collected and is preprocessed, then the Gini coefficients of each feature are calculated to select the division, and then the decision tree model is obtained. Finally, the stroke probability is predicted for ten samples. In addition, Naive Bayes model is applied to predict the stroke probability to compare with the decision tree method. The experimental results show that older people with high blood pressure, heart disease, habitual smoking are more possible to have stroke, with a prediction accuracy of 88% for decision tree method and 79% for Naive Bayes model, respectively.

2022年伴随元宇宙、Web3.0实践深入,社会深度媒介化进程推进,传媒业从功能性产业下沉为社会基础设施,传媒经济研究也经历转变。本研究梳理国内2022年传媒经济研究主要成果,发现研究总体呈现出范式突破、理论创新及视域拓宽之势。具体来说,范式层面,学者们的媒介观和传媒业认识论迭代升级;理论层面,研究不仅延伸了对传媒市场机制和产消机制的理论认识、创新了传媒经营的评估模型,还重新省思了“受众商品论”的当下适用性;视域层面,学者们一方面关注以区块链和数字资产为代表的新加密技术、以游戏和元宇宙为代表的新传媒业态,另一方面重新反思新用户特征,围绕用户群体的有限理性及劳动控制展开研究。

A polyimide-based single-ion polymer PI-LiCPSI was prepared. PI-SIGPE obtained by compounding of PI-LiCPSI and PVDF-HFP showed good mechanical properties due to the rigid frame and strong interface, and also possessed excellent electrochemical and cycling performance.

We developed a green method for the synthesis of iron silicide nanoparticles as applied to photothermal therapy. The resultant nanoparticles show good photothermal performance and results in cell and animal testing.

Mechanochemical synthesis leads to mixed valence Sn(ii)/Sn(iv) doping of the triple vacancy ordered perovskite MA3Bi2Br9.

A possible reason for the higher catalytic performance might be the better collisions of reactant species on metals.

Reactive species serve as a key to remediate the contamination of refractory organic contaminants in advanced oxidation processes. In this study, a novel heterogeneous catalyst, CoMgFe-LDH layered doubled hydroxide (CoMgFe-LDH), was prepared for an efficient activation of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) to oxidize Rhodamine B (RhB). The characterization results showed that CoMgFe-LDH had a good crystallographic structure. Correspondingly, the CoMgFe-LDH/PMS process exhibited good capacity to remove RhB, which was equivalent to degradation performance as homogeneous Co(II)/PMS process. The RhB oxidation in the CoMgFe-LDH/PMS process was well described with pseudo-first-order kinetic model. Additionally, the oxidation process presented an excellent stability, and only 0.9% leaching rate was detected after six sequential reaction cycles at pH 5.0. The effects of initial pH, CoMgFe-LDH dosage, PMS concentration, RhB concentration, and inorganic anions on the RhB degradation were discussed in detail. Quenching experiments showed that sulfate radicals (SO

Abnormal proliferation and cell cycle perturbation are the main hallmarks of breast cancer. Cyclin-dependent kinase 1 (CDK1) is one of the key kinases for cell transition from the G2 phase to M phase during the cell cycle progression. However, little is known about the degradation mechanisms of CDK1. USP14 (ubiquitin-specific processing protease 14) is an important proteasome-associated deubiquitinase that is critical for proteome homeostasis and plays a crucial role in the initiation and development of cancer. In this study, we find that USP14 shows high expression in breast cancer cells and results in the abnormal proliferation of cancer cells. Furthermore, we examine cell cycle distribution by flow cytometry and find that inhibition of USP14 causes cell cycle arrest in G2/M phase. As CDK1 is the key kinase in G2/M phase, we detect the interaction between USP14 and CDK1 and the effect of USP14 on the deubiquitination of CDK1. The results reveal that USP14 interacts with CDK1 and stabilizes CDK1 by deubiquitinating K48-linked ubiquitination. In conclusion, our findings reveal an indispensable role of USP14 in regulating cell cycle progression by stabilizing CDK1 in breast cancer, suggesting that USP14 may be used as a potential therapeutic target in breast cancer therapy.

