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The reduction of heavy metal (HM) risk while realizing energy utilization of sewage sludge (SS) remains an important challenge for SS treatment. The effects of pretreatment and additives (citric acid (CA), ferric chloride (FC), and fulvic acid (FA)) were explored based on co-hydrothermal carbonization (co-HTC) of SS and bamboo (BO). The results showed that the use of FC and FA pretreatment was beneficial in reducing the potential ecological risk of HMs and total concentration of Cu, Cr, and Ni. However, in terms of fuel properties, compared to pretreatment, additives were more beneficial in improving the fuel ratio and the high heating value (HHV). Specifically, among all samples, the maximum values of fuel ratio (0.49), HHV (12.85 MJ/kg), and combustibility index (8.00) were all achieved by employing different additives. It was worth noting that FC could not only improve fuel ratio but also obtain a low risk index (14.38) when used as an additive. Therefore, although pretreatment was more efficient in reducing the risk of HMs, additives could improve the fuel properties while alleviating the HMs risks to a certain extent. These findings contributed to the optimization of the HTC process of SS.

A subgroup of patients with schizophrenia is believed to have aberrant excess of glutamate in the frontal cortex; this subgroup is thought to show poor response to first-line antipsychotic treatments that focus on dopamine blockade. If we can identify this subgroup early in the course of illness, we can reduce the repeated use of first-line antipsychotics and potentially stratify first-episode patients to intervene early with second-line treatments such as clozapine. The use of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) to measure glutamate and Glx (glutamate plus glutamine) may provide a means for such a stratification. We must first establish if there is robust evidence linking elevations in anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) glutamate metabolites to poor response, and determine if the use of antipsychotics worsens the glutamatergic excess in eventual nonresponders. In this study, we estimated glutamate levels at baseline in 42 drug-naive patients with schizophrenia. We then treated them all with risperidone at a standard dose range of 2-6 mg/day and followed them up for 3 months to categorize their response status. We expected to see baseline “hyperglutamatergia” in nonresponders, and expected this to worsen over time at the follow-up. In line with our predictions, nonresponders had higher glutamate than responders, but patients as a group did not differ in glutamate and Glx from the healthy control (HC) group before treatment-onset (F1,79= 3.20, p= 0.046, partial η2 = 0.075). Glutamatergic metabolites did not change significantly over time in both nonresponders and responders over the 3 months of antipsychotic exposure (F1,31= 1.26, p= 0.270, partial η2 = 0.039). We conclude that the use of antipsychotics without prior knowledge of later response delays symptom relief in a subgroup of first-episode patients, but does not worsen the glutamatergic excess seen at the baseline. Given the current practice of nonstratified use of antipsychotics, longer-time follow-up MRS studies are required to see if improvement in symptoms accompanies a dynamic shift in glutamate profile.

Natural biological materials display a large number of sophisticated nanostructures that are difficult to acquire even using the most technologically advanced synthetic methodologies. Since the hierarchical porosity and structure of a catalyst including photocatalysts are becoming increasingly important in the design of catalysts, the potential of biological components of nanoscale dimension for the synthesis of catalysts with novel types of heterostructure and improved activities is being actively explored. This review summarizes the recent advances in the synthesis of nano/microstructures using biotemplates obtained from various types of plants such as Hydrilla, cyanobacteria, reeds (Phragmites communis), leaves, tobacco, and rubber latex. In addition, the applications of synthesized materials in photocatalytic hydrogen production, photocatalytic reduction of Cr(vi), photodegradation of organic pollutants, and catalytic selective oxidation of tetralin, limonene, and cyclohexane have been highlighted. The key issues to improve the catalytic efficiency during the biotemplating procedure are discussed. More importantly, outlooks towards these emerging synthetic approaches have been presented from the perspective of practical application and future challenges are proposed.

Membrane proteins are vital components of the cell membrane and play crucial roles in various cellular activities. Analysis of membrane proteins is of paramount importance for studying molecular events inside cells and organisms and holds promising prospects for early disease diagnosis and treatment assessment. Benefiting from obvious merits including high affinity, high specificity and ease of modification, aptamers have been regarded as ideal molecular recognition elements in membrane protein analysis and molecular diagnostics strategies. This review summarised recent advances in membrane protein-specific aptamer screening, aptamer-based static and dynamic membrane protein analysis, and aptamer-based molecular diagnostic techniques. Prospects and challenges were also discussed.

This paper aimed to enhance the particle properties of refuse-derived fuel by means of ultrasonic pretreatment and discussed the effect of pretreatment on the pyrolysis products. Firstly, the ultrasonic pretreatment improved the physical properties of refuse-derived fuel. Molding experiments demonstrated that the natural binder component of refuse-derived fuel extruded from the cells after ultrasonic pretreatment, forming a vitreous layer, mechanical interlocking bonds, and fixed bridges between the particles. The impact resistance index could be increased from 0 to 185.71 at most, the extending rate could be reduced by up to 18.38%, and the particle density could be increased by 4.40%. The results of pyrolysis tests showed that ultrasonic pretreatment promoted the formation of phenol with a maximum increase of 14.94%. Besides, the acoustic physical effect and microjets generated by ultrasonic formed multiple porous and multilayer structures on the surface of the pyrolysis char. Overall, ultrasonic pretreatment could improve the pellet characteristics of refuse-derived fuel without adding binders and convert its pyrolysis products into valuable chemicals.

IoT devices bring great convenience to a person's life and industrial production. However, their rapid proliferation also troubles device management and network security. Network administrators usually need to know how many IoT devices are in the network and whether they behave normally. IoT device identification is the first step to achieving these goals. Previous IoT device identification methods reach high accuracy in a closed environment. But they are not applicable in the continuously changing environment. When new types of devices are plugged in, they cannot update themselves automatically. Besides, they usually rely on supervised learning and need lots of labeled data, which is costly. To solve these problems, we propose a novel IoT device identification model named AutoIoT, updating itself automatically when new types of devices are plugged in. Besides, it only needs a few labeled data and identifies IoT devices with high accuracy. The evaluation on two public datasets shows that AutoIoT can identify new device types only using 1.5$\sim$∼2.5 hours’ traffic and still have high accuracy after updating. Moreover, it has a better performance than other works when there are only a few labeled data, especially in an environment with scanning traffic.

