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CO2 conversion is gradually seen as a better way for society to effectively use carbon sources and avoid climate crisis associated with fossil CO2 emissions. And the decision to deploy CO2 technology scale should be relied on its environmental impact. In this work, life cycle assessment model evaluates the environmental performance of CO2 conversion by photocatalytic reaction process with two different catalysts (NiAl-LDH and Co-ZIF-9). Six impact categories considered in this analysis, including climate change, acidification potential, depletion of abiotic resources, eutrophication potential, ozone layer depletion potential, and photochemical oxidation potential. Results indicated that CO2 conversion with Co-ZIF-9 photocatalyst has a better environmental impact than the NiAl-LDH photocatalyst route. Moreover, the Co-ZIF-9 catalyst scenario also has a lower total environmental burden than the conventional CO production route. Sensitivity analysis shows that recycle performance of the catalyst is highly sensitive to the production process in two scenarios. This study could provide a framework for robust decisions in CO2 conversion by photocatalytic reaction, which is useful for policymakers to decide the feasibility of industrialization.

Abstract Background To investigate the prognosis of patients with Multiple Myeloma (MM) after surgery, analyze the risk factors leading to adverse postoperative outcomes, and establish a nomogram. Methods Clinical data from 154 patients with MM who underwent surgery at our institution between 2007 and 2019 were retrospectively analyzed. Assessing and comparing patients’ pain levels, quality of life, and functional status before and after surgery (P

A type of reduced graphene oxide (rGO)/SnIn4S8 (SIS) nanocomposites was successfully fabricated by a facile and efficient microwave-assisted method. Their morphology, structure, composition, and optical performance were investigated by different analytical techniques, respectively. The results indicated that rGO had an important effect on the structure of photocatalysts. As the content of rGO increases, the unchin-like microsphere structure of rGO/SIS evolved gradually into aggregated nanosheet structure. The photocatalytic degradation experiments were carried out under visible light irradiation. The results demonstrated rGO/SIS-2 nanocomposites exhibited higher photocatalytic activity toward the degradation of RhodamineB than that of SIS, rGO/SIS-1 as well as rGO/SIS-3. Meanwhile, the mineralization efficiency of Rhodamine B (RhB) can reach up to 73.8% within 30 min. Interestingly, rGO/SIS-2 nanocomposites exhibited excellent recycle stability with 96% removal efficiency of RhB after three cycles. The enhanced photocatalytic activity of rGO/SIS-2 nanocomposites should be attributed to the strong interaction of rGO and SIS, the decrease of band gap energy, the enhanced visible light absorption, and excellent electrons’ mobility of rGO, thereby promoting charge separation. Finally, the mechanism of rGO/SIS nanocomposites for the degradation of RhB has been also proposed. This work provides a facile and efficient pathway to prepare SIS-based nanocomposites with enhanced catalytic efficiency by combining the advantages of microwave-assisted heating and incorporating carbon-based nanomaterials for the degradation of organic pollutants in visible light irradiation.

Grain refinement is a crucial technique for enhancing the mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of magnesium alloys. In this study, the addition of 0.3 wt% CaO and 0.3 wt% CaCO3 successfully refined the AM60 alloy, resulting in a significant reduction in the average grain size from 326 μm to 96 μm (when adding CaCO3). The refined grain size of the as-cast AM60 alloy led to an increase in both tensile strength and yield strength to 118.2 MPa and 72.6 MPa, representing a respective increase of 35% and 23% compared to the alloy without the refiner. As results of EBSD, it is verified that the basal slip system (0001) has a higher Schmid factor after adding CaO, which indicates that this system has higher activity. The substitution reaction between CaO and Mg can produce synergistic effects from the solute effect of Ca and the nucleating effect of residual CaO, which play an important role in grain refinement. Due to the fine grain size and diffuse distribution of the second phase in the AM60-CaCO3 alloy and the thermal decomposition of CaCO3, which consumes the aluminum element in the matrix, the content of the β-phase (Mg17Al12) is reduced. Consequently, this reduces the electric coupling effect between the β-phase and the magnesium matrix. The AM60-CaCO3 alloy exhibited the most superior corrosion resistance, achieving a corrosion rate of only 1.01 mm y−1, representing a 48.9% reduction in corrosion rate compared to the AM60 alloy.