Many AI system designers grapple with how best to collect human input for different types of training data. Online crowds provide a cheap on-demand source of intelligence, but they often lack the expertise required in many domains. Experts offer tacit knowledge and more nuanced input, but they are harder to recruit. To explore this trade off, we compared novices and experts in terms of performance and perceptions on human intelligence tasks in the context of designing a text-based conversational agent. We developed a preliminary chatbot that simulates conversations with someone seeking mental health advice to help educate volunteer listeners at 7cups.com. We then recruited experienced listeners (domain experts) and MTurk novice workers (crowd workers) to conduct tasks to improve the chatbot with different levels of complexity. Novice crowds perform comparably to experts on tasks that only require natural language understanding, such as correcting how the system classifies a user statement. For more generative tasks, like creating new lines of chatbot dialogue, the experts demonstrated higher quality, novelty, and emotion. We also uncovered a motivational gap: crowd workers enjoyed the interactive tasks, while experts found the work to be tedious and repetitive. We offer design considerations for allocating crowd workers and experts on input tasks for AI systems, and for better motivating experts to participate in low-level data work for AI.

Transparent conducting oxides have become ubiquitous in modern optoelectronics. However, the number of oxides that are transparent to visible light and have the metallic-like conductivity necessary for applications is limited to a handful of systems that have been known for the past 40 years. In this work, we use hybrid density functional theory and defect chemistry analysis to demonstrate that tri-rutile zinc antimonate, ZnSb2O6, is an ideal transparent conducting oxide and to identify gallium as the optimal dopant to yield high conductivity and transparency. To validate our computational predictions, we have synthesized both powder samples and single crystals of Ga-doped ZnSb2O6 which conclusively show behavior consistent with a degenerate transparent conducting oxide. This study demonstrates the possibility of a family of Sb(V)-containing oxides for transparent conducting oxide and power electronics applications.

Renoxification is the process of recycling NO3- / HNO3 into NOx under illumination and is mostly ascribed to the photolysis of nitrate. TiO2, a typical mineral dust component, is able to play a photocatalytic role in the renoxification process due to the formation of NO3 radicals; we define this process as “photocatalytic renoxification”. Formaldehyde (HCHO), the most abundant carbonyl compound in the atmosphere, may participate in the renoxification of nitrate-doped TiO2 particles. In this study, we established a 400 L environmental chamber reaction system capable of controlling 0.8 %–70 % relative humidity at 293 K with the presence of 1 or 9 ppm HCHO and 4 wt % nitrate-doped TiO2. The direct photolyses of both nitrate and NO3 radicals were excluded by adjusting the illumination wavelength so as to explore the effect of HCHO on the “photocatalytic renoxification”. It was found that NOx concentrations can reach up to more than 100 ppb for nitrate-doped TiO2 particles, while almost no NOx was generated in the absence of HCHO. Nitrate type, relative humidity and HCHO concentration were found to influence NOx release. It was suggested that substantial amounts of NOx were produced via the NO3-–NO3⚫–HNO3–NOx pathway, where TiO2 worked for converting “NO3-” to “NO3⚫ ”, that HCHO participated in the transformation of “NO3⚫ ” to “HNO3” through hydrogen abstraction, and that “HNO3” photolysis answered for mass NOx release. So, HCHO played a significant role in this “photocatalytic renoxification” process. These results were found based on simplified mimics for atmospheric mineral dust under specific experimental conditions, which might deviate from the real situation but illustrated the potential of HCHO to influence nitrate renoxification in the atmosphere. Our proposed reaction mechanism by which HCHO promotes photocatalytic renoxification is helpful for deeply understanding atmospheric photochemical processes and nitrogen cycling and could be considered for better fitting atmospheric model simulations with field observations in some specific scenarios.

Receptor-like kinases (RLKs) can participate in multiple signalling pathways and are considered one of the most critical components of the early events of intercellular signalling. As an RLK, the ERECTA family (ERf), which comprises ERECTA (ER), ERECTA-Like1 (ERL1), and ERECTA-Like2 (ERL2) in Arabidopsis, regulates multiple signalling pathways in plant growth and development. Despite its indispensability, detailed information on ERf-manipulated signalling pathways remains elusive. In this review, we attempt to summarize the essential roles of the ERf in plant organ morphogenesis, including shoot apical meristem, stem, and reproductive organ development.

