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Here we report the chemical synthesis of conjugation-ready trisaccharides, representing biological repeating units of Pseudomonas aeruginosaserotype 10 and 19 O-antigens. The α-d-QuiN3glycosidic bond was stereoselectively synthesized through TMSI─Ph3P═O mediated 1,2-cisglycosylation. Selective oxidation of the C6–OH group at the disaccharide stage allowed for benzylidene-promoted construction of the α-l-GalN3glycosidic bond and simplification of the postglycosylation process at the trisaccharide stage. The low reaction temperature and neighboring electron-donating effect facilitated the efficient synthesis of the trisaccharide.

ABSTRACTBackgroundInterleukin-6 (IL-6) monoclonal antibodies are commonly acknowledged for their efficacy in managing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); however, there remains a paucity of comprehensive studies on their potential adverse effects.Research design and methodsThis is a retrospective pharmacovigilance investigation. We employed FAERS using OpenVigil FDA to detect adverse reactions linked to the interleukin-6 antagonist tocilizumab and sarilumab.ResultsCompletely 67,976 reports were identified as ‘primary suspected (PS)’ adverse events (AEs) for tocilizumab, and 12,560 reports for sarilumab. 109 significant disproportionality preferred terms (PTs) of tocilizumab and 158 PTs of sarilumab were retained. A higher incidence of adverse reactions occurred in females aged 45-64 years, with a higher rate of subsequent hospitalization. Both drugs exhibited adverse reactions consistent with previously reported side effects, such as leukopenia, elevated liver enzymes, and hypercholesterolemia. Additionally, there was a strong correlation with gastrointestinal issues. Unexpected significant adverse events, including diabetes, fluctuations in blood pressure, drug ineffectiveness, malignancies, and disorders of the nervous system, were also observed. Gender and age differences existed in AEs signals related to IL-6RAs.ConclusionOur study identified significant new AE signals for interleukin-6 receptor antagonists, potentially supporting clinical monitoring and risk identification for this class of drugs.

Emerging contaminants (ECs) of significant concern are widely distributed throughout the environment due to various industrial practices and human activities. Given the alarming ecological threats and potential risks that ECs pose to human health and aquatic life, even at trace concentrations, it is imperative to develop innovative technologies to effectively address these challenges. The biophotoelectrochemistry (BPEC) system, which integrates microbial cells with photosensitizers for solar-to-chemical conversion, holds great potential as an efficient strategy for the removal of ECs. In this review, we provide new insights into the BPEC system for the ECs treatment by systematically summarizing the classification, sources, and environmental occurrence of ECs. Additionally, we explore the research progress and degradation mechanisms in ECs removal with BPEC. Finally, the current challenges and future perspectives for the applications of the BPEC system in the ECs treatment are analyzed. This review aims to promote the development of BPEC technology for ECs treatment, offering a promising prospect for environmental remediation, circular economy, and clean-energy production.

To evaluate the efficacy of Compound Danshen Dripping Pills (CDDP) combined with isosorbide mononitrate (ISMN) versus ISMN alone for treating angina pectoris in patients.

Herein, we report a target-triggered CRISPR/Cas12a assay by coupling lanthanide tagging and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for highly sensitive elemental detection. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA was chosen as a model analyte, and recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) was used for target amplification. The double-stranded RPA amplicons containing a 5′ TTTG PAM sequence can be recognized by Cas12a through a specific CRISPR RNA, activating the trans-cleavage activity of CRISPR/Cas12a and nonspecific cleavage of terbium (Tb)-ssDNA modified on magnetic beads (MBs). Following magnetic separation and acid digestion, the released Tb3+ions were quantitated by ICP-MS and correlated to the concentration of HBV DNA. Taking advantage of the accelerated cleavage of Tb-ssDNA attached to the MB particles, RPA for target amplification, and ICP-MS for highly selective signal readout, this method permits the detection of 1 copy/μL of HBV DNA in serum with high specificity and holds great promise in the early diagnosis of viral infections or tumor development.

With the rapid development of the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), the cognitive radio-based IoV (CIoV) network is widely used to overcome the lack of spectrum resources. In this paper, a novel joint spectrum sensing and resource allocation (JSS-RA) scheme in the CIoV system is investigated. The JSS-RA process is divided into two phases. In the spectrum sensing phase, our scheme considers the dynamic vehicular environment to adjust the decision threshold individually for each vehicle. In the resource allocation (RA) phase, we first propose a general utility-efficiency function. The various parameters contained in this function enable its transformation into many mainstream objective functions. Subsequently, the RA issue is formulated as a joint orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol and power optimization, which is also known as a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP). We solve the original optimization by decomposing it into two subproblems. The theorems prove that the global optimum solution can be obtained by combining the results of two decomposed subproblems. Besides, the convergence rate of the proposed algorithm is discussed. Finally, numerical simulations verify the excellent performance and robustness of our JSS-RA scheme.

