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With the development of industrialization, chemical detection plays a vital role in many fields. As a new type of porous material, covalent organic frameworks (COF's) possess the characteristics of huge specific surface area, low density, great stability, and adjustable pore size. These characteristics make it a great prospect for chemical detection. In the article, we mainly show how to design several analytic platforms to achieve precise target detection by utilizing the special properties of COF's, put forward the relevant mechanisms of successful detections, and analyze the related parameters of analyte detection performance. Finally, the current challenges of chemical detection based on COF's are presented, and we also prospect the future research directions.

‘Deleveraging’ is an important objective of China’s economic macro-control. Tax cuts are an important measure to promote enterprises’ deleveraging and reduce operating costs and financial risks. This study employs the 2018 value-added tax (VAT) rate reduction by the Chinese government in a quasi-natural experiment with financial data from listed companies from 2016 to 2019 as research samples, applying the difference-in-differences (DID) model to analyse the policy’s deleveraging effect. The results show that the VAT rate reduction significantly reduced the leverage and current debt ratios of enterprises in the treatment group but had no significant effect on long-term debt ratio. Further investigation shows that the VAT rate reduction’s deleveraging effect was more significant for state-owned, highly leveraged companies, small and medium-sized enterprises and companies in eastern China. In western China, the total leverage ratio of enterprises experienced no significant change, current debt ratio increased, long-term debt ratio decreased and financial risks and financing constraints further intensified. This study’s conclusions have significance as a reference for China and other developing countries to improve tax reduction policies, stimulate enterprise vitality, reduce enterprise financial risks and effectively navigate the economic recession.

Purpose: A dual-frequency phase modulating laser interferometer is proposed to detect acoustically induced waves at air–solid interface. The phase of the reference arm in this interferometer system is simultaneously modulated by a sinusoidal carrier wave and a low-frequency sinusoidal wave. Methods: A normalized phase generated carrier arctangent (PGC-Arctan)-based demodulation algorithm which is insensitive to phase modulation depth, light intensity disturbance, and carrier phase delay is proposed to restore measured acoustic waves from detection signals. In this algorithm, the carrier phase modulation depth is first accurately calculated according to the spectrum distribution law with a detection signal obtained by the dual-frequency phase modulating laser interferometer. Next, an in-phase signal and a quadrature carrier signal are introduced to mix with the detection signal, respectively. The carrier phase delay can be eventually determined after filtering, division, and arctangent operations. The in-phase and quadrature interference signal components can then be normalized by dividing specific coefficients constructed from the phase modulation depth and carrier phase delay. Finally, the arctangent algorithm and high-frequency filtering are used to obtain the measured acoustically induced interface waves. Experiments and Results: In this study, a partial fiber dual-frequency phase modulating laser interferometer is constructed to detect the interface waves excited by acoustic waves with different frequencies. The experiment results show that the proposed method and system can effectively restore the interface waves with low harmonic distortions, the signal-to-noise distortion ratio (SINAD) of the demodulated acoustic signal is 19.52 dB @ 3 kHz, and the dynamic range is 20.02 dB @ 3 kHz.

Photothermal (PT) microscopy has shown strong promise in imaging single absorbing nano-objects in soft matter and biological systems. PT imaging at ambient conditions usually requires a high laser power for a sensitive detection, which prevents application to light-sensitive nanoparticles. In a previous study of single gold nanoparticles, we showed that the photothermal signal can be enhanced more than 1000-fold in near-critical xenon compared to that in glycerol, a typical medium for PT detection. In this report, we show that carbon dioxide (CO2), a much cheaper gas than xenon, can enhance PT signals in a similar way. We confine near-critical CO2in a thin capillary which easily withstands the high near-critical pressure (around 74 bar) and facilitates sample preparation. We also demonstrate enhancement of the magnetic circular dichroism signal of single magnetite nanoparticle clusters in supercritical CO2. We have performed COMSOL simulations to support and explain our experimental findings.

There is increasing interest in replacing alteplase with tenecteplase as the preferred thrombolytic treatment for patients with acute ischaemic stroke. We aimed to establish the non-inferiority of tenecteplase to alteplase for these patients.

Unsupervised dimension reduction and clustering are frequently used as two separate steps to conduct clustering tasks in subspace. However, the two-step clustering methods may not necessarily reflect the cluster structure in the subspace. In addition, the existing subspace clustering methods do not consider the relationship between the low-dimensional representation and local structure in the input space. To address the above issues, we propose a robust discriminant subspace (RDS) clustering model with adaptive local structure embedding. Specifically, unlike the existing methods which incorporate dimension reduction and clustering via regularizer, thereby introducing extra parameters, RDS first integrates them into a unified matrix factorization (MF) model through theoretical proof. Furthermore, a similarity graph is constructed to learn the local structure. A constraint is imposed on the graph to guarantee that it has the same connected components with low-dimensional representation. In this spirit, the similarity graph serves as a tradeoff that adaptively balances the learning process between the low-dimensional space and the original space. Finally, RDS adopts the $\ell _{2,1}$ -norm to measure the residual error, which enhances the robustness to noise. Using the property of the $\ell _{2,1}$ -norm, RDS can be optimized efficiently without introducing more penalty terms. Experimental results on real-world benchmark datasets show that RDS can provide more interpretable clustering results and also outperform other state-of-the-art alternatives.

ABSTRACTAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been a leading issue for human health globally threatening the achievement of several of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Originated from Bacillus cereus, carbapenemases phenotype has been considered to be a major concern in AMR. In this study, the AMR identification rate of P. aeruginosaisolates and infections in FAHJU showed an obvious upward trend from 2012 to 2016. All 88 carbapenem-resistant P. aeruginosastrains were screened for carbapenemase phenotype by modified Carbapenem Inactivation Method (mCIM), and these results of mCIM were compared with traditional PCR results. The isolates of P. aeruginosaand infected patients showed obvious upward trend from 2012 to 2016. The drug resistance to common clinical antibiotics was serious that the clinical rational use of antibiotics should be strengthened, which is in accordance with the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS) report. In comparison, the results of mCIM showed that 18 out of 88 CRPA strains were carbapenemase positive, which were completely consistent with the results yielded by PCR method. Therefore, it is convinced that this mCIM methodology is a simple and quick method for detected carbapenemases producing P. aeruginosaand has a potential capability in carbapenemases phenotype of pathogen like B. cereus, which will undoubtedly aid in the AMR therapy.

Background: Studies comparing C-RARP and RS-RARP have reported different results and the choice between the two operation methods remains controversia. Methods: We present the meta-analysis on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses) guidelines. The meta-analysis was carried out using Review Manager 5.3 (Cochrane Collaboration, Oxford, United Kingdom) and Stata SE 14.0. The mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used to describe the results of continuous data; odds ratio (OR) with 95% CI were used to describe dichotomous data. Statistical significance was set at P< 0.05. Results: The meta-analysis revealed that RS-RARP had a statistically significant advantage in terms of continence recovery immediately after operation (OR: 0.40, 95% CI: 0.20–0.77; P= 0.007) (Fig. 2a), after 1 month (OR: 0.17, 95% CI: 0.10–0.29; P< 0.00001) (Fig. 2b), after 3 months (OR: 0.18, 95% CI: 0.09–0.36; P< 0.00001) (Fig. 2c), after 6 months (OR: 0.26, 95% CI: 0.15–0.46; P< 0.00001) (Fig. 2d) and after 12 months (OR: 0.50, 95% CI: 0.28–0.89; P= 0.02) (Fig. 2e). Conclusions: This meta-analysis found that RS-RARP had better postoperative continence recovery than C-RARP, while sexual function recovery rates were not significantly different. There were also no significant differences in operation time, intraoperative blood loss, length of stay, positive margin rate and complications.

ABSTRACTSince antimicrobial resistance, especially β-lactam resistance genes were common in clinical Escherichia colistrains, this study had designed and developed multiplex amplification platform for rapid and accurate detection of such resistance genes in 542 clinical E. coliisolates. The obtained specimens were subjected to bacteriological examination, antimicrobial susceptibility testing, and detection of β-lactamase genes and plasmid replicons. The major virulence genes were detected by 7 groups of multiplex PCR and eight groups of multiplex PCR were designed to detect 8 different plasmid replicons including parA-parB, iteron, repA, and RNAI. It was found that most MDR isolates were co-resistant to penicillins (AMP) and fluoroquindones (LVX, CIP) and distribution of LVX and CIP resistance was significantly higher among female than male gender. RNAI(AY234375) showed the highest detection rate, followed by the iteron(J01724) and repA(M26308), indicating the relatively higher carriage rate of corresponding plasmids. BlaOXAacquired the highest carriage rate, followed by group 2 blaCTX-Mand blaSHV-1, indicating their prevalence among clinical E. coli. Among the β-lactamase genes, blaOXAacquired the highest carriage rate, followed by group 2 blaCTX-Mand blaSHV-1, indicating their prevalence among clinical E. coli. The RNAI(AY234375) showed the highest detection rate, followed by the iteron(J01724) and repA(M26308), indicating the relatively higher carriage rate of the corresponding plasmids by clinical E. coliisolates. It is shown that the developed multiplex amplification methodology is applicable to AMR detection, and such identification of plasmid replicons and β-lactamase genes may aid in the understanding of clinical E. coliisolate epidemiology.

ABSTRACTThe pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the SARS-coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2) virus has become the greatest global public health crisis in recent years,and the COVID-19 epidemic is still continuing. However, due to the lack of effectivetherapeutic drugs, the treatment of corona viruses is facing huge challenges. In thiscontext, countries with a tradition of using herbal medicine such as China have beenwidely using herbal medicine for prevention and nonspecific treatment of corona virusesand achieved good responses. In this review, we will introduce the application of herbalmedicine in the treatment of corona virus patients in China and other countries, andreview the progress of related molecular mechanisms and antiviral activity ingredients ofherbal medicine, in order to provide a reference for herbal medicine in the treatment ofcorona viruses. We found that herbal medicines are used in the prevention and fightagainst COVID-19 in countries on all continents. In China, herbal medicine has beenreported to relieve some of the clinical symptoms of mild patients and shorten the length of hospital stay. However, as most herbal medicines for the clinical treatment of COVID-19still lack rigorous clinical trials, the clinical and economic value of herbal medicines in theprevention and treatment of COVID-19 has not been fully evaluated. Future work basedon large-scale randomized, double-blind clinical trials to evaluate herbal medicines andtheir active ingredients in the treatment of new COVID-19 will be very meaningful.