To determine if obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) predisposes patients to glaucoma and macular disease due to vascular compromise by evaluating retinal and optic nerve vasculature and function using optical coherence tomography angiography and Humphrey visual field testing, respectively.In this prospective, observational, cross-sectional study 45 patients undergoing polysomnography ordered per standard of care were selected and stratified based on apnea-hypopnea index (AHI). Medical history, visual acuity testing, 24-2 Humphrey visual field, intraocular pressure measurement, and optical coherence tomography angiography studies of the macular and peripapillary retina were obtained. Correlations between polysomnography parameters and imaging data were analyzed.The radial peripapillary capillary vascular density demonstrated no relationship to AHI (95% confidence interval [CI] [-0.026,0.038]) or severity of OSAS (95% CI: [-0.772, 3.648]) for moderate OSAS compared to mild/normal and (-1.295, 3.1421) for severe compared to mild/normal. Optical coherence tomography angiography superficial parafoveal vascular density (95% CI: [-0.068,0.011], deep parafoveal vascular density (95% CI: [-0.080,0.009]), and foveal avascular zone (95% CI: [-0.001, 0.001]) showed no statistically significant relationship to AHI or OSAS severity after controlling for confounders. Optical coherence tomography retinal nerve fiber layer thickness increased with AHI (The severity of OSAS did not show a statistically significant effect on parameters associated with glaucoma or macular vascular disease. Larger cohorts may be required to determine the physiologic consequences of OSAS on the macular and optic nerve vasculature, structure, and function.Davanian A, Williamson L, Taylor C, et al. Optical coherence tomography angiography and Humphrey visual field in patients with obstructive sleep apnea.

Plants require solar energy to grow through oxygenic photosynthesis; however, when light intensity exceeds the optimal range for photosynthesis, it causes abiotic stress and physiological damage in plants. In response to high light stress, plants initiate a series of signal transduction from chloroplasts to whole cells and from locally stressed tissues to the rest of the plant body. These signals trigger a variety of physiological and biochemical reactions intended to mitigate the deleterious effects of high light intensity, such as photodamage and photoinhibition. Light stress protection mechanisms include chloroplastic Reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging, chloroplast and stomatal movement, and anthocyanin production. Photosynthetic apparatuses, being the direct targets of photodamage, have also developed various acclimation processes such as thermal energy dissipation through nonphotochemical quenching (NPQ), photorepair of Photosystem II (PSII), and transcriptional regulation of photosynthetic proteins. Fluctuating light is another mild but persistent type of light stress in nature, which unfortunately has been poorly investigated. Current studies, however, suggest that state transitions and cyclic electron transport are the main adaptive mechanisms for mediating fluctuating light stress in plants. Here, we review the current breadth of knowledge regarding physiological and biochemical responses to both high light stress and fluctuating light stress.

In this age of data, digital tools are widely promoted as having tremendous potential for enhancing food safety. However, the potential of these digital tools depends on the availability and quality of data, and a number of obstacles need to be overcome to achieve the goal of digitally enabled "smarter food safety" approaches. One key obstacle is that participants in the food system and in food safety often lack the willingness to share data, due to fears of data abuse, bad publicity, liability, and the need to keep certain data (e.g., human illness data) confidential. As these multifaceted concerns lead to tension between data utility and privacy, the solutions to these challenges need to be multifaceted. This review outlines the data needs in digital food safety systems, exemplified in different data categories and model types, and key concerns associated with sharing of food safety data, including confidentiality and privacy of shared data. To address the data privacy issue a combination of innovative strategies to protect privacy as well as legal protection against data abuse need to be pursued. Existing solutions for maximizing data utility, while not compromising data privacy, are discussed, most notably differential privacy and federated learning.

With the gradual progress of drilling to the deep layer, the formation conditions become more and more complex. The safe density window of drilling fluid is narrow, and well kick and overflow occur frequently. Aiming at this problem, this paper proposes an overflow evaluation index - overflow formation energy. From the perspective of energy analysis, overflow is regarded as the process of formation fluid doing work on the wellbore, and the power of overflow work can reflect the strength of overflow, so this power is defined as the overflow formation energy. Based on the model established in this paper, the effects of different types of overflow fluid, invasion rate of overflow fluid, drilling fluid density and formation pressure coefficient on overflow formation energy are analyzed. The overflow formation energy of gas is the highest. As the invasion rate of overflow fluid increases, the energy of overflow formation gradually increases. The data of 7 overflow wells are analyzed, and the corresponding overflow formation energy is calculated. It is found that the throttling circulating well killing method is more appropriate when the overflow formation energy is small. The overflow formation energy can quickly evaluate the overflow situation, provide theoretical basis for well control operation, and reduce the probability of well control operation risk.