With the continual increase of sewage sludge (SS) and water hyacinth (WH), it became an emergency to dispose these two wastes in an efficient and sustainable way. In this study, pyrolysis behavior and products distribution of SS and WH by microwave pretreatment and subsequent calcium oxide catalytic co-pyrolysis was analyzed by thermo-gravimetric analysis and pyrolysis gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Promotion effect was found during the pyrolysis process when the proportion of WH exceeding 50%. WH5SS5 was the best mixing ratio due to its lowest average activation energy (199.70 kJ/mol) and highest total peak area (2.10×109). The addition of CaO reduced the yields of acids and sugars by 10.52% and 5.08%. Meanwhile, aldehydes and ketones became the main products after adding CaO, with the proportion of 20.05% and 21.12%, respectively. Increasing microwave pretreatment power and time could reduce the activation energy with the minimum value of 199.70 kJ/mol (P567). The total peak area was also evaluated from 1.41×109to 2.22×109(T10). Comparing with increasing microwave pretreatment power, extending microwave pretreatment time was more effective. Besides, microwave pretreatment increased the yields of aldehydes while the yields of ketones reduced. Pentanal accounted for the largest proportion of pyrolysis products with the maximum yields of 25.62% at WH0SS10, which indicating that microwave pretreatment and subsequent calcium oxide catalytic co-pyrolysis of SS and WH has potential to produce pentanal.

Photocatalytic hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) production from water and O2has received considerable attention. However, most of the photocatalysts reported often require the addition of sacrificial agents to quench h+, which greatly restricts their practical application and increases the cost. In this study, we proposed a Z-scheme heterojunction WO3/covalent organic framework (Tp–TAPB) that can accelerate the separation and charge transfer at the interface and retain the strong oxidative and reductive ability of WO3and Tp–TAPB. The photocatalytic activity for H2O2production of WO3/Tp–TAPB reached 1488.4 μmol g−1h−1in a pure water system without any sacrificial agents, which is 72.3 times and 2.8 times higher than that of WO3and Tp–TAPB, respectively. In addition, WO3/Tp–TAPB was used for photocatalytic H2O2production in lake water and tap water, and a high photocatalytic H2O2production rate was still maintained. The in situphotocatalytically synthesized H2O2was used in the real coking wastewater to remove chemical oxygen demand (COD) under UV light radiation. The removal of COD was over 37% with UV/H2O2. To the best of our knowledge, there is no other study on the degradation of organic pollutants in real water by using photocatalytically synthesized H2O2in situ. This study provides a new idea and approach for photocatalytic H2O2production without using a sacrificial agent.

Utilizing biomass waste to synthesize hierarchical micro-mesoporous composite carbon materials for application in the field of supercapacitors realized green and sustainable energy development. This paper efficiently synthesized natural O-doped carbon materials using bamboo as biomass material by simple air pre-oxidation and secondary carbonization methods. Among them, KCl acted as a recyclable templating agent and flame retardant, facilitating the construction of mesoporous structures. The green activator CH3COOK promoted the generation of micropores. The combination of dual activation strategies (physical and chemical) contributed to the conversion of bamboo to hierarchical micro-mesoporous composite carbon materials. During pre-carbonization, air was used as a natural dopant which etched the carbon material and promoted the creation of oxygenated functional groups. The best carbon material exhibited an excellent electrochemical capacity of 321.65 F/g in 6 M KOH electrolyte. Furthermore, the symmetric supercapacitor exhibited high cycling stability (95.52 %) and outstanding power density. This work provided a new idea for preparing controllable biomass-derived carbon materials, while offering a reference for applying dual activation strategies in carbon material synthesis.

T cell-mediated rejection remains a barrier to the clinical application of islet xenotransplantation. Regulatory T cells (Treg) regulate immune responses by suppressing effector T cells. This study aimed to determine the ability of human Treg to prevent islet xenograft rejection and the mechanism(s) involved. Neonatal porcine islet transplanted NOD-SCID IL2r[γ.sup.-/-] mice received human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) with in vitro expanded autologous Treg in the absence or presence of anti-human interleukin-10 (IL-10) monoclonal antibody. In addition, human PBMC-reconstituted recipient mice received recombinant human IL-10 (rhIL-10). Adoptive transfer with expanded autologous Treg prevented islet xenograft rejection in human PBMC-reconstituted mice by inhibiting graft infiltration of effector cells and their function. Neutralization of human IL-10 shortened xenograft survival in mice receiving human PBMC and Treg. In addition, rhIL-10 treatment led to prolonged xenograft survival in human PBMC-reconstituted mice. This study demonstrates the ability of human Treg to prevent T-cell effector function and the importance of IL-10 in this response. In vitro Treg expansion was a simple and effective strategy for generating autologous Treg and highlighted a potential adoptive Treg cell therapy to suppress antigraft T-cell responses and reduce the requirement for immunosuppression in islet xenotransplantation. Diabetes 61:1180-1191, 2012, Pancreatic islet transplantation as a treatment for type 1 diabetes received a major impetus with the development of the Edmonton protocol and recent clinical trials demonstrating long-term insulin independence out [...]