Memristors have great potential in neural network computation. Perovskite memristors exhibit excellent resistive-switching (RS) properties between high resistance state (HRS) and low resistance state (LRS) state under applied voltage due to the extraordinary ion migration and superior charge transfer. However, the stability issue of traditional three-dimensional (3D) perovskites is still challenging. Here, one-dimensional (1D) (CH3)3SPbI3perovskite passivation layer was in-situformed on 3D perovskite film, which was further applied in stable synaptic memristor. The memristor was provided with three resistance states due to the heterojunction electric field coupled with ion migration. The on/off ratio of memristors was obviously improved from 10 to over 60. The RS characteristics of 3D/1D perovskite memristor remained unchanged after 103s read and 300 switching cycles. The 3D/1D perovskite memristor effectively exhibited versatile synaptic plasticity behaviors including long-term potentiation, long-term depression and paired-pulse facilitation by controlling the input voltages. Notably, the novel device provides a new candidate for next-generation neuromorphic computing.

AbstractObjective:Klebsiella pneumoniaeare common pathogens causing bloodstream infection (BSI) that increasingly express carbapenem resistance worldwide. To date, no study has precisely investigated the impact of carbapenem resistance in K. pneumoniae(CRKP) BSI on mortality.Methods:This retrospective study included 87 patients with CRKP BSI and 321 patients with carbapenem-susceptible K. pneumoniae(CSKP) BSI from 2015 to 2020. Propensity score analyses with stabilized inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW-S) was applied to balance covariates. The hazard ratio for 30-day mortality associated with carbapenem resistance was estimated using Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier curves.Results:The 30-day crude mortality rates were 43.7% in patients with CRKP BSI and 17.8% in patients with CSKP BSI (P< .001). Age ≥55 years, underlying hematological malignancies and hemodialysis were independently associated with mortality in CRKP BSI. A skin or soft-tissue infection source, urinary catheter, and underlying chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were predictors of mortality in CSKP BSI. The group characteristics were well balanced after IPTW-S. The adjusted hazard ratio for 30-day mortality for CRKP BSI was 1.607 (interquartile range, 0.814–3.171).Conclusions:Carbapenem resistance was not associated with a significant increase in 30-day mortality in KP BSI; patient and disease factors were primary determinants of outcomes.

Pseudomonas aeruginosabacteria are becoming increasingly resistant against multiple antibiotics. Therefore, the development of vaccines to prevent infections with these bacteria is an urgent medical need. While the immunological activity of lipopolysaccharide O-antigens in P. aeruginosais well-known, the specific protective epitopes remain unidentified. Herein, we present the first chemical synthesis of highly functionalized aminoglycoside trisaccharide 1and its acetamido derivative 2found in the P. aeruginosaserotype O5 O-antigen. The synthesis of the trisaccharide targets is based on balancing the reactivity of disaccharide acceptors and monosaccharide donors. Glycosylations were analyzed by quantifying the reactivity of the hydroxyl group of the disaccharide acceptor using the orbital-weighted Fukui function and dual descriptor. The stereoselective formation of 1,2-cis-α-fucosylamine linkages was achieved through a combination of remote acyl participation and reagent modulation. The simultaneous SN2 substitution of azide groups at C2′ and C2″ enabled the efficient synthesis of 1,2-cis-β-linkages for both 2,3-diamino-D-mannuronic acids. Through a strategic orthogonal modification, the five amino groups on target trisaccharide 1were equipped with a rare acetamidino (Am) and four acetyl (Ac) groups. Glycan microarray analyses of sera from patients infected with P. aeruginosaindicated that trisaccharides 1and 2are key antigenic epitopes of the serotype O5 O-antigen. The acetamidino group is not an essential determinant of antibody binding. The β-D-ManpNAc3NAcA residue is a key motif for the antigenicity of serotype O5 O-antigen. These findings serve as a foundation for the development of glycoconjugate vaccines targeting P. aeruginosaserotype O5.

Clinical Practice Guideline on Acupuncture and Moxibustion: Migraine (WFAS 007.9-2023)is a clinical practice guideline officially released by the World Federation of Acupuncture-Moxibustion Societies (WFAS) on October 9, 2023, and is the first international guideline on the treatment of migraine with acupuncture. This international standard was developed under the guidance of rigorous evidence-based methodology, and it contains guideline purpose, scope, applicable population, applicable settings, overview of acupuncture for migraine, guideline development process and recommendations. For promoting the understanding and application of this guideline, this article summarizes a total of 18 recommendations in order to assist clinical decisions for migraine with acupuncture.