Socio-sexual environment can have critical impacts on reproduction and survival of animals. Consequently, they need to prepare themselves by allocating more resources to competitive traits that give them advantages in the particular social setting they have been perceiving. Evidence shows that a male usually raises his investment in sperm after he detects the current or future increase of sperm competition because relative sperm numbers can determine his paternity share. This leads to the wide use of testis size as an index of the sperm competition level, yet testis size does not always reflect sperm production. To date, it is not clear whether male animals fine-tune their resource allocation to sperm production and other traits as a response to social cues during their growth and development. Using a polygamous insect Ephestia kuehniella, we tested whether and how larval social environment affected sperm production, testis size, and body weight. We exposed the male larvae to different juvenile socio-sexual cues and measured these traits. We demonstrate that regardless of sex ratio, group-reared males produced more eupyrenes (fertile and nucleate sperm) but smaller testes than singly reared ones, and that body weight and apyrene (infertile and anucleate sperm) numbers remained the same across treatments. We conclude that the presence of larval social, but not sexual cues is responsible for the increase of eupyrene production and decrease of testis size. We suggest that male larvae increase investment in fertile sperm cells and reduce investment in other testicular tissues in the presence of conspecific juvenile cues.

ABSTRACTMicroorganisms mainly exist in the form of biofilm in nature. Biofilm can contaminate food and drinking water system, as well as cause chronic wound infections, thereby posing a potential threat to public health safety. In the last two decades, researchers have made efforts to investigate the genetic contributors control different stages of biofilm development (adherence, initiation, maturation, and dispersal). As an opportunistic pathogen, C. albicanscauses severe superficial or systemic infections with high morbidity and mortality under conditions of immune dysfunction. It has been reported that 80% of C. albicansinfections are directly or indirectly associated with biofilm formation on host or abiotic surfaces including indwelling medical devices, resulting in high morbidity and mortality. Significantly, the outcome of C. albicansbiofilm development includes enhanced invasion, exacerbated inflammatory responses and intrinsic resistance to antimicrobial chemotherapy. Thus, this review aimed at providing a comprehensive overview of the regulatory network controls microbial biofilm development, with C. albicansas a representative, served as reference for therapeutic targets.

•Spinal anesthesia combined with continuous epidural anesthesia has a better anesthesia effect in the painless labor of primiparas.•Spinal anesthesia combined with continuous epidural anesthesia can effectually ameliorate the labor process.•Spinal anesthesia combined with continuous epidural anesthesia attenuates the expression of serum estrogen and progesterone.•Spinal anesthesia combined with continuous epidural anesthesia can be widely employed in clinical practice.

Magnetic nanomaterials record information as fast as picoseconds in computer memories but retain it for millions of years in ancient rocks. This exceedingly broad range of times is covered by hopping over a potential energy barrier through temperature, ultrafast optical excitation, mechanical stress, or microwaves. As switching depends on nanoparticle size, shape, orientation, and material properties, only single-nanoparticle studies can eliminate the ensemble heterogeneity. Here, we push the sensitivity of photothermal magnetic circular dichroism down to individual20 nm magnetite nanoparticles. Single-particle magnetization curves display superparamagnetic to ferromagnetic behaviors, depending on the size, shape, and orientation. Some nanoparticles undergo thermally activated switching on time scales of milliseconds to minutes. Surprisingly, the switching barrier varies with time, leading to dynamical heterogeneity, a phenomenon familiar in protein dynamics and supercooled liquids. Our observations will help to identify the external parameters influencing magnetization switching and, eventually, to control it, an important step for many applications.

g-C3N4is a visible-light photocatalyst with a suitable band gap and good stability. Moreover, g-C3N4is considered to be earth-abundant, which makes it an appealing photocatalyst. However, due to its small specific surface area, low utilization of visible light, and high photogenerated electron–hole pair recombination rate, the photocatalytic activity of g-C3N4remains unsatisfactory. In this work, a highly efficient nonmetallic photocatalyst, i.e., g-C3N4doped with uracil (denoted U-C3N4) was successfully developed. Based on the various characterizations and calculations, it is shown that the triazine group in g-C3N4is replaced with the diazine group in uracil. This occurrence leads to the formation of a new electron-transfer pathway between triazine groups, which can promote the separation of photogenerated electrons and holes. Concurrently, due to the ultrathin structure of the as-prepared U-C3N4, the material possessed a larger specific surface area than pristine g-C3N4, which can provide more active sites. Furthermore, the transfer pathway between the electron and hole was also shortened, and the recombination of the electron and hole was inhibited. According to the results, an optimal hydrogen evolution rate of 31.7 mol h–1g–1was achieved by U-C3N4, which is 5.1 times higher as compared to that achieved by pristine g-C3N4(6.26 mol h–1g–1). For the photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B, the reaction rate constant of U-C3N4(11.3 × 10–2min–1) is about 5.5 times that of g-C3N4(2.07 × 10–2min–1). Furthermore, the uracil-doped catalyst was also able to demonstrate good stability after five successive runs.