A full scale treatment of hospital wastewater (60 m3/day), was newly developed, combining many processes including activated sludge, coagulation-flocculation, and skid-mounted photocatalysis. The tested raw hospital wastewater had the following characteristics: biochemical oxygen demand (BOD): 250–400 mg/L, chemical oxygen demand (COD): 800–1000 mg/L, ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N): 70–100 mg/L, total phosphorus (TP): 3.0–5.0 mg/L, suspended solids (SS): 200–300 mg/L and fecal coliform (FC): 9.2 × 104–1 × 105MON/L. During more than 3 years the in-situ operation of the average removal efficiency of COD was 90–95% with an effluent value in the range of 35–48 mg/L. The average removal efficiency of BOD, FC, TP, NH3-N, SS, color, and turbidity was in the range of 85–90%, 95–97%, 75–80%, 50–55%, 89–92%, and 95–97%, respectively. The overall operating cost was determined as 3.5 RMB /m3. This innovative technology was evaluated at a full-scale plant, demonstrating that its application was feasible and addressed many environmental concerns. This reactor has the following advantages: modular design, low infrastructure investment and simple operation. More importantly, this could be one of the first commercial photocatalytic reactors.

BackgroundInterstitial lung disease (ILD) and pulmonary sarcoidosis are common respiratory diseases with a heterogeneous distribution worldwide. The global burden and temporal trends of ILD and sarcoidosis are rarely explored.MethodsUsing the classification ‘ILD and pulmonary sarcoidosis’ from the Global Burden of Disease 2019 dataset, we described the age-standardised rates of incidence, mortality, disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and their average annual percentage change from 1990 to 2019 by sex, Sociodemographic Index (SDI) and region.ResultsIn 2019, the global incidence and mortality of ILD and pulmonary sarcoidosis were 24.2 million and 169 833 cases, respectively. From 1990 to 2019, the global incidence, deaths and DALYs due to ILD and pulmonary sarcoidosis increased by 118.6%, 166.63% and 122.87% respectively. The global incidence of ILD and pulmonary sarcoidosis was higher in men and was mainly concentrated among persons aged 70‐79 of both sexes. Significant regional differences could be seen in the disease burden of ILD and pulmonary sarcoidosis: since 2006, high-SDI regions had higher age-standardised incidence rates but lower age-standardised death rates compared with the low-SDI regions.ConclusionsOur study suggests the incidence, mortality and DALYs from ILD and pulmonary sarcoidosis are increasing globally. To reduce the ongoing burden of this condition, early diagnosis and treatment are vital, and more targeted and specific strategies should be established in high-burden regions. Differences in incidence and mortality across regions may reflect the influence of genetic, environmental, diagnostic, pharmacotherapeutic, and health system factors.

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To further reduce the toxicity of heavy metals (HMs) in sewage sludge (SS), organic acid (oxalic acid, citric acid, acetic acid) washing was used before co-hydrothermal carbonization (co-HTC) with pinewood. The results showed the total concentrations of six HMs (As, Cu, Ni, Cr, Mn, and Zn) in hydrochar produced at 230 °C decreased obviously during co-HTC. More importantly, F1 + F2 fractions of Ni, Cr, Mn, and Zn were also lowered. With the pretreatment of citric acid, the hydrochar from co-HTC exhibited the lowest potential ecological risk among all simples. Compared with the hydrochar produced from SS, the coalification degree, higher heating values (5.61–6.19 MJ/kg), and combustion behavior of the hydrochar derived from co-HTC were upgraded and improved. These findings offered a viable technology that could lower the bioavailability of HMs and realize the energy value of SS.

This paper proposes a guaranteed cost strategy for longitudinal control of vehicles mainly considering speed-limit control based on map information. Firstly, a state-space model is developed to calculate the desired acceleration for the speed-limit control. Secondly, based on the formulated state-space model, a state-feedback guaranteed cost strategy is developed for the speed-limit control with system uncertainties considered. The stability of the proposed state-feedback guaranteed cost control system is discussed according to Lyapunov stability theory by means of linear matrix inequality approach and Schur complement. Moreover, with the proposed control law, it is proved that the defined cost function has an upper bound. Thirdly, to reduce potential unnecessary acceleration or deceleration caused by disturbances, an event-triggered filter is designed. Finally, to evaluate the performance of the proposed guaranteed cost controller, a switching PID controller, and a guaranteed cost controller without the proposed event-triggered filter are developed for comparisons. The effectiveness and the advantages of the proposed guaranteed cost strategy are proved by simulations where model uncertainties, disturbances, and the latency of the actuator are considered.

The yield of rice is mostly affected by three factors, namely, panicle number, grain number and grain weight. Variation in panicle and grain numbers is mainly caused by tiller and panicle branches generated from axillary meristems (AMs). MOC1encodes a putative GRAS family nuclear protein that regulates AM formation. Although several alleles of MOC1have been identified, its variation in germplasm resources remains unclear. In the present study we characterized a novel moc1allele named gnp6which has a thymine insertion in the coding sequence of the SAW motif in the GRAS domain. This mutation causes arrested branch formation. The SAW motif is necessary for nuclear localization of GNP6/MOC1 where it functions as a transcription factor or co-regulator. Haplotype analysis showed that the coding region of GNP6/MOC1was conserved without any non-synonymous mutations in 240 rice accessions. However, variation in the promoter region might affect the expression of it and its downstream genes. Joint haplotype analysis of GNP6/MOC1and MOC3showed that haplotype combinations H9, H10 and H11, namely MOC1-Hap1 in combination with MOC3-Hap3, MOC3-Hap4 or MOC3-Hap5 could be bred to promote branch formation. These findings will enrich the genetic resources available for rice breeders.