The coal-dominated electricity system, alongside increasing industrial electricity demand, places China into a dilemma between industrialization and environmental impacts. A practical solution is to exploit air quality and health cobenefits of industrial energy efficiency measures, which has not yet been integrated into China’s energy transition strategy. This research examines the pivotal role of industrial electricity savings in accelerating coal plant retirements and assesses the nexus of energy-pollution-health by modeling nationwide coal-fired plants at individual unit level. It shows that minimizing electricity needs by implementing more efficient technologies leads to the phaseout of 1279 hyper-polluting units (subcritical, <300 MW) by 2040, advancing the retirement of these units by an average of 7 years (3–16 years). The retirements at different locations yield varying levels of air quality improvements (9–17%), across six power grids. Reduced exposure to PM2.5could avoid 123,100 pollution-related cumulative deaths over the next 20 years from 2020, of which ∼75% occur in the Central, East, and North grids, particularly coal-intensive and populous provinces (e.g., Shandong and Jiangsu). These findings provide key indicators to support geographically specific policymaking and lay out a rationale for decision-makers to incorporate multiple benefits into early coal phaseout strategies to avoid lock-in risk.

Mobility control ability is an important property of polymer used in oil displacement. This work initially investigates the temperature and salt resistance, steady-state rheology, dynamic viscoelasticity, and long-term stability of a quaternary ammonium salt active polymer (AM/AMPS/DMCA). Subsequently, an examination was conducted to evaluate the static adsorption ability of AM/AMPS/DMCA on the surface of quartz sand, as well as the dynamic retention property within cores. Finally, the mobility control ability and oil displacement capacity of AM/AMPS/DMCA under various injection conditions was investigated in this study. The findings illuminate the superior attributes of AM/AMPS/DMCA, including its remarkable temperature and salt endurance, alongside its long-term stability, presenting a significant advancement over traditional binary polymers like AM/AMPS. Notably, AM/AMPS/DMCA exhibits a predominantly elastic modulus, which enhances its movement and deformation inside porous media. Furthermore, it has been shown that the resistance factor and residual resistance factor achieved by the 2000 mg/L AM/AMPS/DMCA solution in the core of 96.6 mD were 184.50 and 46.95, respectively. The enhanced oil recovery (EOR) value of 0.6 PV of AM/AMPS/DMCA achieved 30.48% in the core of 588.8 mD. This study not only demonstrates the capability of AM/AMPS/DMCA in EOR but also facilitates the understanding of the mobility control mechanism of polymers in porous media, offering valuable empirical guidance for the field application of polymers.

This paper reports an enhanced approach of thermal reduction of phosphogypsum (PG) in the presence of sodium chloride (NaCl) in its molten phase. The thermodynamic together with in-situthermogravimetric-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (TG-FTIR) result indicates the yield of CaS (solid)at the investigated temperature range (800–850 °C). Addition of NaCl not only appreciably reduces the activation energy of this reaction (800–850 °C) on average from 315 to 175 (kJ·mol−1) materially, but also significantly improve the conversion from CaSO4to CaS. Additionally, the NaCl based waste salt (NaCl-WS) containing organic compounds (0.21 wt%) was found to produce similar results when compared with the pure NaCl addition at investigated temperature range. The optimal conditions viaparametric optimization: i.e., 800–850 °C, 15 wt% (NaCl-WS), and 6 (ratio of PG/C (carbon) wt/wt), were determined. The mechanistic study together with using density functional theories (DFT) shows that the synergistic effect by NaCl addition was caused by the coupled-vacancy diffusion mechanism when NaCl melts at high temperature and C atom shows proximity to oxygen (O) atom from the SO42-cluster in the CaSO4crystallite structure. The evaluation of the process shows appealing advantages over the conventional PG thermal reduction. By carefully manipulating temperature range together with the NaCl-WS addition, the proposed new process simultaneously realizes PG thermal reduction and environmental utilization of NaCl-WS.

Uranium plays a pivotal role in the nuclear industry; however, its inadvertent release has raised concerns regarding health and environmental implications. It is crucial for a prompt warning and accurate tracing of uranium contamination in emergency scenarios. In this study, a novel and simple method was proposed that combines magnetic dispersive solid-phase extraction (MDSPE) with portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) for the on-site sampling and determination of trace uranium in real samples. A magnetic covalent organic framework (Fe3O4@COF) composite with excellent chemical stability and a large adsorption capacity of 311 mg/g was synthesized and employed as an efficient adsorbent for the solid-phase extraction of trace uranium. Without the need for a centrifuge or filter requirement, the established method by benchtop wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (WDXRF) exhibits an exceptionally low limit of detection (LOD) of 0.008 μg/L with a sample volume of 50 mL and a fast adsorption time of 15 min, rendering it suitable for environmental monitoring of UO22+. Consequently, this approach, in combination with a hand-held portable XRF instrument with an LOD of 0.1 μg/L, was successfully implemented for the on-site extraction and quality assessment of real water samples, yielding accurate results and satisfactory spike recoveries.