ABSTRACTMany studies have been focused on rendering 2D vector elements on 3D terrain, and a series of algorithms have been proposed. Most of these algorithms struggle to provide a seamless overlay between vector elements and an irregular terrain surface. Despite their importance, the physical characteristics of vector elements are often ignored, which distorts the surface of vector elements. For example, if vector elements that represent roads and rivers are simply overlaid on terrain, the phenomena of uneven surfaces and rivers going uphill may occur because of elevation fluctuation. To correct these deficiencies, terrain should be modified according to the physical characteristics of vectors. We propose a local terrain modification method: First, the elevation of terrain covered by vector elements is recalculated according to vectors’ physical characteristics. Second, the multigrid method is used to realize a smooth transition between the modified terrain and its surrounding area. Finally, by setting different transition ranges and comparing the visualization effects, rules are given for the selection of a suitable range. After modification, the terrain conforms to vectors’ physical characteristics, and the overall relief is undamaged. The proposed method was applied to a CPU–GPU parallel heterogeneous model and demonstrated a high level of performance.

Hierarchical structures have attracted considerable interest due to their super-oleophobic/super-hydrophobic behavior. However, it is rare to present a novel additive manufacturing (AM) approach to fabricate hierarchical metal structures (HMSs). A micro/nano mixture ink was deposited on a substrate and a laser was used to selectively scan the ink layer. A new layer of ink was deposited on the previous consolidation layer during manufacturing. The surfaces of the as-sintered HMSs exhibit inherently super-hydrophilic and super-oleophobic behavior with a 155° contact angle (CA) with oil. Furthermore, the HMSs were successfully turned into super-hydrophobic and super-oleophilic mode (with a 152° CA) after surface modification with a solvent-free, electrostatic polytetrafluoroethylene particle deposition. They can be used as oil/water separation media by the functional surfaces existing in the pore channels. The experimental study of HMSs shows an effective removal of oil contaminants from water. The developed process also possesses an advantage of AM of HMSs with complex shapes in ambient air under the protection of an organic ink. Importantly, the present approach could be extended to a vast number of HMSs, for the preparation of highly durable functional materials for various applications.

ABSTRACTRecent decades have brought global expansion of private supplementary tutoring, and China is among countries in which patterns have been especially dramatic. National survey data indicate that 29.8% of primary and lower secondary students had received private supplementary tutoring in 2014, with proportions rising at higher levels of the school system. However, such statistics present only a snapshot of demand and might suggest that decisions to invest in tutoring are one-off in nature. This paper draws on interviews to show changing patterns of demand by individual parents at different times. Factors influencing parental choices include not only cost and availability of time but also children’s academic performance, children’s different stages of schooling and education system reforms. Over time parents may expand or reduce their demand, change balances between academic and non-academic tutoring, and switch between different types and providers of tutoring. This paper thus shows that analyses of demand need to be more nuanced than tends to be the case in analyses of large-scale survey data. The paper is grounded in the Chinese context, but has conceptual implications of wider relevance.

The emerging surface/edge electronic phases driven by broken symmetry effects have attracted great attention in low-dimensional electronic systems. However, experimental proof on their existence in ferroelectric oxides at the atomic scale is still missing. In this work, metallic surface states are observed on layered Bi2WO6by scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy. Differential conductance is remarkably enhanced near the step edge compared with that on the terrace, forming a one-dimensional edge state. Density functional theory calculations verify that symmetry breaking at the surface determines the electronic structures and O 2p orbitals contribute the most to the density of states around the Fermi level. Our discovery provides a new strategy toward the hidden phases on other correlated oxide surfaces.

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Self-lubricating coating has been used in industrial applications with severe conditions, such as high temperatures, vacuum, radiation, etc. In this paper, a selective laser melting of ink-printed metal nanoparticles (SLM-IP metal NPs) rapid manufacturing method was applied to fabricate Cu-MoS2 self-lubricating coating. A tailored ink consisting of metal NPs, reductant, and dispersant was deposited on a stainless steel substrate, forming the laminated gradient Cu-MoS2 coating. The microstructure and mechanical properties of the composite coating were characterized. The friction and wear behavior were experimentally investigated by dry sliding wear test at room and higher temperatures (>200 °C). The results indicated that the upper copper sulfur molybdenum compound layer with homogeneously distributed MoS2 provided a significant friction reduction and wear resistance. The SLM-IP Cu-MoS2 coatings showed a reduced friction coefficient by 54% compared to the pure Cu coating. The transitional Cu layer mitigated the abrupt changes in physical properties and enhanced the bonding strength between the coating and substrate. Especially, under the test condition of 200 °C, the Cu-40 vol% MoS2 coating also presented an excellent resistance to oxidation and had a lower friction coefficient of 0.24. This research provides the feasibility of fabricating self-lubricating coatings by the SLM-IP metal NPs method for surface engineering technologies.