Stimuli-responsive nanomedicine with theranostic functionalities with reduced side-effects has attracted growing attention, although there are some major obstacles to overcome before clinical applications. Herein, we present an acid-activatable theranostic unimolecular micelles based on amphiphilic star-like polymeric prodrug to systematically address typical existing issues. This smart polymeric prodrug has a preferable size of about 35 nm and strong micellar stability in aqueous solution, which is beneficial to long-term blood circulation and efficient extravasation from tumoral vessels. Remarkably, the polymeric prodrug has a high drug loading rate up to 53.1 wt%, which induces considerably higher cytotoxicity against tumor cells (HeLa cells and MCF-7 cells) than normal cells (HUVEC cells) suggesting a spontaneous tumor-specific targeting capability. Moreover, the polymeric prodrug can serve as a fluorescent nanoprobe activated by the acidic microenvironment in tumor cells, which can be used as a promising platform for tumor diagnosis. The superior antitumor effect in this in vitrostudy demonstrates the potential of this prodrug as a promising platform for drug delivery and cancer therapy.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are highly overproduced in cancerous tissues, and thus oxidation-responsive nanoparticles (NPs) have emerged as a promising drug carrier for cancer-targeted drug delivery. In this study, we successfully synthesized poly(vanillyl alcohol-co-oxalate) (PVAX) polymer with an excellent ROS-responsive capacity. A well-established emulsion-solvent evaporation method was used to fabricate PVAX-based curcumin (CUR)-loaded NPs (PVAX-NPs) and their counterparts (poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid)-based CUR-loaded NPs, PLGA-NPs). It was found that these NPs had a hydrodynamic particle size of approximately 245 nm, narrow size distribution (polydispersity index less than 0.1), negative zeta potential (around −18 mV), smooth surface appearance, and high drug encapsulation efficiency. Moreover, we found that the CUR release rate of PVAX-NPs was greatly increased in the presence of a hydrogen peroxide-rich environment due to the cleavage of polyoxalate ester bonds in PVAX polymer, resulting in the evenly distribution of CUR within the whole cancer cells. More importantly, PVAX-NPs exhibited much stronger anticancer activities and pro-apoptotic capacities than PLGA-NPs both in vitroand in vivo. These results clearly demonstrate that these ROS-responsive PVAX-NPs can be exploited as a robust anticancer drug delivery platform in chemotherapy.

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This study investigated the effects of hydrothermal temperature (HT, 160–240 °C) and residence time (RT, 30–90 min) of hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) on the properties of tobacco stems and their pyrolysis behaviors with catalysts (CaO, HZSM-5). The characterization of hydrothermal products (hydrochars) was carried out by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and 13C superconducting nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The pyrolysis experiments of the samples were conducted by pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) and thermogravimetric analyzer coupled to Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (TG-FTIR). The experimental results showed that with the increase of HT and RT, the fixed carbon content, high heating value, and energy densification of hydrochar were increasing and the crystallinity index increased first and then decreased, and the aromaticity increased continuously. HTC reduced the contents of acetic acid and ketones in the bio-oil and increased the contents of hydrocarbons and 1,6-anhydro-β-d-glucopyranose. When the HT was higher than 180 °C, excessive aromatization of hydrochar affected the yield of chemical compounds in bio-oil. When HT was lower than and equal to 200 °C, the catalyst HZSM-5 and HTC exhibited combined effects of promoting an increase in the production of aromatic hydrocarbons. When HT was higher than 200 °C, the catalytic effects of the double-layer catalysts were better than that of the single-layer catalyst, and CaO and HZSM-5 exhibited synergistic effects that promoted an increase in aromatic hydrocarbon content.

Co-hydrothermal carbonization (Co-HTC) of sewage sludge (SS) and lignocellulosic biomass has been reported as a promising technology for SS pretreatment, in terms of sterilization, deodorization, and enhancing fuel properties. However, in current research, the aqueous phase from Co-HTC was generally dumped directly as a waste liquid, which was not conducive to the effective utilization of energy and environmental protection. Therefore, for the purpose of further improving the above process, Co-HTC of sewage sludge and water hyacinth (WH, a lignocellulosic biowaste) was employed in our study, coupling with aqueous phase recirculation during the Co-HTC process, aiming at harvesting value-added solid fuels and identifying the upgradation effects of aqueous phase recirculation on hydrochar fuel characteristics. The results demonstrated that excellent synergistic effects occurred during Co-HTC. Moreover, synergistic effects would be further enhanced during the aqueous phase recirculation process due to strengthened Maillard and Mannich reactions, contributing to superior experimental hydrochar yield, a higher heating value (HHV), energy yield, and a power consumption index compared with that of calculated values. The hydrochar from Co-HTC and the recirculation process showed lower ignition and burnout temperatures, facilitating the rapid release of heat during the combustion of hydrochar. Meanwhile, synergistic effects during Co-HTC and recirculation facilitated transforming the speciation of Cd and Pb from F1 and F2 fractions to F3 and F4 fractions, thereby reducing their direct ecotoxicity to the environment. The reaction mechanism during Co-HTC and the recirculation process was inferred by further characterizing components in the aqueous phase. In summary, these findings could provide referential information for the resource utilization of the aqueous phase during the Co-HTC process as well as scaling up the thermal utilization paths of SS and WH.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is one of the most highly invasive and metastatic breast cancers without safe and effective therapeutic drugs. The natural product oridonin is reported to be a potential anti-TNBC agent. However, its moderate activity and complex structure hampered its clinical application. In this study, the novel oridonin analogues were first identified by removal of multiple hydroxyl groups and structural simplification of oridonin. The representative analogue 20exhibited potent anticancer effects. Further structural modification on 20generated the most potent derivative 56, which possessed 120-fold more potent antiproliferative activity than oridonin in the TNBC cell line HCC1806. Importantly, compound 56exhibited more potent anticancer activity than paclitaxel in TNBC xenograft nude mice. Moreover, 56could attenuate the expression of MMP-2, MMP-9, p-FAK, and integrin β1 to inhibit TNBC cell metastasis. All results suggest that compound 56may warrant further investigation as a promising candidate agent for the treatment of TNBC.