Protein from Sichuan peppers can elicit mild to severe allergic reactions. However, little is known about their allergenic proteins. We aimed to isolate, identify, clone, and characterize Sichuan pepper allergens and to determine its allergenicity and cross-reactivities. Sichuan pepper seed proteins were extracted and then analyzed by SDS-PAGE. Western blotting was performed with sera from Sichuan pepper-allergic individuals. Proteins of interest were purified using hydrophobic interaction chromatography and gel filtration and further analyzed by analytical ultracentrifugation, circular dichroism spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry (MS). Their coding region was amplified in the genome. IgE reactivity and cross-reactivity of allergens were evaluated by dot blot, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and competitive ELISA. Western blot showed IgE binding to a 55 kDa protein. This protein was homologous to the citrus proteins and has high stability and a sheet structure. Four DNA sequences were cloned. Six patients’ sera (60%) showed specific IgE reactivity to this purified 11S protein, which was proved to have cross-reactivation with extracts of cashew nuts, pistachios, and citrus seeds. A novel allergen in Sichuan pepper seeds, Zan b 2, which belongs to the 11S globulin family, was isolated and identified. Its cross-reactivity with cashew nuts, pistachios, and citrus seeds was demonstrated.

•Infection with drug-resistant bacteria decreased IMI and MEM PK/PD target attainment.•IMI concentration was associated with the ICU stay.•MEM concentration was not associated with ICU stay but associated with effectiveness.•Elevated doses of IMI and MEM should be given to patients with drug-resistant bacteria infection.

Federated learning (FL), as a potential machine learning framework for privacy preservation, has gained significant attention. However, the considerable communication overhead associated with FL remains a prominent challenge. To mitigate this issue, a nonuniform quantization scheme based on Lloyd-Max algorithm is introduced in this letter. By employing this approach, less communication resources are consumed to achieve the same performance. Through performance analysis and numerical simulations, we verify the convergence and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. It demonstrates the potential of our approach in reducing communication overhead while maintaining reliable performance in FL systems.

In this work, the functional groups of Eurohypnum leptothallumextract (ELE) were extracted by aqueous immersion and identified by FTIR. The corrosion inhibitory effect of ELE as a natural plant corrosion inhibitor on pure iron in 0.5 mol L−1H2SO4solution was investigated by test methods such as the weight loss method, electrochemical behaviour and detection of metal surface topography. The results show that ELE has a positive inhibitory effect on the corrosion behaviour of pure iron in 0.5 mol L−1H2SO4solution, and the higher the concentration of ELE, the greater the corrosion inhibitory effect. It can still reach 83.97 % at high temperatures. The results of SEM examination and contact angle measurements show that the corrosion degree of the metal decreases significantly after the additon of ELE and that the hydrophobicity of the metal surface increases. The adsorption of ELE on the surface of pure iron tends to isothermal Langmuir adsorption and, as a mixed corrosion inhibitor, the charge transfer resistance of the system increases significantly and the capacitance value of the electrical double layer decreases significantly.

Silica hollow spheres with dendritic pores are emerging as a promising delivery platform in biomedical applications. However, the fabrication of dendritic mesoporous silica hollow spheres (DMSHS) with a simple method for high delivery efficiency for both hydrophilic and hydrophobic bioactive ingredients remains challenging. Here, we fabricated well-defined and controllable DMSHS with a one-pot self-templated method. Typically, DMSHS have a large surface area (862 m2g–1), radially oriented accessible mesochannels (4.39 nm), tunable diameter (450–620 nm), and shell thickness (130–230 nm). Interfacial diffusion is proposed for the DMSHS formation mechanism. As a demonstration, DMSHS were used to load both hydrophilic protein (lysozyme) and hydrophobic bioactive molecule (2-phenylethanol) on one carrier. Due to its unique morphology and hybrid structure, DMSHS showed great loading performance and promising nanocarrier for control release design. DMSHS could potentially be an ideal platform for guest species delivery.

Intelligent technology can assist in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, which would pave the way towards precision medicine in the coming decade. As a key focus of medical research, the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer play an important role in the future survival of patients. In this work, a diagnostic method based on nano-resolution imaging was proposed to meet the demand for precise detection methods in medicine and scientific research. The cell images scanned by AFM were recognized by cell feature engineering and machine learning classifiers. A feature ranking method based on the importance of features to responses was used to screen features closely related to categorization and optimization of feature combinations, which helps to understand the feature differences between cell types at the micro level. The results showed that the Bayesian optimized back propagation neural network has accuracy rates of 90.37% and 92.68% on two cell datasets (HL-7702 & SMMC-7721 and GES-1 & SGC-7901), respectively. This provides an automatic analysis method for identifying cancer cells or abnormal cells, which can help to reduce the burden of medical or scientific research, decrease misjudgment and promote precise medical care for the whole society.