•Interaction and biofilm between S. aureusand P. aeruginosaare underestimated in food safety.•S. aureusand P. aeruginosadual-biofilms are more complicated than monospecies biofilms.•Various methods have been established to visualize the multispecies biofilm structure.•Polymicrobial interactions in dual-biofilms are complex and the evolutions are dynamic.•Quorum sensing and T6SS play important roles in polymicrobial interaction of dual-biofilms.

Purpose: Private supplementary tutoring has been increasingly used by parents as part of wider strategies to assist their children’s education careers in China. With a theoretical lens of parentocracy, this article aimed to investigate the influential parental factors underlying the demand for private tutoring, focusing on parents’ socioeconomic resources and attitudes toward education.Design/Approach/Methods: This article drew upon data from the 2014 iteration of the China Family Panel Studies. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was employed to explore the influences of parental factors.Findings: The SEM analysis confirmed that parental income, education, and aspirations on children’s education had both direct and indirect positive effects through the mediating factor of role construction on demand for tutoring. A multiple-group analysis was further conducted, and the difference in the patterns for urban and rural parents was explored. Parental occupation had no impact on demand for tutoring for rural parents but had both direct and indirect effects for urban parents. Both direct and indirect effects of household income on demand for tutoring were greater for urban parents than for rural parents.Originality/Value: This article examined the direct and indirect influences of parental factors on demand for private tutoring and explored the differences in patterns for urban and rural parents in a quantitative way. Findings have implications for education inequality.

The spoilage of beer by bacteria is of great concern to the brewer as this can lead to turbidity and abnormal flavors. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method for detection of beer-spoilage bacteria is highly specific and provides results much faster than traditional microbiology techniques. However, one of the drawbacks is the inability to differentiate between live and dead cells. In this paper, the combination of propidium monoazide (PMA) pretreatment and conventional PCR had been described. The established PMA-PCR identified beer spoilage Lactobacillus brevisbased not on their identity, but on the presence of horAgene which we show to be highly correlated with the ability of beer spoilage LAB to grow in beer. The results suggested that the use of 30μg/mL or less of PMA did not inhibit the PCR amplification of DNA derived from viable L. breviscells. The minimum amount of PMA to completely inhibit the PCR amplification of DNA derived from dead L. breviscells was 2.0μg/mL. The detection limit of PMA-PCR assay described here was found to be 10 colony forming units (CFU)/reaction for the horAgene. Moreover, the horA-specific PMA-PCR assays were subjected to 18 reference isolates, representing 100% specificity with no false positive amplification observed. Overall the use of horA-specific PMA-PCR allows for a substantial reduction in the time required for detection of potential beer spoilage L. brevisand efficiently differentiates between viable and nonviable cells.

Adsorption and photocatalytic degradation are effective ways to remove pollutants from water and achieve purification effect. In order to obtain composite aerogels with high adsorption capacity and visible light photocatalytic performance, a new type of Ag/AgBr/AgI@SiO2composite aerogels (ABIS) was prepared by in-situ synthesis and supercritical drying. It has been proved that the pore size, pore volume and specific surface area of the composite aerogels can be effectively improved by using N, N-dimethylacetamide (DMAC) as pore expanding agent. The as-prepared Ag/AgBr/AgI@SiO2composite aerogels with large pore volume, large pore size and uniform pore network structure not only showed high adsorption capacity for tetracycline, but also exhibited high separation and migration efficiency of photo-generated carriers, thereby being capable of reducing the recombination rate of photo-generated electron-hole pairs. Especially, the composite aerogel ABIS-2-N2 with loading 0.01 mol% Ag/AgBr/AgI and adding DMAC as pore-expanding agent, showed the highest adsorption/photocatalytic degradation efficiency for antibiotic tetracycline under visible light, and meanwhile exhibited high performance of photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline and recycling stability in the range of pH= 2–10. The superoxide anion (·O2-) was proved to be the main active substance to degrade tetracycline by the active substance capturing experiment. This work provides a new effective strategy for preparing composite aerogel materials with large pore volume, large pore size and adsorption/photocatalysis synergistic action, and the as-prepared composite aerogel will have important application value in the field of water purification.

In this work, a facile approach to create a layered double hydroxide@hollow zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 nanocomposites (LDH@HZIF-8) was performed for the removal of 2, 4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) in food samples. This novel material inherits the advantages of pristine metal-organic frameworks. Additionally, it possesses a hierarchical pore structure, a hollow cavity, a large specific surface area (624.09 m2 g−1), and improved dispersity of ZIF-8. The potential of LDH@HZIF-8 as an adsorbent for removing 2,4-D from food samples was investigated. Our findings revealed a significant maximum adsorption capacity of 178.6 mg g−1at 25 °C, along with fast adsorption kinetics within 20 min. The adsorption process was well described by the pseudo-second-order kinetics and Langmuir model. Furthermore, thermodynamic data indicated that the adsorption process was exothermic in nature. This novel composite effectively addresses the issues associated with sluggish mass transfer of target molecules/ions and a shortage of active sites. Moreover, LDH@HZIF-8 offers spacious cavities and channels that are capable of accommodating the desired substances.

