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Highlights: The I3− additive promoted in situ formation of zincophilic Cu nanoclusters on commercial Cu foil, which achieves uniform Zn deposition with ultralow nucleation overpotential and high reversibility. The Zn-rich ZnI2 cathode confined by graphene/polyvinyl pyrrolidone heterostructure shows enhanced conductivity and shuttle effect suppression, providing sufficient Zn2+ for the anode stably. The assembled anode-free Zn-iodine battery exhibits attractive features for commercialization: low cost, fast production, significantly increased energy density and durable cycle stability under practical application conditions.The anode-free design is a promising strategy to increase the energy density of aqueous Zn metal batteries (AZMBs). However, the scarcity of Zn-rich cathodes and the rapid loss of limited Zn greatly hinder their commercial applications. To address these issues, a novel anode-free Zn-iodine battery (AFZIB) was designed via a simple, low-cost and scalable approach. Iodine plays bifunctional roles in improving the AFZIB overall performance: enabling high-performance Zn-rich cathode and modulating Zn deposition behavior. On the cathode side, the ZnI2 serves as Zn-rich cathode material. The graphene/polyvinyl pyrrolidone heterostructure was employed as an efficient host for ZnI2 to enhance electron conductivity and suppress the shuttle effect of iodine species. On the anode side, trace I3− additive in the electrolyte creates surface reconstruction on the commercial Cu foil. The in situ formed zincophilic Cu nanocluster allows ultralow-overpotential and uniform Zn deposition and superior reversibility (average coulombic efficiency > 99.91% over 7,000 cycles). Based on such a configuration, AFZIB exhibits significantly increased energy density (162 Wh kg−1) and durable cycle stability (63.8% capacity retention after 200 cycles) under practical application conditions. Considering the low cost and simple preparation methods of the electrode materials, this work paves the way for the practical application of AZMBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of hydraulic fracturing makes use of fluid injection to conduct the fracturing treatment of reservoirs for the exploitation of unconventional resources. As is well known, hydraulic fracturing using water-based fracturing fluid is employed regularly in the commercial development of shale gas. The potential advantages of supercritical CO2 (SC-CO2) make it an ideal candidate of non-aqueous fluid to avoid problems associated with the hydraulic fracturing operations using water. The fracturing fluid plays such an important role in the fracturing process that it can directly affect the fracturing results of shale reservoir. Hydraulic fracturing experiments using freshwater and SC-CO2, under uniaxial stress state, were performed on the shale cores for study on the fracture propagation and micro-crack characteristics. Stereomicroscope was used for the measurement of the fracture to evaluate the fracture complexity. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to reveal the micro-cracks densely developed along the two sides of the fracture surface. The investigation results show that the fractures and micro-cracks induced by hydraulic fracturing constitute the transportation pathways for shale gas, which can link the organic pores to the macro-fractures. Investigation of the micro-cracks was carried out to compare the characteristics induced by freshwater and SC-CO2. The formation mechanism of the micro-crack was analyzed based on the SEM micrographs. Small slippage occurred along the micro-crack surface due to the deviator stress, which could bring about the sustained width of micro-crack for gas transportation. Analysis of the fracture propagation and micro-crack characteristics of hydraulic fracturing shows that SC-CO2 can create the fractures and micro-cracks with more complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients exhibit significant heterogeneity in tumor burden, physical condition, and responses to initial treatment. This diversity in treatment responses can result in varying treatment outcomes. The primary objective of this study was to explore the patient demographics associated with improved survival outcomes through radiotherapy. Based on the SEER database, we identified 42,824 SCLC patients enrolled between 2004 and 2015. These patients were stratified into radiotherapy (n = 20,360) and non-radiotherapy groups (n = 22,464). We controlled for confounding factors using propensity score matching (PSM) analysis. Subsequently, Kaplan–Meier (KM) analysis was employed to evaluate the impact of radiotherapy on patients' overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS). Cancer-specific mortality was further analyzed using competitive risk models. Cox analysis was also conducted to examine additional variables potentially affecting the survival of SCLC patients. We identified a total of 42,824 eligible patients, and following PSM, 13,329 patients were successfully matched in both the radiotherapy and non-radiotherapy groups. The KM analysis showed that the median OS was 9 months in the radiotherapy group and 6 months in the non-radiotherapy group. The median CSS was 10 months in the radiotherapy group and 7 months in the non-radiotherapy group. The 5-year OS and 10-year OS rates were 6.2% versus 1.6% in the radiotherapy group and 2.6% versus 0.8% in the non-radiotherapy group (P < 0.001). Competitive risk analysis showed that cancer-specific mortality was significantly higher in the non-radiotherapy group than in the radiotherapy group (P < 0.001). Multivariate Cox analysis showed that the radiotherapy group (relative non-radiotherapy group) showed a significant positive effect on survival outcomes (OS: HR 0.658 95% CI [0.642, 0.675] P < 0.001; CSS: HR 0.662 95% CI [0.645, 0.679], P < 0.001). In addition, age, gender, race, primary tumor site, T stage, N stage, M stage, chemotherapy, and surgery were also considered as important predictors of SCLC outcome. The results of the subgroup analysis showed that the radiotherapy group showed a significant survival advantage regardless of age, sex, race, primary tumor site, M stage, chemotherapy, and