Layer-3 load balancing is a key topic in the networking field. It is well acknowledged that flowlet is the most promising solution because of its good trade-off between load balance and packet reordering. However, we find its one significant limitation: it makes the forwarding paths of flows unpredictable. To address this limitation, this article presents BurstBalancer, a simple yet efficient load balancing system with a sketch, named BalanceSketch. Our design philosophy is doing less changes to keep the forwarding path of most flows fixed, which guides the design of BalanceSketch and our balance operations. We have fully implemented BurstBalancer in a small-scale testbed built with Tofino switches, and conducted both large-scale event-level (NS-2) and ESL (electronic system level) simulations. Our results show that BurstBalancer achieves 5%$\sim$∼35% smaller FCT than LetFlow in symmetric topology and up to 30× smaller FCT in asymmetric topology, while 58× fewer flows suffer from path changing. All related codes are open-sourced at GitHub.

Rechargeable lithium-sulfur batteries have been regarded as the promising next generation energy storage system due to their overwhelming advantages in energy density. However, their practical implementations are hindered by severe capacity fading and low sulfur utilization, which are caused by polysulfide shuttling and the insulating nature of sulfur. Herein, sulfur-embedded porous multichannel carbon nanofibers coated with MnO2nanosheets (CNFs@S/MnO2) are rationally designed and fabricated as cathode for lithium-sulfur battery. The high conductivity of porous multichannel carbon nanofibers facilitates the kinetics of electron and ion transport in the electrodes, and the porous structure encapsulates and sequesters sulfur in its interior void space to physically retard the dissolution of high-order polysulfides. Moreover, the MnO2shell exhibits a combination of physical and chemical adsorption for high-order polysulfides, which could sequester polysulfides leaked from the carbon matrix after long-time charge/discharge cycles, resulting in enhanced cyclic stability. As a result, the electrode delivers a specific capacity of 1286 mA h g−1at 0.1 C and 728 mA h g−1at 3 C. And the capacity could remain 774 mA h g−1after 600 cycles at 1 C.

Distributed detection of partial discharge (PD) in joints of long power cables is both a necessity and a challenge. In order to improve the distance and sensitivity of PD detection, an improved coherent optical time-domain reflectometer (COTDR) system is proposed in this article. A two-stage optical amplification scheme was established, and the pump currents of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) were optimized to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the beat signal. The dual-frequency probe pulses were introduced to suppress fading noises in the distance domain and prevent false positives in PD detection. The test results based on real cable joints indicated that the system enabled distributed detection and accurate waveform retrieval of PD events. Based on the above improvements, the proposed system enhanced the PD sensing performance from the existing 1-km sensing distance and nC-level detection limit to 20 km and 127 pC, respectively. This performance indicated that the COTDR system possessed practicality in the distributed detection of cable joints PDs.

This review of the methods used for measurements of stable nitrogen isotopes in gases and aerosol particles also summarizes some of the latest research on nitrate, ammonium, nitrogen oxides and ammonia in the atmosphere. The main methods used for the determination of N isotopes in nitrate and nitrogen oxides are one that makes use of denitrifying bacteria and a two-step chemical reduction method (cadmium + hydrazoic acid). A commonly used method for measuring nitrogen isotopes in ammonia and ammonium ion is a chemical conversion that uses sodium azide in an acetic acid buffer or hydroxylamine hydrochloride. A common characteristic of these methods is that nitrous oxide is the final analysis product, and the isotopes are determined by mass spectrometry. The precision of the analyses are typically very high (~ 0.25‰), and the methods require a small amount of sample, usually tens of nmols is sufficient. Some improvements to these methods and collection methods have been made in recent years, and these advances will facilitate research on nitrogen isotopes in the atmosphere.

Electrolyte leakage may cause lithium-ion battery performance degradation, and even lead to short-circuit, resulting in serious safety accidents. In order to improve the safety of lithium-ion battery, it is necessary to detect electrolyte leakage in time. This paper presents a fault diagnosis method for electrolyte leakage of lithium-ion based on support vector machine (SVM) by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) test. And the distribution of relaxation time (DRT) method is also employed to analyze the effect of leakage on the dynamic reaction process with full and half cells. In the proposed method, the EIS and DRT features are all used for the diagnosis to improve accuracy. Furthermore, the sensitivity of different features, the accuracy of battery classification under different cycles and state of charge were also analyzed to reduce diagnostic time by decreasing the test frequency range and SOC points and then validate the feasibility of the method.