The recycling of carbon fiber is the focus of current research as carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) waste have increased. Pyrolysis has been identified as an effective method for recycling CFRP. In this study, the surface resin of CFRP was first pyrolyzed, and then the residual carbon on the surface of the pyrolysis product was oxidized to recover carbon fiber. This work focused on the effect of various oxidation conditions on the recovery rate, mechanical properties, and electrical conductivity of RCFs. The results show that the carbon fibers recovered via pyrolysis at 600 ℃ for 30 min and oxidation at 450 ℃ for 15–20 min have better mechanical properties. The tensile strength can exceed 90.19% of the virgin carbon fiber (VCF), the tensile modulus can exceed 84.44% of the VCF, the electrical conductivity can exceed 70% of the VCF, and the recovery rate will exceed 95.22%. Furthermore, the results of simulating the high-temperature pyrolysis environment of CFRP showed that the high-temperature pyrolysis products mainly contained oxygenated aromatic compounds such as 3-Methyltetrahydrophthalic anhydride and Bisphenol-A.

Adsorption and photocatalytic degradation of pollutants are both considered to be effective ways of removing pollutants from environment. Here, a novel highly porous BiOBr/CsxWO3@SiO2composite aerogel with adsorption/self-heating photothermal catalysis synergistic effect was constructed using melamine resin as template. Multiple detection results demonstrated that the template melamine resin is conducive to expanding pore volume of the composite aerogels. Moreover, owing to the high pore volume and excellent photothermal conversion as well as the BiOBr/CsxWO3heterojunction catalysis effect, the composite aerogel with BiOBr/CsxWO3molar ratio 2:1 exhibited the most efficient removal of antibiotic tetracycline from water, with the adsorption/self-heating photothermal catalytic degradation rate of tetracycline being close to 100% after 30 min of darkroom adsorption and 60 min of light irradiation, and it also showed high removal efficiency of other pollutants. The efficient adsorption/self-heating photothermal synergistic catalysis mechanism and photocatalytic degradation pathway of tetracycline have been analyzed. This work will provide a new idea for constructing SiO2-based composite aerogel photocatalytic materials and the adsorption/self-heating photothermal catalytic synergetic effect will be a promising way for environment purification.

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common solid tumor malignancy in men that severely influences quality of life. Surgery is most often the recommended treatment for PCa, but radical prostatectomy can cause significant urinary adverse effects. Therefore, finding effective biochemical treatments for PCa remains a necessity. Aurora kinase A has been shown to be involved in PCa progression, thus making it a good target for PCa therapy. miRNAs are important regulators of gene expression, with some miRNAs specifically involved in carcinogenesis. Therefore, herein, we identified miRNAs targeted to aurora kinase A and examined their effects on the growth of PCa. We used primary samples from PCa patients and PCa cell lines as research subjects. We demonstrate that miR-199a-3p is down-regulated in PCa tissues compared with normal prostate tissues, with the expression pattern inversely correlated with the expression pattern of aurora kinase A. We find that miR-199a-3p agomir inhibits aurora kinase A and attenuates xenograft tumor growth of PCa. Moreover, we demonstrate that down-regulation of miR-199a-3p results from enhancement of the methylation of miR-199agene in PCa. Furthermore, we find that the expression level of miR-199a-3p is inversely correlated to tumor stage and Gleason score of PCa. Revealing novel mechanisms for oncogene inhibition by miRNA-mediated pathways offers new avenues for PCa treatment.

The DSB machinery, which induces the programmed DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) in the leptotene and zygotene stages during meiosis, is suppressed before the onset of the pachytene stage. However, the biological significance and underlying mechanisms remain largely unclear. Here, we report that ZFP541 is indispensable for the suppression of DSB formation after mid-pachytene. The deletion of Zfp541in mice causes the aberrant recruitment of DSB machinery to chromosome axes and generation of massive DSBs in late pachytene and diplotene spermatocytes, leading to meiotic arrest at the diplotene stage. Integrated analysis of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) sequencing data indicate that ZFP541 predominantly binds to promoters of pre-pachytene genes, including meiotic DSB formation-related genes (e.g., Prdm9and Mei1) and their upstream activators (e.g., Meiosinand Rxra), and maintains their repression in pachytene spermatocytes. Our results reveal that ZFP541 functions as a transcriptional regulator in pachytene spermatocytes, orchestrating the transcriptome to ensure meiosis progression.