Anticancer nanomedicine-based multimodal imaging and synergistic therapy hold great promise in cancer diagnosis and therapy owing to their abilities to improve therapeutic efficiency and reduce unnecessary side effects, producing promising clinical prospects. Herein, we integrated chemotherapeutic drug camptothecin (CPT) and near-infrared-absorbing new indocyanine green (IR820) into a single system by charge interaction and obtained a tumor-microenvironment-activatable PCPTSS/IR820 nanoreactor to perform thermal/fluorescence/photoacoustic-imaging-guided chemotherapy and photothermal therapy simultaneously. Specifically, the generated PCPTSS/IR820 showed an excellent therapeutic agent loading content and size stability, and the trials in vitro and in vivo suggested that the smart PCPTSS/IR820 could deeply permeate into tumor tissues due to its suitable micellar size. Upon near-infrared laser irradiation, the nanoreactor further produced a terrific synergism of chemo–photo treatment for cancer therapy. Therefore, the PCPTSS/IR820 polyprodrug-based nanoreactor holds outstanding promise for multimodal imaging and combined dual therapy.

Low delivery efficiency and limited tumor penetration of nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems (DDSs), the two most concerned issues in tumor therapy, have been considered as the “Achilles’ heel” for tumor treatment. In this study, we have designed a highly sensitive dual-redox-responsive prodrug-based starlike polymer β-CD-b-P(CPTGSH-co-CPTROS-co-OEGMA) (CPGR) for synergistic chemotherapy. The high glutathione (GSH) concentration and high reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels are in a dynamic equilibrium in the tumor microenvironment (TME) and could trigger the disintegration of CPGRmicelles, which can promote the release of anticancer drug camptothecin (CPT) completely and intelligently. In order to verify the synergistic antitumor mechanism, two corresponding single-responsive β-CD-b-P(CPTGSH-co-OEGMA) (CPG) and β-CD-b-P(CPTROS-co-OEGMA) (CPR) were altogether prepared as contrast. Both in vitro and in vivo studies confirmed the enhanced anticancer activity of CPGRmicelles in comparison of single responsive micelles. This work contributes to the orchestrated design of dual-redox-responsive DDSs for synergetic antitumor chemotherapy, which provides a good approach for the development of dual-redox-responsive nanomedicine.

New energy vehicles are developing rapidly to address energy shortages and global warming. However, the on-board hydrogen storage poses certain limitations. To solve the limitations, this paper introduced a novel vehicle powered by the ammonia-fueled solid oxide fuel cell (NH3-SOFC), which had the advantages of directly generating electricity and minimizing energy loss. The environmental impacts and energy consumption of the NH3-SOFC vehicle (NH3-SOFCV) were evaluated using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method, and the prospects of NH3-SOFCV with the development of sustainable transportation systems were examined. The results indicated that the largest impact during the entire life cycle was attributed to the creation of photochemical ozone potential (POCP), which accounted for 62.65% of all calculated impacts. The manufacturing phase of NH3-SOFCV utilized the most energy and emitted the most CO2emissions, followed by the use phase. The global warming potential (GWP) of NH3-SOFCV was 0.124 kg CO2-eq/km, while the ammonia fuel utilization in the use phase had an impact on the acidification potential (AP) and eutrophication potential (EP). The sensitivity analysis showed that the total environmental impacts of NH3-SOFCV could be reduced by 29% with the life cycle mileage of 200,000 km, 4 tire changes and 2 battery changes. When ammonia fuel was produced from renewable energy sources, the GWP of NH3-SOFCV was less than that of other types of vehicles. Overall, NH3-SOFCV had tremendous development potential with the increase of new energy vehicles in the future.

The physicochemical properties of nanomedicine can be altered with a tumor microenvironment, which influence the precise delivery of drug molecules to the lesion. Thus, the therapeutic efficiency is restrained. Here, a covalent self-assembled nanomicelle (CSNM) based starburst polyprodrug was constructed with the unimolecular micelle-templated self-assembly method and was expected to overcome biological barriers. It aimed to enhance the tumor penetration and chemotherapy efficiency of drugs. In CSNM, a hydrophilic copolymer was glued around a camptothecin (CPT) linked starburst polymeric prodrug [β-CD-P (CPT-co-NH2)] for protecting the positive charge of the prodrug with a reduction-triggered reversibility in conjugation and activity. Then, the complex was tracelessly delivered into a negatively charged cell membrane, leading to enhanced cellular uptake. Finally, the disulfide bond in the CPT prodrug can be broken under the reductive microenvironment within tumor cells and liberated the CPT molecules. Both in vitroand in vivoresults demonstrated the benefits of our CSNM system, including high drug loading, controllable drug release, excellent uptake by tumor cells and remarkable antitumor efficiency. In essence, our findings suggested CSNM as an innovative strategy for drug delivery in chemotherapy, producing a competitive versatility in the development of biomedicine.

Polymeric prodrug based on therapeutic nanomedicine has demonstrated great promise for effective tumor growth inhibition, however, the drawbacks of low drug-loading and weak micellar stability limit its application for clinical cancer therapy. Herein, a reduction-responsive starburst block copolymer prodrug CCP [β-cyclodextrin (β-CD)-PCPTXX-POEGMA, XX: SS or CC] has been developed for cancer therapy. And CCP is composed of β-CD-Br core with multiple reactive sites, as well as a diblock copolymer containing hydrophobic polymerized camptothecin (PCPT) prodrug chain and hydrophilic poly[(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate] (OEGMA) chain. A family of CCP polymeric prodrugs with different drug loading contents (up to 25%) and various sizes of unimolecular micelles (UMs) (around 30 nm) were obtained by adjusting the block ratio of PCPTXXand POEGMA. On account of the amphiphilic structure feature, CPP could take shape water-soluble UMs in aqueous medium with excellent micellar stability. Under imitatively reductive tumor microenvironment, anticancer drug CPT could rapidly escape from CCP UMs in terms of disulfide bond breakage. However, this behavior is strongly refrained in the physiological environment. In vitro and in vivo outcome confirmed that CCP UMs showed excellent performance of sufficient tumor accumulation, high-efficiency tumor growth inhibition and low-toxicity for healthy tissues. Based on these gratifying therapeutic efficacy, it is believed that as-present starburst prodrug strategy can offer a brand-new insight for high-efficiency therapeutic nanoplatforms for chemotherapy application.