surgery (P < 0.001). Radiotherapy may improve both OS and CSS in SCLC patients. Patients with SCLC may benefit from radiotherapy regardless of age, sex, race, primary tumor site, M stage, chemotherapy, and surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High content of organic matter in the downstream of watersheds underscored the severity of non-point source (NPS) pollution. The major objectives of this study were to characterize and quantify dissolved organic matter (DOM) in watersheds affected by NPS pollution, and to apply self-organizing map (SOM) and parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) to assess fluorescence properties as proxy indicators for NPS pollution and labor-intensive routine water quality indicators. Water from upstreams and downstreams was sampled to measure dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations and excitation-emission matrix (EEM). Five fluorescence components were modeled with PARAFAC. The regression analysis between PARAFAC intensities (Fmax) and raw EEM measurements indicated that several raw fluorescence measurements at target excitation-emission wavelength region could provide similar DOM information to massive EEM measurements combined with PARAFAC. Regression analysis between DOC concentration and raw EEM measurements suggested that some regions in raw EEM could be used as surrogates for labor-intensive routine indicators. SOM can be used to visualize the occurrence of pollution. Relationship between DOC concentration and PARAFAC components analyzed with SOM suggested that PARAFAC component 2 might be the major part of bulk DOC and could be recognized as a proxy indicator to predict the DOC concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is one of the most common and severe genetic diseases. SMA carrier screening is an effective way to identify couples at risk of having affected children. Next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based expanded carrier screening could detect SMN1 gene copy number without extra experiment and with high cost performance. However, its performance has not been fully evaluated. Here we conducted a systematic comparative study to evaluate the performance of three common methods. 478 samples were analyzed with multiplex ligation probe amplification (MLPA), real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and NGS, simultaneously. Taking MLPA-based results as the reference, for 0 copy, 1 copy and ≥ 2 copy SMN1 analysis with NGS, the sensitivity, specificity and precision were all 100%. Using qPCR method, the sensitivity was 100%, 97.52% and 94.30%, respectively; 98.63%, 95.48% and 100% for specificity; and 72.72%, 88.72% and 100% for precision. NGS repeatability was higher than that of qPCR. Moreover, among three methods, NGS had the lowest retest rate. Thus, NGS is a relatively more reliable method for SMN1 gene copy number detection. In expanded carrier screening, compared with the combination of multiple methods, NGS method could reduce the test cost and simplify the screening process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study that examined the thermal structures of several deep seismic profiles in the continental margin in the northern South China Sea. Description of the area; Materials and methods used; Findings and discussion.

Swine manure application could affect soil legacy P and related transformation. Soil samples were taken for two rice seasons to uncover the responses of soil P fractions and phosphomonoesterase activities in a middle-term swine manure-applied rice field. The field experiment treatments included three swine manure organic amendment rates (26 [low], 39 [middle], and 52 kg P ha [high]) and two controls (no fertilizer and 26 kg P ha superphosphate). On seasonal average, the relative sizes of labile (HO-P, NaHCO-P, and NaHCO-P), moderately labile (NaOH-P and NaOH-P), and stable (HCl-P and residual-P) P pools were in 1: 3.1: 3.6 and 1: 2.3: 3.7 ratios in 2011 and 2012, respectively. According to P fractions (except for residual-P) and phosphomonoesterase activities, treatments could be ranked as M > M > M > P > CK over the whole rice growth stages, but the difference between the 39 and 52 kg P ha manure rates was not significant. Most of P fractions showed the highest content at rice seedling stage for all treatments while phosphomonoesterase activities reached their maximums at rice tillering stage for all treatments. Moreover, repeated swine manure did not affect most of P fractions (except for NaOH-P) and phosphomonoesterase activities under the plow layer due to the mature plow pans. Our results suggest that the swine manure application should be kept at about 39 kg P ha to decrease potential environmental risks and to maintain soil legacy P in the paddy soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the sixth most common cancer worldwide. The five-year survival rate of HNSCC has not improved even with major technological advancements in surgery and chemotherapy. Currently, docetaxel, cisplatin, and 5-fluoruracil (TPF) treatment has been the most popular chemotherapy method for HNSCC; but only a small percentage of HNSCC patients exhibit a good response to TPF treatment. Unfortunately, at present, no reasonably effective prediction model exists to assist clinicians with patient treatment. For this reason, patients have no other alternative but to risk neoadjuvant chemotherapy in order to determine their response to TPF. In this study, we analyzed the gene expression profile in TPF-sensitive and non-sensitive patient samples. We identified a gene expression signature between these two groups. We further chose 10 genes and trained a support vector machine (SVM) model. This model has 88.3% sensitivity and 88.9% specificity to predict the response to TPF treatment in our patients. In addition, four more TPF responsive and four more TPF non-sensitive patient samples were used for further validation. This SVM model has been proven to achieve approximately 75.0% sensitivity and 100% specificity to predict TPF response in new patients. This suggests that our 10-genes SVM prediction model has the potential to assist clinicians to personalize treatment for HNSCC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]