Effects of different types of biochar (pine sawdust biochar (PSBC) and shrimp shell biochar (SSBC) on anaerobic digestion under different acidification conditions were studied and compared. Compared with PSBC, SSBC had more alkaline functional groups and higher conductivity. As a result, PSBC and SSBC posed different impacts on the anaerobic digestion system under different acid inhibition conditions. In the case of less acidification, PSBC and SSBC reduced the lag time in methane production from 10.2 d to 6.3 d and 3.5 d, but didn’t present significantly improvement in the final CH4production. But regarding more serious acid stress, PSBC-added and SSBC-added digesters respectively obtained the specific methane yield of 266.8 and 280.0 mL CH4/g VSS, 7.6% and 12.9% higher than the control digester. Both PSBC and SSBC showed pH buffering potency and the ability to promote the degradation of volatile fatty acids, while the latter was superior to the former. On the one hand, this might be due to more basic functional groups and more areas for microbial attachment existing on the surface of SSBC, which was expected to buffer the acid shock and promote microbial growth; on the other hand, according to microbial diversity analysis, the SSBC was likely to stimulate direct interspecific electron transfer, thereby accelerating methane production.

Fumigaclavine C, an alkaloidal metabolite, was produced by Aspergillus fumigatus(strain No. CY018). This study examined the effect of this compound on concanavalin A (Con A)‐induced liver injury in mice, a T cell‐dependent model of liver damage. Con A administration resulted in severe liver injury, T lymphocyte activation and a strong increment in spleen cell adhesion, as well as in tumour necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α) production. Against this liver injury, the intraperitoneal administration of fumigaclavine C dose‐dependently inhibited the elevation in transaminase activity, TNF‐α production in serum and the histological changes, including inflammatory infiltration, hepatocyte necrosis and degeneration and Kupffer cell hyperplasia. In addition, this compound in‐vitro also inhibited the proliferation of spleen cells induced by Con A, and reduced their IL‐2 and TNF‐α production. Moreover, the intraperitoneal administration of fumigaclavine C inhibited the potential of spleen cells isolated from the liver‐injured mice to adhere to fibronectin, laminin and type IV collagen. These results suggest that the improvement of this T cell‐mediated liver injury by fumigaclavine C may be related to the inhibition of lymphocyte activation, proliferation and adhesion to extracellular matrices as well as the reduction in TNF‐α production.

Fumigaclavine C, an alkaloidal metabolite, was produced by Aspergillus fumigatus(strain No. CY018). This study examined the effect of this compound on concanavalin A (Con A)-induced liver injury in mice, a T cell-dependent model of liver damage. Con A administration resulted in severe liver injury, T lymphocyte activation and a strong increment in spleen cell adhesion, as well as in tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) production. Against this liver injury, the intraperitoneal administration of fumigaclavine C dose-dependently inhibited the elevation in transaminase activity, TNF-α production in serum and the histological changes, including inflammatory infiltration, hepatocyte necrosis and degeneration and Kupffer cell hyperplasia. In addition, this compound in-vitro also inhibited the proliferation of spleen cells induced by Con A, and reduced their IL-2 and TNF-α production. Moreover, the intraperitoneal administration of fumigaclavine C inhibited the potential of spleen cells isolated from the liver-injured mice to adhere to fibronectin, laminin and type IV collagen. These results suggest that the improvement of this T cell-mediated liver injury by fumigaclavine C may be related to the inhibition of lymphocyte activation, proliferation and adhesion to extracellular matrices as well as the reduction in TNF-α production.

Retrocaval ureter is a rare disease associated with abnormal embryonic development. Here, we describe a patient who exhibited retrocaval ureter complicated by renal and ureteral calculi, which were treated by percutaneous nephrolithotomy combined with retroperitoneal laparoscopy. A 64-year-old man was admitted to our hospital because of intermittent back pain that had been present for more than 10 years. During hospitalization, he was diagnosed with retrocaval ureter, right renal calculi, and right ureteral calculi with right hydronephrosis; he underwent percutaneous nephrolithotomy combined with retroperitoneal laparoscopic surgery. After the operation, his condition was stable and he exhibited good recovery. Our findings in this case suggest that percutaneous nephrolithotomy combined with retroperitoneal laparoscopy is a suitable option for the treatment of retrocaval ureter with renal and ureteral calculi.

According to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the sustainable development goal 11 is to “make cities and human settlement inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. China has been making great effort in this respect. With the advancement in science and technology, the concepts of green development, environmental friendliness, and fair development are gradually moving from theories to practices, guiding the construction and development of sustainable cities in China. Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, the overall process of China’s construction of sustainable cities and development can be divided into three stages: the initial practice stage (1986–2000), the stage focusing on transformation (2001–2012), and the stage emphasizing coordinated development and social fairness (2012 to present). During the process, China has proposed and carried out a series of pilot demonstrations of sustainable cities, eco-cities, garden cities, low-carbon cities, livable cities, resilient cities, sanitary cities, sponge cities, and circular economy cities. It has achieved remarkable results with valuable experience; meanwhile, it still faces many challenges considering the current practices. With the integration of planning for the national economy and social development, rural and urban development, land use, and other aspects, as well as the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, sustainable urban practices in China will receive more policy support and effective administrative support. As the largest developing country in the world, China’s practice in sustainable urban development undoubtedly has a broad demonstration effect and can contribute to global sustainable development.