TiN thin film electrodes for supercapacitors were deposited successfully on textured silicon substrates by reactive magnetron sputtering and silicon surface texturization. The areal specific capacitance of the rough TiN electrodes was nearly two-fold higher than that of the smooth electrodes. Meanwhile, the textured TiN electrodes exhibit rough surfaces comprising a large number of random pyramids and good cycling stability with about 28% decay in capacitance value after 3500 cycles. In addition, the rough electrodes also exhibit relatively favorable charge transfer and ion diffusion due to their higher effective surface area. These results demonstrate that TiN electrodes on textured silicon substrates will have promising prospects for high-performance supercapacitors.

Extraordinary adenine/thymine rich DNA has a low complexity resulting in the occurrence of many short repetitive sequences or longer imperfect repeats, consequently hindering the gene synthesis process. This report describes the rapid synthesis of a DNA fragment with guanine/cytosine content of 11.8% using ligation based assembly and polymerase chain reaction-based assembly respectively, via the use of multiple strategies addressing the adenine/thymine rich nature of the fragment. Sequences can be simply chopped and assembled without Tm optimization. Smaller amount of ligation products as templates in Interference Free polymerase chain reaction yielded markedly more than or equal amount of subassembly products as using larger amount of ligation products, and longer extension time was required for successful subassembly. Longer time at low annealing temperature also had obvious effects on polymerase chain reaction amplifications. No full-length products could be generated without initial oligonucleotide sub-pooling for both approaches. The chemical synthesis of extraordinary adenine/thymine rich DNA could enable researchers to assemble synthetic modules, to study and to access the repetitive DNA such as heterochromatin regions which harbor important functional elements.

Graphene as one of the most promising transparent electrode materials has been successfully applied in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). However, traditional poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) transfer method usually results in hardly removed polymeric residues on the graphene surface, which induces unwanted leakage current, poor diode behavior, and even device failure. In this work, we proposed a facile and efficient two-in-one method to obtain clean graphene and fabricate OLEDs, in which the poly(9,9-di-n-octylfluorene-alt-(1,4-phenylene-(4-sec-butylphenyl)imino)-1,4-phenylene) (TFB) layer was inserted between the graphene and PMMA film both as a protector during the graphene transfer and a hole-injection layer in OLEDs. Finally, green OLED devices were successfully fabricated on the PMMA-free graphene/TFB film, and the device luminous efficiency was increased from 64.8 to 74.5 cd/A by using the two-in-one method. Therefore, the proposed two-in-one graphene transfer method realizes a high-efficient graphene transfer and device fabrication process, which is also compatible with the roll-to-roll manufacturing. It is expected that this work can enlighten the design and fabrication of the graphene-based optoelectronic devices.

This paper experimentally investigated the capture performance of natural and modified limestone for Cr, Cu, Pb, and Zn during the wood sawdust combustion in an 80CO2/20O2atmosphere. The addition dosage of limestone had significant effects on the capture efficiency for Cu and Pb, but not for Cr and Zn based on the two-factor analysis of variance method. The presence of NaCl always lowered the capture efficiency for Pb, whereas, for Cu and Zn, the effects of NaCl turned from negative to positive as the temperature increased. Limestone modified with K2CO3improved the capture performance for Cr and Cu, while limestone modified with Al2(SO4)3improved the capture performance for all studied heavy metals. The best pretreatments for capturing Cu, Zn, Cr, and Pb were modified limestone with Al2(SO4)3(ion ratio γ = 15), Al2(SO4)3(γ = 10), K2CO3(γ = 10), and Al2(SO4)3(γ = 10), respectively. The degree of improvement depended on the specific inorganic salt type and ion ratio. Therefore, choosing a reasonable inorganic modification method should depend on specific targeted heavy metals. The results conduce to understand the heavy metal control mechanism of limestone and explore a high-efficiency and low-cost method for heavy metal control during wood oxy-fuel combustion.

As a supramolecular macrocyclic polymer, cyclodextrin (CD) polyrotaxanes (PRs) have many advantages for developing nanomedicines, such as stable chemical composition, abundant functionalized hydroxyl groups, moving across biological barriers, adjustable nanoparticle size and good biocompatibility. Herein, we synthesized a class of acid-active therapeutic nanoparticles comprising a α-CD-based PR polymeric prodrug of PRs-poly(doxorubicin)-co-poly[(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate] (PR-PDOX-co-POEGMA, denoted as PRMO@DOX) to reduce drug leakage and selectively deliver drugs into tumor cells, aiming to achieve maximal treatment efficacy of supramolecular therapeutics. The obtained PRMO@DOX showed desirable features of high drug loading rates (>25 wt%), fast cellular uptake, acid-active controlled release, effective anti-tumor activity and low systemic toxicity. Benefiting from its unique amphiphilic nanostructure, PRMO@DOX can form water-soluble prodrug nanoparticles in aqueous media. The acid-active hydrazone bond in the prodrug can break and thus release drug molecules precisely and in a timely manner under an acidic tumor microenvironment, damaging the nuclei and mitochondria of tumor cells. Both in vitroand in vivoexperiments clearly demonstrated a remarkable antitumor efficacy of this therapeutic platform, which provided a new strategy for the development of polyrotaxane-based nanomedicine for enhanced cancer therapy.

A well-performed core power control to track load changes is crucial in pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear power stations. It is challenging to keep the core power stable at the desired value within acceptable error bands for the safety demands of the PWR due to the sensitivity of nuclear reactors. In this paper, a state-space model predictive control (MPC) method was applied to the control of the core power. The model for core power control was based on mathematical models of the reactor core, the MPC model, and quadratic programming (QP). The mathematical models of the reactor core were based on neutron dynamic models, thermal hydraulic models, and reactivity models. The MPC model was presented in state-space model form, and QP was introduced for optimization solution under system constraints. Simulations of the proposed state-space MPC control system in PWR were designed for control performance analysis, and the simulation results manifest the effectiveness and the good performance of the proposed control method for core power control.