Breast cancer patients exhibit diverse responses to CDK4/6 inhibitor (CDK4/6i)-based therapies, and identifying eligible patients remains a challenge. Artificial intelligence (AI) has demonstrated the potential to address complex clinical problems. Here, we applied a novel AI-based approach, named as CDK4/6i Response Model (CRM), which combined a previously published method and a scoring model based on random forest algorithm for evaluating breast cancer patients’ sensitivity to CDK4/6i-based therapies. To train the CRM, we transformed the genomic data of 980 breast cancer patients from the TCGA database into signaling pathway activity profiles (APSP) by utilizing the modified Damage Assessment of Genomic Mutations (DAGM) algorithm. To mimic the mechanism of action of CDK4/6 inhibitors, a scoring model was then trained to classify the HR+/HER2- and HR-/HER2-breast cancer molecular subtypes by the differential APSP features between the two, which reasonably reflected the potential role played by CDK4/6 molecules in HR+/HER2-breast cancer cells. The effectiveness of the CRM’s ability was verified by accurately classifying HR+/HER2- and HR-/HER2-breast cancer patients in a separate local patient cohort (n = 343) in Guangdong, China. Significantly, the scores were observed to be distinct (p = 0.025) between CDK4/6i-treated patients with different responses. Furthermore, breast cancer patients belonging to different subtypes were grouped into five distinct populations based on the scores assigned by the CRM. The results showed not only the heterogenetic responses across subtypes but also more than half of HR+/HER2+ patients might be benefited from CDK4/6i-based treatment. The CRM empowered us to conduct in-silico clinical trials (ICT) on different types of cancer patients responding to CDK4/6i-based therapies. In this study, we performed twin ICT of previously disclosed clinical trials (NCT02246621,NCT02079636,NCT03155997,NCT02513394,NCT02675231), and observed concerted results as the real-world clinical outcomes. These findings show the potential of CRM as a companion diagnostic for CDK4/6i-based therapies and demonstrate promising applications by ICT to guide pan-cancer treatment using CDK4/6 inhibitors in the clinical ends.SummaryIn most cases, the efficacy of CDK4/6 inhibitors (CDK4/6i) for breast cancer patients is tightly correlated with molecular subtypes, which are classified by the status of hormone receptors (HR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)1. More than one pathological condition in HR+/HER2-type of patients are approved to use CDK4/6i-based therapies as standard treatment2–10, while patients with HR-/HER2-breast cancer have less chances to benefit from CDK4/6i-based therapies11. However, there is currently no approach to differentiate the two types of breast cancer based on their differences in cellular functions, which leads to the vagueness in how they react differently to same kind of treatment including CDK4/6 inhibitors12,13. Furthermore, from clinical observation, partial HR+/HER2-patients are proved resistant to CDK4/6i14, and identifying eligible patients with all types of breast cancer remains a challenge15–17. Here we show an AI-based function explanatory method, named CDK4/6i Response Model (CRM), for evaluating breast cancer patients’ sensitivity to CDK4/6i-based therapies. The CRM trained by differential genomic data-transformed pathway-level features between HR+/HER2- and HR-/HER2-breast cancers was able to classify HR+/HER2- and HR-/HER2-breast cancer patients in TCGA (n=581) and an independent patient cohort (n=343), which also reflects the different responses to CDK4/6i-based therapies18. We found that the CRM scores are significantly different between CDK4/6i-treated patients with different outcomes. Breast cancer patients across different subtypes were mainly distributed into five populations regarding to the CRM scores, indicating not only the heterogenetic responses across subtypes but also more than half of HR+/HER2+ patients might be benefited from CDK4/6i-based treatment. The CRM empowered us to conduct in-silico clinical trials (ICT) which simulates previously disclosed clinical outcomes. Our ICT results reflected the efficacy differences observed clinically, which shows the potential of CRM to become a companion diagnostic for CDK4/6i-based therapies. Thus, our study demonstrated a novel and useful tool to explore therapeutic potentials of CDK4/6i-based treatments in breast cancer and, promisingly, other more malignant diseases.