Oil country tubular goods (OCTG) may develop plastic bending, fracture and fatigue failure during the service due to dynamic loads, such as perforation impacts and fluid-induced vibration. This paper was to evaluate strength safety of OCTG under dynamic loading. To gain key parameters of the dynamic constitutive model of materials represented by Johnson-cook. An axial tensile test of the common P110S and an experiment on its mechanical properties under high strain rate were carried out for the first time. The yield limit of P110S under static loads was 775MPa, which was 2.2% higher than the nominal value (758MPa). The ultimate strength was 835MPa and the yield ratio was 1.08. Since it often requires the yield ratio higher than 1.2 5, the P110S had slightly poor tenacity. Under the strain rates of 500s-1 and 1000s-1, the yield limits of P110S were 15.5% and 41.4% higher than the static measured values. The dynamic loading experiments of P110S under the strain rates of 500s[?]1 and 1000s[?]1 were corresponding to the fluid-induced vibration of columns and perforation i mpacts-induced vibration of columns, respectively. Dynamic factor of P110S was determined according to engineering habits. According to conversion and contrast analysis on increment of yield limit under dynamic loading, the final strengths were decreased by 4.5% and 8.6%, respe ctively. Moreover, key parameters of the Johnson-cook dynamic constitutive model of P110S material were determined through experiments for the first time. They could provide key para meters of constitutive model for accurate finite element simulation analysis under dynamic loa ds.

ABSTRACTThe secreted aspartyl proteinases of Candida albicanshave long been implicated in virulence at the mucosal surface, including contributions to colonization and immunopathogenesis during vulvovaginal candidiasis. In an effort to disentangle hypha-associated virulence factor regulation from morphological transition, the purpose of this study was to determine if overexpression of SAP2or SAP5in an efg1Δ/Δ cph1Δ/Δ mutant could restore the capacity to cause immunopathology during murine vaginitis to this avirulent hypofilamentous strain. Two similar yet distinct genetic approaches were used to construct expression vectors to achieve SAP overexpression, and both genetic and functional assays confirmed elevated SAP activity in transformed strains. Similar to previous findings, intravaginal challenge of C57BL/6 mice with hypha-defective strains attained high levels of mucosal colonization but failed to induce robust vaginal immunopathology (neutrophil recruitment, interleukin-1β [IL-1β] secretion, and lactate dehydrogenase release) compared to that with the hypha-competent control. Moreover, constitutive expression of SAP2or SAP5in two distinct sets of such strains did not elicit immunopathological markers at levels above those observed during challenge with isogenic empty vector controls. Therefore, these results suggest that the physiological contributions of SAPs to vaginal immunopathology require hypha formation, other hypha-associated factors, or genetic interaction with EFG1and/or CPH1to cause symptomatic infection. Additionally, the outlined expression strategy and strain sets will be useful for decoupling other downstream morphogenetic factors from hyphal growth.

This paper systematically presents the information about a sustainable city and the process of putting forward, developing and evolving the concept, and it provides an analysis of some current main views in the studies of sustainable cities. In this paper, it is argued that the construction of a sustainable city should not be carried out simply by bringing the concept of sustainable development down to the city level; sustainable development should be more materialized, scenario focused, and localized at the city level, and it should be internalized into the various dimensions of the construction of a city at the special temporal and spatial scales of a city. Based on literature reviews, this paper holds that there are three drawbacks in the current understanding of a sustainable city, mainly including: First, emphasis is placed on the internal equilibrium of a city, but no attention is paid to the negative environmental externalities of other cities or areas and the compensation for them; second, the ultimate goal of sustainable development — achieving equilibrium — is excessively stressed, while the embodiment of the stages of development and regional differences in the goal of sustainable development is overlooked; third, the form of the city is a key indicator for building a sustainable city, but this indicator is basically unavailable in the current definitions of sustainable cities. The definition and theory of a sustainable city should fully reflect the temporal and spatial nodes of differentiation in a sustainable city and the dynamic relationship of equilibrium between the systems of a city and the surrounding areas; its definition and theory should also realistically address the urban needs and the practice of the sustainable development of a city. Based on a comprehensive analysis, this paper stresses that a sustainable city is a city in which the form of the city is scientifically designed in line with a certain social and economic development level, and environmental conditions in order to optimize the internal and external functions, improve the system of urban governance, achieve a dynamic equilibrium among economic development, environmental safety, resource utilization and social equity, continuously enhance its capability for coping with risks, make it more livable, and provide positive externalities in perspectives of economy, environment and social governance for other cities.

By investigating the influence of the difference of refractive index between core and cladding (nco-ncl), normalized frequency (V ) and core radius (?) on both the intramodal and intermodal nonlinear coefficients (NCs) respectively, we design a novel weakly-coupled four-mode fiber with low nonlinearity. In general, under the premise of ensuring the low NCs between two non-degenerate modes, this design can reduce the intermodal NCs (< 0.5 W-1 \cdot km-1) between two degenerate modes and optimizes the parameters of differential group delays (DGDs) and chromatic dispersion. The optimized few mode fiber (FMF) is eligible for transmission and mode de-multiplexing in the receiver.