Drug self-delivery systems represent an important approach to enhance the therapeutic efficacy for cancer therapy. We report the design, synthesis and characterization of a new amphiphilic small molecule prodrug based on two types of anticancer drugs, the hydrophilic gemcitabine and hydrophobic camptothecin, linked by a disulfide bond and abbreviated as GT–CPT. The obtained amphiphilic prodrug conjugates self-assembled into nanoparticles in water and showed strong micellar stability and excellent blood compatibility in vivo. The GT–CPT prodrug conjugates could realize precise drug loading as high as ∼75 wt% demonstrating a carrier-free model for efficient drug delivery. Furthermore, the reduction-responsive disulfide bond enabled controlled drug release in the presence of tumour-specific microenvironment. It was found that each of these hybrid drug components (CPT and GT) not only showed enhanced cytotoxicity individually but also exhibited a prominent synergistic effect on HeLa and MCF-7 cancer cells. This study demonstrated the promising potential of this stimuli-responsive hybrid prodrug conjugate for highly efficient co-delivery of multiple anticancer chemotherapeutics, which could inspire further applications using such hybrid prodrug conjugates for combination cancer chemotherapy.

Electric vehicles have been heavily promoted in recent years to reduce carbon emissions. With rising fuel prices, more and more electric vehicles are being chosen by consumers. The safety performance of electric vehicle batteries is an indicator of great concern to the new energy vehicle industry and consumers.

In this work, waste textile (WT) was employed as one representative pseudo-component of municipal solid waste (MSW) to investigate the mechanisms during hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) process. The experiments were examined at 230 and 280 °C with the residence time from 30 min to 90 min. The chemical component analysis showed that a significant fraction of fixed carbon was retained within the hydrochar, while ∼98% volatile matter was detected in the soluble fraction. Our results clearly demonstrate that decarboxylation was the most important defunctionalization process, whereas dehydration turned out to be less important. The combustibility index (S) and the combustion stability index (Rw) of the hydrochar were both greater than those of WT, suggesting hydrochar was superior in combustion performance. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis and solid-state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) characterization displayed that large amount of aliphatic compounds decomposed, while enhancements of aromatic and carbonyl types carbons were observed in hydrochar and soluble. Higher temperature enhanced the breakage of unreacted feedstock to fragment and enforced the aromatization and repolymerization reactions to form the solid char and liquid phase. Between char and liquid phase, recombined, polycondensation and repolymerization reactions progressively occupied the dominant effects. These reactions promoted char and oil-range molecules to form hydrochar. On the basis of these outcomes, a conversion pathway of hydrothermal carbonization of WT was proposed.

The current work presented the characteristics of liquefied products from solvolysis liquefaction of Chlorella pyrenoidosain ethanol–water systems. The effect of different ethanol/water volume ratios on the physical and chemical characteristics of solid residue, dichloromethane-insoluble solid product (DCM-insoluble solid product), aqueous product, light bio-oil, and biocrude oil was systematically carried out. Elemental analysis and scanning electron microscopy revealed that the addition of ethanol contributed to the decomposition of solid residue. However, when the ethanol content exceeded 60%, the repolymerization of solid residue occurred. Moreover, on the basis of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, a plausible reaction mechanism of solid residues and DCM-insoluble solid products with respect to ethanol addition and reaction temperature was presented. The main chemical compositions of aqueous product, light bio-oil, and biocrude oil were identified by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. It indicated that the ethanol–water cosolvent contributed to the generation of nitrogen-containing compounds in aqueous product and short-chain esters in light bio-oil, and decreased the content of toxic nitrogenous organic compounds with two or more methyl groups in aqueous product. The ethanol–water system could facilitate ester formation in biocrude oil through esterification and alcoholysis reactions. Through the thermal gravimetric analysis and thermal stability experiment of biocrude oils, it was demonstrated that the biocrude oil obtained from 60% ethanol content had the highest content of low boiling point components of C10–C20 and performed with the best thermal stability.

Background: Heterosis is widely used in agriculture. However, its molecular mechanisms are still unclear in plants. Here, we develop, sequence, and record the phenotypes of 418 hybrids from crosses between two testers and 265 rice varieties from a mini-core collection. Results: Phenotypic analysis shows that heterosis is dependent on genetic backgrounds and environments. By genome-wide association study of 418 hybrids and their parents, we find that nonadditive QTLs are the main genetic contributors to heterosis. We show that nonadditive QTLs are more sensitive to the genetic background and environment than additive ones. Further simulations and experimental analysis support a novel mechanism, homo-insufficiency under insufficient background (HoIIB), underlying heterosis. We propose heterosis in most cases is not due to heterozygote advantage but homozygote disadvantage under the insufficient genetic background. Conclusion: The HoIIB model elucidates that genetic background insufficiency is the intrinsic mechanism of background dependence, and also the core mechanism of nonadditive effects and heterosis. This model can explain most known hypotheses and phenomena about heterosis, and thus provides a novel theory for hybrid rice breeding in future.

To investigate the co-combustion behavior, a thermogravimetric analyzer combined with Fourier transform infrared (TG-FTIR) analysis was conducted on the blending samples of excavated waste (EW) and municipal solid waste (MSW) at different ratios. In addition, the co-combustion experiment at 700, 800, and 900 °C was carried out on a fixed bed reactor to determine the typical gaseous pollutants emission. The degree of interaction is evaluated by the weight loss deviation rate of co-combustion and individual combustion. The greater the deviation rate indicates the more significant interaction effect. The results showed that there were significant interactions between MSW and EW during the co-combustion process. Co-combustion with MSW improved the ignition, burnout and comprehensive combustion performance of EW samples, and the improvement of the co-combustion performance of EW which was landfilled in 2005 (05-EW) was more obvious than that landfilled in 2015 (15-EW). The blending ratio of MSW below 40% can avoid the obvious incremental effect on the generation of HCl, SO2and NOx, and the above gaseous pollutants were significantly suppressed at 700–800 ℃. Furthermore, co-combustion of 15-EW with MSW was more likely to exhibit inhibitory effects on gaseous pollutant emission. Based on the results of thermogravimetric analysis and pollutant emission experiment, the low MSW blending ratio (below 40%) and low combustion temperature (between 700 and 800 °C) could improve the combustion conditions of EW and suppress the emission of gaseous pollutants.