The conversation machine comprehension (MC) task aims to answer questions in the multi-turn conversation for a single passage. However, recent approaches don’t exploit information from historical conversations effectively, which results in some references and ellipsis in the current question cannot be recognized. In addition, these methods do not consider the rich semantic relationships between words when reasoning about the passage text. In this paper, we propose a novel model GraphFlow+, which constructs a context graph for each conversation turn and uses a unique recurrent graph neural network (GNN) to model the temporal dependencies between the context graphs of each turn. Specifically, we exploit three different ways to construct text graphs, including the dynamic graph, static graph, and hybrid graph that combines the two. Our experiments on CoQA, QuAC and DoQA show that the GraphFlow+ model can outperform the state-of-the-art approaches.

Cortisol is a vital glucocorticoid hormone reflecting stress levels and related disease processes. In this study, we report an aptamer-functionalized plasmonic nano-urchin (α-FeOOH@Au-aptamer)-aided cortisol-capturing and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) analysis approach. The designed α-FeOOH@Au-aptamer exhibits a well-patterned plasma structure, which combines the good SERS enhancement ability of reduced nanogaps between the Au plasma and the hot spot–favored structure of anisotropic tips from α-FeOOH urchins, with the high affinity of the aptamer towards cortisol molecules. The α-FeOOH@Au-aptamer achieved reporter-free SERS quantification for cortisol with good sensitivity (limit of detection <0.28 μmol L−1), robust salt (1.0 mol per L NaCl) and protein (5.0 mg per mL bovine serum protein) tolerance, favorable reproducibility, as well as good reusability. We further demonstrated the good cortisol-capturing ability and SERS efficacy of the α-FeOOH@Au-aptamer profiling in the serum and urine samples. Our approach provides an alternative tool for cortisol analysis and a reference strategy for report-free SERS detection of small molecules.

Developing low-cost, high-activity transition metal-based oxygen reduction electrocatalysts to replace noble metals in oxygen reduction reactions continues to pose a notable difficulty in the field of research. In this work, a straightforward approach was employed to fabricate Fe, Co, Ni-encapsulated zeolite imidazolate framework (ZIF8) precursors, which were later subjected to pyrolysis to yield carbon-coated FeCoNi nanoparticles (FeCoNi/NC). The obtained FeCoNi/NC catalyst exhibited irregularly distributed nanotubes with abundant active sites on its surface. The electrochemical experiments conducted revealed that the oxygen reduction reaction in an alkaline electrolyte exhibited a half-wave potential of 0.84 V (vs.RHE), which is similar to that of the commercially available Pt/C. The self-made Zn–air battery displayed a narrow discharge voltage gap (0.77 V) and exhibited good cycling stability. These findings provide significant contributions to the understanding and development of multi-metallic electrocatalysts derived from zeolite imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs).

The effects of directional solidification parameters and the coupling of directional solidification parameters and alternating electromagnetic fields on separation and enrichment of the C54–TiSi2phase were investigated in a directionally solidified hypoeutectic Ti–65 wt.% Si alloy. The results indicated that by increasing the pull-down velocity at a given position within the ingot, the cooling rate, growth rate, and temperature gradient of ingot could be increased. At a pull-down velocity near 5 μm/s, the temperature gradient, cooling rate, and growth rate decreased with increasing the thickness of the C54–TiSi2-rich layer. Electromagnetic fields enhanced mass transfer at pull-down velocities of 5, 10, 15, and 20 μm/s, with resulting enriched layer thicknesses of 15, 10, 10, and 5 mm, respectively. By increasing the percentage of Ti in the Ti–Si alloy from 25 to 35 wt.%, the thickness of the C54–TiSi2-rich layer was increased from 2.5 to 3.3 cm. However, the maximum C54–TiSi2content obtained experimentally in this layer decreased from 92.06 to 79.49 mass%.

Hyperspectral images (HSIs) have spectral variability, which leads to spectral dependence in adjacent and nonadjacent regions, and this dependence is essential for the classification of regions with mixed pixels. Current neural architecture search (NAS) methods have achieved significant advantages in HSI classification, but these methods cannot capture spectral dependence in nonadjacent regions because only use feedforward connections. Meanwhile, the cost of the search process in NAS is proportional to the scale of the search space, which limits the expansion of the search space. To address these issues, we propose a sparse-coding-inspired feedback NAS (SCIF-NAS) method for HSI classification. First, we view HSI samples as sequences and introduce a feedback mechanism in NAS to model the spectral dependence of nonadjacent regions to mitigate the effects of spectral variation. Second, we design several feedforward operations according to the characteristics of HSI, to form the search space together with feedback operations. Meanwhile, a sparse-coding-inspired NAS accelerated strategy is introduced to alleviate the search time burden caused by the expansion of search space. Third, we integrate center loss with cross-entropy loss to construct a hybrid loss function that helps to obtain a better classification boundary. Finally, we conduct experiments on three popular HSI benchmarks, which show that SCIF-NAS outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in HSI classification.

