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The interface issue concerning lithium dendrite formation between the separator and electrode remains a significant impediment to the further advancement of lithium‐ion batteries (LIB). Due to the inadequate interface compatibility between the conventional polyolefin separator and the electrode, there is a propensity for lithium dendrite growth. In this work, the surface of the polyethylene (PE) separator is coated with polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) gel using a simple phase transformation method, resulting in the preparation of a composite separator consisting of PE and PVDF. The results demonstrate an enhanced interface compatibility following the introduction of the gel layer, with a polarization voltage as low as 0.14 V observed after 250 h of cycling. Additionally, the ionic conductivity of the PE/PVDF composite separator (1.77 mS cm−1) is enhanced, attributed to the incorporation of F functional group in PVDF gel, which could facilitate the formation of a rapid ion transport pathway through the interaction between F functional group and Li+. After the introduction of the gel layer, the discharge capacity of the battery after 250 cycles measures ~1.28 mAh, with a mere 27% decay in capacity. This study presents a novel concept for the design of composite separator in LIB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A tetrasaccharide repeating unit of the O‐antigen from Escherichia coli O33 has been synthesized for the first time using a chemoselective [1+1+2] one‐pot glycan assembly strategy. The phosphoglycerol moiety was installed by using the phosphoramidite method with benzylidene‐protected glycerol 2‐phosphoramidite as the reagent. Overall, the target tetrasaccharide was synthesized from monosaccharide building blocks in 12 linear steps, resulting in a satisfactory yield of 28 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is related to an increased risk of postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD), which may be caused by neuronal hyperexcitability. Astrocyte glutamate transporter 1 (GLT‐1) plays a crucial role in regulating neuron excitability. We investigated if T2DM would magnify the increased neuronal excitability induced by anesthesia/surgery (A/S) and lead to POCD in young adult mice, and if so, determined whether these effects were associated with GLT‐1 expression. Methods: T2DM model was induced by high fat diet (HFD) and injecting STZ. Then, we evaluated the spatial learning and memory of T2DM mice after A/S with the novel object recognition test (NORT) and object location test (OLT). Western blotting and immunofluorescence were used to analyze the expression levels of GLT‐1 and neuronal excitability. Oxidative stress reaction and neuronal apoptosis were detected with SOD2 expression, MMP level, and Tunel staining. Hippocampal functional synaptic plasticity was assessed with long‐term potentiation (LTP). In the intervention study, we overexpressed hippocampal astrocyte GLT‐1 in GFAP‐Cre mice. Besides, AAV‐Camkllα‐hM4Di‐mCherry was injected to inhibit neuronal hyperexcitability in CA1 region. Results: Our study found T2DM but not A/S reduced GLT‐1 expression in hippocampal astrocytes. Interestingly, GLT‐1 deficiency alone couldn't lead to cognitive decline, but the downregulation of GLT‐1 in T2DM mice obviously enhanced increased hippocampal glutamatergic neuron excitability induced by A/S. The hyperexcitability caused neuronal apoptosis and cognitive impairment. Overexpression of GLT‐1 rescued postoperative cognitive dysfunction, glutamatergic neuron hyperexcitability, oxidative stress reaction, and apoptosis in hippocampus. Moreover, chemogenetic inhibition of hippocampal glutamatergic neurons reduced oxidative stress and apoptosis and alleviated postoperative cognitive dysfunction. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the adult mice with type 2 diabetes are at an increased risk of developing POCD, perhaps due to the downregulation of GLT‐1 in hippocampal astrocytes, which enhances increased glutamatergic neuron excitability induced by A/S and leads to oxidative stress reaction, and neuronal apoptosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aqueous zinc ion batteries have been extensively researched due to their distinctive advantages such as low cost and high safety. Vanadium oxides are important cathode materials, however, poor cycle life caused by vanadium dissolution limits their application. Recent studies show that the lattice NH4+ in vanadium oxides can act as a pillar to enhance structural stability and play a crucial role in improving its cycling stability. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of research on the effect of the lattice NH4+ content on structural evolution and electrochemical performance. Herein, we synthesize vanadium oxides with different contents of lattice NH4+ by a one‐step hydrothermal reaction. The vanadium oxides with lattice NH4+ exhibit high initial capacity, as well as good cycling stability and rate performance compared to bare vanadium oxide. Combined with electrochemical analyses, ex‐situ structural characterizations, and in‐situ X‐ray diffraction tests, we reveal that the lattice NH4+ content plays a positive role in vanadium oxides′ structural stability and cation diffusion kinetics. This work presents a direction for designing high–performance vanadium cathodes for aqueous zinc ion batteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3‐Deoxy‐d‐manno‐oct‐2‐ulosonic acid (Kdo) is an eight‐carbon monosaccharide found widely in bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) and capsule polysaccharides (CPSs). We developed an indirect method for the stereoselective synthesis of α‐Kdo glycosides with a C3‐p‐tolylthio‐substituted Kdo phosphite donor. The presence of the p‐tolylthio group enhanced the reactivity, suppressed the formation of elimination by‐products (2,3‐enes), and provided complete α‐stereocontrol. A variety of Kdo α‐glycosides were synthesized by our method in excellent yields (up to 98 %). After glycosylation, the p‐tolylthio group can be efficiently removed by free‐radical reduction. Subsequently, the orthogonality of the phosphite donor and thioglycoside donor was demonstrated by the one‐pot synthesis of a trisaccharide in Helicobacter pylori and Neisseria meningitidis LPS. Moreover, an efficient total synthesis route to the challenging 4,5‐branched Kdo trisaccharide in LPSs from several A. baumannii strains was highlighted. To demonstrate the high reactivity of our approach further, the highly crowded 4,5,7,8‐branched Kdo pentasaccharide was synthesized as a model molecule for the first time. Additionally, the reaction mechanism was investigated by DFT calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has diversified resources of indigenous cattle, which are classified into Northern, Central, and Southern groups according to their geographical distribution. Chaling cattle belong to Southern group. This breed is famous for the production of good quality meat with elite meat grades. To analyze the genetic diversity of Chaling cattle, 20 samples were sequenced using whole‐genome resequencing technology, along with 138 published whole‐genome sequencing data of Indian indicine cattle, Chinese indicine cattle, East Asian taurine cattle, Eurasian taurine cattle, and European taurine cattle as control. It was found that Chaling cattle originated from Chinese indicine cattle. The genetic diversity of Chaling cattle is higher than that of Indian indicine cattle, East Asian taurine cattle, Eurasian taurine cattle, and European taurine cattle, but lower than that of Chinese indicine cattle and Xiangxi cattle. Annotating the selection signals obtained by composite likelihood ratio, θπ, FST, π‐ratio, and XP‐EHH methods, several genes associated with immunity, heat tolerance, reproduction, growth, and meat quality showed strong selection signals. In general, this study provides a theoretical basis for analyzing the genetic mechanism of Chaling cattle with excellent adaptability, rough feeding tolerance, good immune performance, and good meat quality. This work lays a foundation for genetic breeding of Chaling cattle in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tea processing plays an important role in the formation of tea aroma. In order to explore the composition and variation in aroma during Rizhao green tea processing, gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry was employed to investigate the formation and changes of tea aroma in four processing stages. A total of 62 volatile compounds were identified, including alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, esters, terpenes, and oxygen compounds. Relative odor activity value was used to identify 17 characteristic aroma compounds. The main aromatic compounds of chestnut-like aroma were linalool, pentanal, hexanal, heptanal, octanal, nonanal, 2-methylbutanal, 3-methylbutanal, 3-methylthiopropanal, and methyl 2-methylbutanoate. There were significant changes in the volatile components at different processing stages. Samples of tea leaves and green tea had special aroma characteristics, while samples of fixated and rolled leaves had similar aroma compounds. The results are beneficial for the improvement of the flavor and quality of Rizhao green tea. Practical Application. Tea is the world's most consumed nonalcoholic beverage, with a multitude of health-promoting benefits, such as antioxidant, antiobesity, and antiallergic activities. At present, the research on the aroma compounds of Rizhao green tea mainly focuses on the aroma characteristics of finished tea and the aroma differences of different kinds of commercial tea. This study explored the effects of the processes on aroma compounds, and the results provide a theoretical reference for the improvement of tea processing technology, tea quality control, and evaluation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fully automated, closed‐column chromatographic system with parallel multi‐channel has been developed. This system is established with seven reagent reservoirs, one multi‐channel syringe pump, eight 10‐port valves, forty sample tubes, 40 columns, and a fraction collection tray. Four samples can be purified simultaneously at a time, and 40 samples can be purified in one batch. Each sample can be purified by an independent channel, avoiding cross‐contamination. The sample tubes can be flipped upside down for automatic cleaning, which eliminates the residue of samples. Moreover, the fraction collection tray can collect up to 104 different target