Background: NUAKs promote myosin light chain phosphorlyation, actin organization, proliferation and suppression of cell death in non-muscle cells, which are critical for smooth muscle contraction and growth. In benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), contraction and growth in the prostate drive urethral obstruction and voiding symptoms. However, a role of NUAKs in smooth muscle contraction or prostate functions are unknown. Here, we examined effects of NUAK silencing and the presumed NUAK inhibitors, HTH01-015 and WZ4003 on contraction and growth-related functions in prostate stromal cells (WPMY-1) and in human prostate tissues.Methods: Effects of NUAK1 and -2 silencing, HTH01-015 and WZ4003 on matrix plug contraction, proliferation (EdU assay, Ki-67 mRNA), apoptosis and cell death (flowcytometry), viability (CCK-8) and actin organization (phalloidin staining) were examined in cultured WPMY-1 cells. Effects of HTH01-015 and WZ4003 on smooth muscle contraction were assessed in organ bath experirments with human prostate tissues.Results: Effects of silencing were most pronounced on proliferation and cell death, resulting in decreases of proliferation rate by 60% and 70% by silencing of NUAK1 and NUAK2 (compared to scramble siRNA-transfected controls), decreases in Ki-67 by 75% and 77%, while numbers of dead cells after silencing of NUAK1 and NUAK2 amounted to 2.8 and 4.9 fold of scramble-transfected controls. Silencing of each isoform was paralleled by reduced viability, breakdown in actin polymerization, and partial decreases in contractility (maximally 45% by NUAK1 silencing, 58% by NUAK2 silencing). Effects of silencing were mimicked by HTH01-015 and WZ4003, with numbers of dead cells amounting up to 16.1 fold or 7.8 fold with HTH01-015 or WZ4003, compared to solvent-treated controls. Using concentrations of 500 nM, neurogenic contractions of prostate tissues were inhibited partly by HTH01-015 and U46619-induced contractions were inhibited partly by HTH01-015 and WZ4003, while α1-adrenergic and endothelin-1-induced contractions remained unaffected. Using 10 μM, inhibition of endothelin-1-induced contractions by both inhibitors and inhibition of α1-adrenergic contractions by HTH01-015 added to effects seen by 500 nM.Conclusion: NUAK1 and -2 suppress cell death and promote proliferation in prostate stromal cells. A role in stromal hyperplasia appears possible in BPH. Effects of NUAK silencing are mimicked by HTH01-015 and WZ4003.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to develop an optimization method for charging plans with the implementation of time-of-day (TOD) electricity tariff, to reduce electricity bill. Design/methodology/approach Two optimization models for charging plans respectively with fixed and stochastic trip travel times are developed, to minimize the electricity costs of daily operation of an electric bus. The charging time is taken as the optimization variable. The TOD electricity tariff is considered, and the energy consumption model is developed based on real operation data. An optimal charging plan provides charging times at bus idle times in operation hours during the whole day (charging time is 0 if the bus is not get charged at idle time) which ensure the regular operation of every trip served by this bus. Findings The electricity costs of the bus route can be reduced by applying the optimal charging plans. Originality/value This paper produces a viable option for transit agencies to reduce their operation costs.

This paper proposes a novel reinforcement learning-based attitude tracking control strategy for combined spacecraft takeover maneuvers with completely unknown dynamics. One major issue in the context of combined spacecraft attitude takeover control is that the accurate dynamic model is highly nonlinear, complex and costly to identify online, which makes it impractical for control design. To address this issue, we take the advantage of the Q-learning algorithm to acquire the control strategy directly from system input/output measurement data in a model-free manner, and thus the online inertia parameter identification procedure is avoided. More specifically, first, the attitude tracking is formulated as a regulation problem by introducing an argumented system, where the system dynamic model is still required in control design. Then, in order to achieve a model-free control strategy, an online policy-iteration (PI) Q-learning procedure is derived to solve the Bellman optimality equation by utilizing the generated measurement data. In theoretical analysis, it is proved that the iteration sequences of Q value function and control strategy can converge to the optimal ones. In addition, rigorous proof of the stability and monotonicity guarantees of the proposed control strategy are also provided. Furthermore, for the purpose of online implementation, off-policy learning scheme is employed to find the optimal Q value function approximator with neural network structure after data-collection phase. Numerical simulations are exhibited to validate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.

