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While immunotherapy has emerged as a promising strategy to treat glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the limited availability of immunotherapeutic agents in tumors due to the presence of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment dampens efficacy. Nitric oxide (NO) plays a role in modulating both the BBB and tumor vessels and could thus be delivered to disrupt the BBB and improve the delivery of immunotherapeutics into GBM tumors. Herein, we report an immunotherapeutic approach that utilizes CXCR4-targeted lipid‑calcium-phosphate nanoparticles with NO donors (LCP-NO NPs). The delivery of NO resulted in enhanced BBB permeability and thus improved gene delivery across the BBB. CXCR4-targeted LCP-NO NPs delivered siRNA against the immune checkpoint ligand PD-L1 to GBM tumors, silenced PD-L1 expression, increased cytotoxic T cell infiltration and activation in GBM tumors, and suppressed GBM progression. Thus, the codelivery of NO and PD-L1 siRNA by these CXCR4-targeted NPs may serve as a potential immunotherapy for GBM.

Background Herpes zoster presents as clustered blisters on one side of the body, accompanied by nerve pain. This is caused by reactivation of the varicella zoster virus, and it occurs primarily in people with weakened immunity. Tumor and chemotherapy drugs can impair the patient's immune function, induce herpes zoster and prolong the course of disease.In these patients, skin changes can last for months and blisters can recur and cause serious complications such as postherpetic neuralgia.Acupuncture is a common alternative therapy for herpes zoster in East Asia. Case presentation We report a case of an elderly male patient with widespread herpes zoster in the trunk after non-Hodgkin's lymphoma chemotherapy. The patient had received conventional treatment with valaciclovir and mecobalamin within 24 hours of symptom onset. Because neither the clustered blisters nor the nerve pain were improved a week later, acupuncture and related techniques were applied. These included electro-acupuncture, surrounding acupuncture, fire acupuncture, and cupping. The patient recovered 20 days after the herpes zoster attack, and there were no adverse reactions during the treatment process. Conclusions This case suggests that acupuncture and related techniques are effective interventions for this condition.This case report is innovative because it shows that acupuncture as an adjuvant treatment can improve the skin lesions in patients with HZ after tumour chemotherapy, relieve pain, and shorten the course of HZ.

Fluorescence imaging is a noninvasive and dynamic real-time imaging technique; however, it exhibits poor spatial resolution in centimeter-deep tissues because biological tissues are highly scattering media for optical radiation. The recently developed ultrasound-controlled fluorescence (UCF) imaging is a novel imaging technique that can overcome this bottleneck. Previous studies suggested that the effective contrast agent and sensitive imaging system are the two pivotal factors for generating high-resolution UCF images ex vivo and/or in vivo. Here, this review highlights the recent advances (2015–2020) in the design and synthesis of contrast agents and the improvement of imaging systems to realize high-resolution UCF imaging of deep tissues. The imaging performances of various UCF systems, including the signal-to-noise ratio, imaging resolution, and imaging depth, are specifically discussed. In addition, the challenges and prospects are highlighted. With continuously increasing research interest in this field and emerging multidisciplinary applications, UCF imaging with higher spatial resolution and larger imaging depth may be developed shortly, which is expected to have a far-reaching impact on disease surveillance and/or therapy.

Buildings consume a large proportion of global primary energy and building performance management requires massive data inputs. Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a tool used for comparing different buildings while avoiding problems caused by heterogeneous data sources. However, silos of building and energy consumption data are separate, and the linkages between a KPI formula and different data sets are often non-existent. This paper develops an ontology-based approach for automatically calculating the KPI to support building energy evaluation. The proposed approach integrates building information from BIM and energy and environmental information collected by sensor networks. A KPI ontology is developed to establish a KPI formula, thereby linking static and dynamic data generated in the building operation phase. Each KPI can be defined by inputs, a formula and outputs, and the formula consists of parameters and operators. The parameters can be linked to building data or transformed into a SPARQL query. A case study is investigated based on the proposed approach, and the KPIs for energy and environment are calculated for a real building project. The result shows that this approach relates the KPI formula to the data generated in the building operation phase and can automatically give the result after defining the space and time of interest, thus supporting building performance benchmarking with massive data sets at different levels of details. This research proposes a novel approach to integrating the KPI formula and linked building data from a semantic perspective, and other researchers can use this approach as a foundation for linking data from different sources and computational methods such as formula created for building performance evaluation.

Based on the previous work on Si3N4-ZrB2, the addition of 2.5 vol.% ZrB2 promoted α- to β-Si3N4 phase transformation, bimodal microstructure, and toughness and strength improvement after hot-pressing at 1500 °C. However, the mechanism needed to be further explored. In the present work, the effect of ZrB2 and its oxide impurities (ZrO2 and B2O3) on phase composition, microstructure and mechanical properties of Si3N4 ceramics with MgO-Yb2O3 additives were studied. Results showed that the addition of B2O3 had no influence on Si3N4 ceramics, whereas the addition of ZrO2 inhibited the α- to β-Si3N4 phase transformation, formed an uniform equiaxed microstructure, and deceased the toughness and strength. The positive effect of oxide impurities can be eliminated. Based on the STEM analysis, the possible reason was that the addition of ZrB2 led to the formation of Si-Mg-O-N-Yb-Zr-B liquid phase, and then promoted α- to β-Si3N4 phase transformation.

Highly c-axis textured β-silicon nitride (β-Si3N4) ceramic with fine grains was prepared by a new method of hot extrusion for the first time. The (002) pole figure on the section plane vertical to extruding direction showed a characteristic of center rotational symmetry. The average cline angle between elongated β-Si3N4 grains and hot extruding direction was about 14.4°. The degree of c-axis texturing by hot extrusion was comparable to that achieved by rotating magnetic field. The hardness and toughness anisotropy in different direction was apparent and relatively higher hardness was achieved in the present work mainly due to the finer grain size. Therefore, many different compositions of c-axis aligned Si3N4-based ceramics with tailored mechanical properties could be achieved by the strategy of hot extrusion.