This paper introduces a three-layer hierarchical model-based approach for network-wide traffic signal control, which consists of a region coordination layer, an intersection coordination layer and a local signal control layer. The hierarchical control problem is formulated by two model predictive control (MPC) schemes. The upper-level control deals with the region coordination problem, which considers the cycle length optimization for different regions based on the macroscopic fundamental diagram. Under the guidance of the upper level MPC, a distributed MPC is developed to address both the green split optimization at each local intersection and the intersection coordination. For computational efficiency, the network is decomposed into separated intersections while the Lagrangian algorithm is developed for intersection coordination. Experimental results on the Nguyen-Dupuis network prove that our proposed three-layer hierarchical control approach has great potential in reducing the computational complexity while maintaining the overall performance (such as total travel time) of the traffic network.

To research the dynamics of the cavitation bubble under the interaction of particle clusters, the bubble morphological evolutionary characteristics near three equal-sized spherical particles are theoretically explored in the present study based on the Weiss theorem and the velocity potential superposition theory. The three particles are arranged symmetrically, and the fluid velocity field near the three particles and the cavitation bubble is obtained. Moreover, the effects of the bubble-particle distance and the maximum radius of the cavitation bubble on the fluid velocity are investigated, and the contribution mechanisms of the fluid velocity field constituents are compared. The analysis has found that: (1) The fluid velocity between the bubble and the particle is lower than that at the other locations in both the growth and collapse phases, thus the bubble cannot always maintain a standard spherical shape. (2) The bubble-particle distance and the maximum radius of the cavitation bubble are the key parameters affecting the circumferential inhomogeneity of the radial velocity of the fluid around the bubble. The larger the maximum radius or the smaller the bubble-particle distance is, the more visible the non-circularity of the bubble morphology. (3) The image bubbles and the linear sinks contribute oppositely to the fluid velocity field, and the presence of the image bubble reduces the fluid velocity. In the low velocity region, the image bubble is the main mechanism contributing to the effect of the particle on the fluid velocity.

ABSTRACT The interface stripping between aggregates and asphalt mastic deteriorates the strength of asphalt mixture, causing disease such as cracks and pits of asphalt pavement. This paper aim to quantify [...]

The development of a self-calibrating ratio fluorescence probe without the need for additional substrates is a major advancement in biosensing. In this study, at room temperature, a self-calibrating infinite coordination polymer (SSA-Tb-ATP ICPs) has been proposed by self-assembling adenosine triphosphate (ATP) with 5-sulfosalicylic acid (SSA) and Tb3+. Due to the antenna effect, SSA-Tb-ATP ICPs exhibited strong green fluorescence emission of Tb3+(at 547 nm) and blue fluorescence emission of SSA (at 407 nm). This material offers several advantages over existing detection methods, including simplicity of synthesis and exceptional sensitivity. Our self-calibrating SSA-Tb-ATP ICPs demonstrated excellent performance in detecting alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and phosphate (Pi) in both serum and environmental samples with detection limits of 0.076 U/L and 0.025 μM, respectively. Moreover, we successfully employed the SSA-Tb-ATP ICPs to perform cellular imaging of ALP in both hepatocellular carcinoma cells (HepG2) and normal liver cells (LO2), representing a significant advancement in ALP detection and imaging. The simplicity of the synthesis and high sensitivity make this probe a promising tool for early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma in clinical settings and environment analysis.

Eutectic multi-principal element alloys show great promise due to their exceptional castability, unique near-equilibrium microstructure, and controllability. In this study, a novel copper-containing Cu42.3Ni30Si15Al12.7eutectic multi-principal element alloy was designed and investigated. The microstructure of the alloy is composed of primary phase Ni2Si and eutectic phase (FCC(Cu) + BCC(NiAl)). The eutectic reaction temperature is 1004°C. Understanding the solidification process is crucial for optimising solidification parameters and subsequent annealing. The as-cast Cu42.3Ni30Si15Al12.7alloy exhibits high micro-hardness (400 ± 2.4 HV) and compressive fracture strength (1511 MPa)

Emerging persistent memory (PM) has the potential to substitute DRAM due to its near-DRAM performance and durability similar to disks. However, hash tables designed for DRAM cannot be directly adopted for PM. Moreover, prior studies on hash tables using Optane DC PM modules (DCPMMs) have shown suboptimal scalability and write performance due to expensive lock-based concurrent control and massive data movement caused by expansion. In this article, we propose an opportunistic lock-free parallel multisplit extendible hashing scheme (PMEH). First, PMEH achieves lock-free operations for evenly distributed data by partitioning the hash table into multiple zones and assigning each zone to one thread. Second, PMEH employs an opportunistic lock-free parallel scheme to effectively handle skewed data distribution, which maximizes the utilization of lock-free operations by enabling dynamic switching between lock-free and locking operations. Finally, PMEH uses multisplit with gradual splitting, instead of 2-split, to reduce the frequency of hash table expansion and, hence, reduce the data movement during expansion. The experimental results under the widely used YCSB workloads demonstrate that PMEH achieves excellent scalability regardless of data distribution. Moreover, PMEH significantly speeds up insertions by $1.44\times $ – $15.4\times $ , and deletion by $2.04\times $ – $18.07\times $ compared to other state-of-the-art hashing schemes. In addition, PMEH reduces at least 52% of extra writes while providing instant recovery.