The provision of antibacterial properties to resinous restorative/reconstructive materials by incorporating polymerizable bactericides such as 12-methacryloyloxydodecylpyridinium bromide (MDPB) has been attempted. Previously, MDPB was combined with 2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC) to fabricate a copolymer coating to increase antibacterial effectiveness by protein repelling. In this study, we assessed the longevity of the protein-repelling, antibacterial, and antibiofilm effects of the MDPB-MPC copolymer. After 28 days of water immersion, MPC-containing copolymers exhibited lower adsorption of bovine serum albumin and salivary proteins; after 24 h of incubation, MDPB-containing copolymers demonstrated antibacterial effects against Streptococcus mutans. The copolymer containing both MDPB and MPC showed thinner biofilm formation with a higher percentage of membrane-compromised bacteria than control. The results were consistent with those before aging, indicating the long-lasting antibacterial, protein-repellent, and antibiofilm effects of this copolymer. The durable copolymer developed in this study can be applied to dental resins to control bacteria in the oral environment.

Mitochondrial oxidative stress plays an important role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Recently, antioxidant therapy has been considered an effective strategy for the treatment of AD. Our previous work discovered that rhein relieved mitochondrial oxidative stress in β-amyloid (Aβ) oligomer-induced primary neurons by improving the sirtuin 1 (SIRT1)/peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-alpha- (PGC-1α-) regulated mitochondrial biogenesis. While encouraging results have been provided, mechanisms underlying the beneficial effect of rhein on AD are yet to be elucidated in vivo. In this study, we evaluated the therapeutic effect of rhein on an APP/PS1 transgenic (APP/PS1) mouse model of AD and explored its antioxidant mechanisms. As a result, rhein significantly reduced Aβ burden and neuroinflammation and eventually ameliorated cognitive impairment in APP/PS1 mice. Moreover, rhein reversed oxidative stress in the brain of APP/PS1 mice and protected neurons from oxidative stress-associated apoptosis. Further study revealed that rhein promoted mitochondrial biogenesis against oxidative stress by upregulating SIRT1 and its downstream PGC-1α as well as nuclear respiratory factor 1. Improved mitochondrial biogenesis not only increased the activity of superoxide dismutase to scavenge excess reactive oxygen species (ROS) but also repaired mitochondria by mitochondrial fusion to inhibit the production of ROS from the electron transport chain. Notably, the exposure of rhein in the brain analyzed by tissue distribution study indicated that rhein could permeate into the brain to exert its therapeutic effects. In conclusion, these findings drive rhein to serve as a promising therapeutic antioxidant for the treatment of AD. Our research highlights the therapeutic efficacy for AD through regulating mitochondrial biogenesis via the SIRT1/PGC-1α pathway.

This study has established a three-solvent methodology for separating nanomaterials, such as monometallic nanoparticles, miscible and immiscible nanoalloys. After systematically investigating the separation methods in two-solvent and three-solvent systems, a three-solvent theoretical model has been proposed to thoroughly reveal the centrifugation mechanism of colloidal particles. PVP plays an important role in the formation of emulsion droplets as the key factor for separation. Based on the three-solvent model, a novel solvent system has been discovered, with low-toxicity solvents and high separation efficiency. This study can open a new path for the separation of colloidal particles in both research and industrial fields and further promote the development of functional nanomaterials in greener pathways.

We study the role of interactivity in distributed statistical inference under information constraints, e.g., communication constraints and local differential privacy. We focus on the tasks of goodness-of-fit testing and estimation of discrete distributions. From prior work, these tasks are well understood under noninteractive protocols. Extending these approaches directly for interactive protocols is difficult due to correlations that can build due to interactivity; in fact, gaps can be found in prior claims of tight bounds of distribution estimation using interactive protocols. We propose a new approach to handle this correlation and establish a unified method to establish lower bounds for both tasks. As an application, we obtain optimal bounds for both estimation and testing under local differential privacy and communication constraints. We also provide an example of a natural testing problem where interactivity helps., Comment: Modifying the proof and statement of Proposition 24 to address an issue in the variance analysis

Unique multicoated composites are fabricated through aerosol-assisted chemical deposition (AACD) and applied as anodes in Li-ion batteries.