IntroductionThe human leukocyte antigen (HLA) evolutionary divergence (HED) reflects immunopeptidome diversity and has been shown to predict the response of tumors to immunotherapy. Its impact on allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is controversial in different studies.MethodsIn this study, we retrospectively analyzed the clinical impact of class I and II HED in 225 acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients undergoing HSCT from related haploidentical donors. The HED for recipient, donor, and donor-recipient pair was calculated based on Grantham distance, which accounts for variations in the composition, polarity, and volume of each amino acid within the peptide-binding groove of two HLA alleles. The median value of HED scores was used as a cut-off to stratify patients with high or low HED.ResultsThe class I HED for recipient (R_HEDclass I) showed the strongest association with cumulative incidence of relapse (12.2 vs. 25.0%, P = 0.00814) but not with acute graft-versus-host disease. The patients with high class II HED for donor-recipient (D/R_HEDclass II) showed a significantly higher cumulative incidence of severe aGVHD than those with low D/R_HEDclass II (24.0% vs. 6.1%, P = 0.0027). Multivariate analysis indicated that a high D/R_HEDclass II was an independent risk factor for the development of severe aGVHD (P = 0.007), and a high R_HEDclass I had a more than two-fold reduced risk of relapse (P = 0.028). However, there was no discernible difference in overall survival (OS) or disease-free survival (DFS) for patients with high or low HED, which was inconsistent with the previous investigation.DiscussionWhile the observation are limited by the presented single center retrospective cohort, the results show that HED has poor prognostic value in OS or DFS, as well as the associations with relapse and aGVHD. In haploidentical setting, class II HED for donor-recipient pair (D/R_HEDclass II) is an independent and novel risk factor for finding the best haploidentical donor, which could potentially influence clinical practice if verified in larger cohorts.

Objective·To study early expression levels of serum heparin-binding protein (HBP) and its potential value in early alarming for prognosis and occurrence of sepsis in patients with severe burns.Methods·Retrospective analysis was performed on medical records of 52 severely burned patients admitted to the Department of Burn and Plastic, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine during January 2021 to May 2023. General data of patients on gender, age, total burn area, body mass index (BMI), and whether endotracheal intubation or incision was performed were collected. The level of HBP, serum procalcitonin (PCT), serum C-reactive protein (CRP) and the count of white blood cells within 48 h of admission were collected. The scores of acute physiological and chronic health assessment evaluation Ⅱ (APACHE Ⅱ) and sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) within 48 h of admission were collected. Patients were divided into death group and survival group according to the status at discharge. According to whether sepsis occurred during hospitalization, the patients were divided into sepsis group and non-sepsis group. According to whether shock occurred, the septic patients were divided into sepsis without shock group and septic shock group. Risk factors for death, sepsis, and septic shock in severely burned patients were analyzed by using Logistic regression models. Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was established to study risk factors, which may alarm the occurrence of poor prognosis, sepsis, and septic shock.Results·Compared with the survival group, patients in the death group were older, and the difference was statistically significant (P=0.036). Differences in burn area and whether tracheal intubation or tracheotomy was performed were statistically significant in patients with or without sepsis (P=0.011, P=0.001). Compared with the survival group, the serum HBP levels were higher in the death group, and the difference was statistically significant (P=0.002). Compared with the non-sepsis group, patients in the sepsis group had higher levels of serum HBP, APACHE Ⅱ scores, and SOFA scores, and the differences were statistically significant (all P