Although most fishes are ectothermic, some, including tuna and billfish, achieve endothermy through specialized heat producing tissues that are modified muscles. How these heat producing tissues evolved, and whether they share convergent molecular mechanisms, remain unresolved. Here, we generated a high-quality genome from the mackerel tuna (Euthynnus affinis) and investigated the heat producing tissues of this fish by single-nucleus and bulk RNA sequencing. Compared with other teleosts, tuna-specific genetic variation is strongly associated with muscle differentiation. Single-nucleus RNA-seq revealed a high proportion of specific slow skeletal muscle cell subtypes in the heat producing tissues of tuna. Marker genes of this cell subtype are associated with the relative sliding of actin and myosin, suggesting that tuna endothermy is mainly based on shivering thermogenesis. In contrast, cross-species transcriptome analysis indicated that endothermy in billfish relies mainly on non-shivering thermogenesis. Nevertheless, the heat producing tissues of the different species do share some tissue-specific genes, including vascular-related and mitochondrial genes. Overall, although tunas and billfishes differ in their thermogenic strategies, they share similar expression patterns in some respects, highlighting the complexity of convergent evolution.

Fluorescence imaging can improve surgical accuracy in ovarian cancer, but a high signal-to-noise ratio is crucial for tiny metastatic cancers. Meanwhile, intraoperative fluorescent surgical navigation modalities alone are still insufficient to completely remove ovarian cancer lesions, and the recurrence rate remains high. Here, we constructed a cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs)-mimetic aggregation-induced emission (AIE) probe to enable full-cycle management of surgery that eliminates recurrence. AIE molecules (P3-PPh3) were packed in hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles (HMSNs) to form HMSN-probe and then coated with a CAFs membrane to prepare CAF-probe. First, due to the negative potential of the CAF-probe, the circulation time in vivo is elevated, which facilitates passive tumor targeting. Second, the CAF-probe avoids its clearance by the immune system and improves the bioavailability. Finally, the fibronectin on the CAF-probe specifically binds to integrin α-5 (ITGA5), which is highly expressed in ovarian cancer cells, enabling fluorescence imaging with a contrast of up to 8.6. CAF-probe-based fluorescence imaging is used to evaluate the size and location of ovarian cancer before surgery (preoperative evaluation), to guide tumor removal during surgery (intraoperative navigation), and to monitor tumor recurrence after surgery (postoperative monitoring), ultimately significantly improving the efficiency of surgery and completely eliminating tumor recurrence. In conclusion, we constructed a CAFs mimetic AIE probe and established a full-cycle surgical management model based on its precise imaging properties, which significantly reduced the recurrence of ovarian cancer.

Introduction:Sarcoidosis is characterized by noncaseating granulomatous inflammation in multiple organs. Renal involvement is rare, and granulomatous interstitial nephritis (GIN) is the predominant histological feature. Renal sarcoidosis (RS) is usually diagnosed by exclusion, combining clinical and histological findings, and often remains misdiagnosed. This retrospective study aimed to describe the characteristics and prognosis of patients with RS in China. Methods:Eighteen patients with RS from a single center were enrolled, of whom 15 had biopsy-proven tubulointerstitial nephritis. Their clinicopathological features and renal outcomes were analyzed to understand this rare disease better. Results:Eighteen patients (14 male/4 female) were included in our study. The median estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was 30.36 (11.57, 60.14) mL/min/1.73 m2. In 15 patients undergoing a renal biopsy, GIN was the most common pathological phenotype (66.67%). Seventeen patients had follow-up records, with a median follow-up of 24.07 (8.82, 60.90) months. One month after treatment, median eGFR increased significantly from 30.36 (11.57, 60.14) mL/min/1.73 m2 to 58.53 (39.35, 80.65) mL/min/1.73 m2, and proteinuria decreased from 1.10 (0.69, 1.58) g/24 h to 0.68 (0.52, 1.05) g/24 h. No patients relapsed or developed end-stage renal disease. Conclusion:RS is a rare but important cause of tubulointerstitial injury, with a favorable long-term prognosis if properly diagnosed and treated promptly.