The treatment of sewage sludge (SS) presents challenges in terms of the effective simultaneous immobilization of heavy metals (HMs). This study analyzed the heavy metal migration behavior and fuel characteristics of hydrochar generated by co-hydrothermal carbonization (co-HTC) of SS and water hyacinth (WH) under the addition of attapulgite. The results showed that the co-HTC treatment facilitated the conversion of Cu, Cr, and Ni from the bioavailable fraction to the relatively stable fraction, with little effect on Mn and Pb. At 20% attapulgite of co-HTC, not only did the total concentration of HMs decreased significantly but the bioavailability of all measured metals decreased, reducing the potential ecological risk of the hydrochars. Moreover, the fuel ratio of co-HTC hydrochars was found to be improved (0.03─0.29), and an increase in the higher heating values (3.16─12.44 MJ/kg) compared to hydrochar from SS. The results of TG, FTIR spectra, and kinetic analysis further indicate that co-HTC promotes the aromaticity of the hydrochars and improves the fuel grade. From the perspectives of HMs immobilization and clean fuel production, co-HTC with SS and WH and the addition of attapulgite is an effective SS treatment method.

The abuse of antibiotics has led to the emergence of many resistant bacteria, which threaten public health on a global scale. Conventional pipelines for antibiotic discovery are gradually exhausted. Here a combinatorial yeast overlay method is presented for the isolation of antibacterial oligopeptides. Three antibacterial dipeptide and tripeptides were discovered from 20 attempts, two of which possess glycosylation sites. Although the antibacterial effects were modest against several tested bacteria including a multi-resistant Staphylococcus aureusstrain Y5, they are amenable to chemical modifications to enhance potency. This cost-effective method can circumvent the expensive chemical peptide synthesis process. The eukaryotic host Saccharomyces cerevisiaeadopted for peptide expression could serve as a surrogate biosafety assay system for antibacterial peptides. The small size of the oligopeptides render them attractive candidates for drug development. Given the vast combinatorial diversity of peptides, the reservoir may serve as a rich source of drug leads.

We systematically investigate the singlet and triplet carrier dynamics in rubrene single crystal in the time scale from femtosecond (fs) up to microsecond (μs) using time-resolved and temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) techniques. Five PL bands were observed between 1.60 and 2.14 eV, and they are assigned to exciton peak, zero phonon intrinsic transition, and vibronic replicas, respectively. The ultrafast carrier scattering results in a broad distribution of hot carriers with a time constant as fast as 100 fs. The singlet fission and phonon scattering lead to 6.2 and 47 ps relaxation, respectively. The radiative recombination of singlet carriers exhibits wavelength-dependent lifetimes. The delayed fluorescence was observed on the microsecond time scale. The temperature-dependent and excitation intensity-dependent lifetime measurements confirmed that the delayed fluorescence is due to triplet–triplet annihilation that can be well described by rate equations of the triplet population.

Directed evolution shortcuts million-year-scale natural evolution in a matter of weeks and generates tens of millions of sequence variants in a single test tube. A team of researchers used random DNA flanked by homologous sequences for in vivo homologous recombination, known as multiplex automated genome engineering (MAGE) to select the most active gene variants. They also adopted this approach to replace hundreds of stop codons in the E. coli genome, showing potential for genome-wide engineering. The blank codon created was harnessed to enlarge the amino acid alphabet, and unnatural amino acid has been incorporated to polypeptides. In phage-assisted continuous evolution (PACE), the target activity was linked to the expression of a protein required for the production of infectious phage, and researchers obtained activities with novel affinities to T3 promoter, ATP, etc. In vitro recombination enables the generation of massive number of artificial lives of potential values. Random combinatorial DNA approach has also been harnessed to construct G-H loop sequences of type O FMDV VP1 gene, and 100 novel radical sequence variants were obtained in a single experiment, which paves the way for the future investigations on the potential development of a polyvalent vaccine to cope with rapid viral variations. The enormous combinatorial diversity of these methods conferred high mutation rates at either full length genes or targeted regions unmatched by natural evolution or previous directed evolution methods. Interactions of mutations or epistasis may have generated beneficial phenotypes from neutral and deleterious mutations. Selection for desired phenotypes may create sequence variants that might never occur in evolution. Accelerated molecular evolution methods, capitalized on random DNA strings, continuous evolution, unnatural amino acids or in vitro recombination, provide infinite opportunities for research, industrial and medical applications.

Excessive process water remained an important challenge in hydrothermal carbonization (HTC). In this work, co-HTC of sewage sludge (SS) and lignite (LIG) along with the aqueous phase recirculation (APC) was employed to explore the feasibility of producing clean solid fuels at 230 °C. Chemical speciation and concentration of heavy metals (HMs) in hydrochars were evaluated, as well as fuel properties. The results showed that the co-HTC with LIG was beneficial for the decline of total concentrations of Cu, Cr, Ni, Mn, and Zn. Furthermore, APC further decreased the risk of Ni without expanding the pollution of HMs. Compared with the hydrochar produced from SS, the coalification degree, higher heating values (5.61─6.19 MJ/kg), and combustion behaviour of the hydrochar derived from co-HTC were upgraded and improved. The yield of hydrochar was enhanced via APC but several fuel properties changed slightly. These findings offered a viable technology that could lower the output of wastewater and realize the energy utilization of SS.