Objective To investigate the role and mechanism of NLRP3/Caspase-1/IL-1β inflammasome pathway in the formation of aortic dissection in mice. Methods Fifty male C57BL/6 mice (3 weeks old, body weight 10~13 g) were divided into control group (n=10, normal diet), β-aminopropionitrile (BAPN) group [n=20, drink water containing 1 g/(kg·d) BAPN], and BAPN+ MCC950 group [n=20, drink water containing 1 g/(kg·d) BAPN and intraperitoneal injection of 20 mg/(kg·d) NLRP3 inhibitor, MCC950] by random sampling. Water intake, body weight, incidence of aortic dissection and aortic dissection-related mortality were recorded. The inflammatory infiltration in the aorta was observed with HE staining, elastic fiber breakage was observed by elastic Van Gieson (EVG) staining, average fluorescence intensity of NLRP3, IL-1β, α-SMA and OPN was detected by immunofluorescence assay, and protein expression levels of NLRP3, Caspase-1, ASC, IL-1β, α-SMA and OPN were measured with Western blotting. Results No aortic dissection or death was observed in the control group. The BAPN group had an incidence of aortic dissection of 80%, aortic dissection-related mortality of 35%, and obvious broken elastic fibers and inflammatory infiltrate in the aortic wall, and increased expression levels of NLRP3, Caspase-1, ASC and IL-1β, decreased contractile α-SMA and increased synthetic protein OPN when compared with the control group (P < 0.05). While MCC950 treatment decreased the incidence of aortic dissection (80% vs 35%, P=0.004) and aortic dissection-related mortality (35% vs 15%, P=0.144), alleviated the broken elastic fibers and inflammatory infiltrate in the aortic wall, and down-regulated the expression of NLRP3, Caspase-1, ASC and IL-1β, enhanced contractile α-SMA and decreased the synthetic protein when compared with the BAPN group (P < 0.05). Conclusion The occurrence of aortic dissection in mice is associated with activation of NLRP3/Caspase-1/IL-1β inflammasome pathway. NLRP3 inhibitor, MCC950, can reduce the occurrence of aortic dissection and show a protective effect on blood vessels.

Abstract UV-crosslinking of protein and RNA in direct contacts has been widely used to study protein-RNA complexes while our understanding of the photo-crosslinking mechanisms remains poor. This knowledge gap is due to the challenge of precisely mapping the crosslink sites in protein and RNA simultaneously in their native sequence and structural contexts. Here we systematically analyze protein-RNA interactions and photo-crosslinking by bridging crosslinked nucleotides and amino acids mapped using different assays with protein-RNA complex structures. We developed a computational method PxR3D-map which reliably predicts crosslink sites using structural information characterizing protein-RNA interaction interfaces. Analysis of the informative features revealed that photo-crosslinking is facilitated by base stacking with not only aromatic residues, but also dipeptide bonds that involve glycine, and distinct mechanisms are utilized by different RNA-binding domains. Our work suggests protein-RNA photo-crosslinking is highly selective in the cellular environment, which can guide data interpretation and further technology development for UV-crosslinking-based assays.

Abstract Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a prevalent arrhythmic condition resulting in increased stroke risk and is associated with high mortality. Electrolyte imbalance can increase the risk of AF, where the relationship between AF and serum electrolytes remains unclear. Methods A total of 15,792 individuals were included in the observational study, with incident AF ascertainment in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study. The Cox regression models were applied to calculate the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for AF based on different serum electrolyte levels. Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses were performed to examine the causal association. Results In observational study, after a median 19.7 years of follow-up, a total of 2551 developed AF. After full adjustment, participants with serum potassium below the 5th percentile had a higher risk of AF relative to participants in the middle quintile. Serum magnesium was also inversely associated with the risk of AF. An increased incidence of AF was identified in individuals with higher serum phosphate percentiles. Serum calcium levels were not related to AF risk. Moreover, MR analysis indicated that genetically predicted serum electrolyte levels were not causally associated with AF risk. The odds ratio for AF were 0.999 for potassium, 1.044 for magnesium, 0.728 for phosphate, and 0.979 for calcium, respectively. Conclusions Serum electrolyte disorders such as hypokalemia, hypomagnesemia and hyperphosphatemia were associated with an increased risk of AF and may also serve to be prognostic factors. However, the present study did not support serum electrolytes as causal mediators for AF development.