components. The key performance of the system has been investigated. The results show that the sample tubes are well‐cleaned, the bubble does not affect the chemical behavior of columns, the consistency of the parallel channels is excellent and the blank of the system is negligible. The system was demonstrated by the purification of Sr from reference materials (BCR‐2, JB‐2, JB‐3, and NIST SRM 987). The recoveries of Sr are better than 89.4% and the blank of the whole procedure is less than 200 pg. The Sr isotope values agree well with the reference values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many effective methods extract and fuse different protein features to study the relationship between protein sequence, structure, and function, but different methods have preferences in solving the research of protein structure and function, which requires selecting valuable and contributing features to design more effective prediction methods. This work mainly focused on the feature selection methods in the study of protein structure and function, and systematically compared and analyzed the efficiency of different feature selection methods in the prediction of protein structures, protein disorders, protein molecular chaperones, and protein solubility. The results show that the feature selection method based on nonlinear SVM performs best in protein structure prediction, protein solubility prediction, protein molecular chaperone prediction, and protein solubility prediction. After selection, the accuracy of features is improved by 13.16% ~71%, especially the Kmer features and PSSM features of proteins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focal therapy, or partial gland ablation, represents the middle ground between active surveillance and definitive treatment strategies against localized prostate cancer (PCa), among which the ultrasound‐ and light‐mediated focal therapies are quite promising. Herein, for the first time in the literature, a novel polysaccharide‐based nanoprodrug is fabricated for synergistic sonodynamic therapy and phototherapy against localized PCa. Specifically, the cyanine dye IR806 is conjugated to chondroitin sulfate (CS) via disulfide linkages to obtain CS‐ss‐IR806 (CSR) conjugates, which then self‐assemble to form CSR nanoparticles (NPs) with properties of enhanced endocytosis, redox/hyaluronidase‐responsiveness, and mitochondria‐targeted ability. In contrast to free sensitizers, CSR NPs reveal dramatically enhanced water solubility, substantially lower dark toxicity, and superior biocompatibility. Encouragingly, favorable hyperthermia and high reactive oxygen species generation are observed on exposing CSR NPs to combined sono/photoirradiation. In a PCa tumor‐bearing mice model, intratumoral injection with a markedly low dose of CSR NPs followed by dual‐irradiation results in superior trimodal anticancer efficacy when compared with either monoirradiation strategy. Such synergistic antitumor efficacy is further demonstrated to be associated with the common and complementary mechanisms of sonotherapy and phototherapy. This work provides a promising approach as a next‐generation focal therapy strategy against localized PCa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The provisional prosthesis is a prerequisite for prosthodontic rehabilitation. The purpose of this technique was to register facial and intraoral scans predictably. A 3D virtual patient was created through facial scans, intraoral scans, digital face‐bow transfer, and digital cross‐articulation technique. This virtual patient allowed predictable positioning of intraoral scans to a virtual articulator by using digital face‐bow transfer. The resulting virtual patient facilitated the design of definitive prostheses following a facially generated treatment planning principle. In addition, the virtual articulator was used to improve occlusal design on the definitive prostheses and reduce the need for intraoral adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CD4+CD8+ double‐positive thymocytes give rise to both conventional TCRαβ+ T cells and invariant natural killer T cells (iNKT cells), but these two kinds of cells display different characteristics. The molecular mechanism underlying iNKT cell lineage development and function acquisition remain to be elucidated. We show that the loss of chromatin assembly factor 1B (CHAF1b) maintains the normal development of conventional TCRαβ+ T cells but severely impairs early development of iNKT cells. This dysregulation is accompanied by the impairment in chromatin activation and gene transcription at Vα14‐Jα18 locus. Notably, ectopic expression of a Vα14‐Jα18 TCR rescues Chaf1b‐deficient iNKT cell developmental defects. Moreover, cytokine secretion and antitumor activity are substantially maintained in Vα14‐Jα18 TCR transgene‐rescued Chaf1b‐deficient iNKT cells. Our study identifies CHAF1b as a critical factor that controls the early development but not function acquisition of iNKT cells via lineage‐ and stage‐specific regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The entropy method describes the change in the signal state from a macroscopic angle and weakens the interference generated by random noise. From the angle of chaos, which describes the first arrival of microseismic signals, it predicts the trend of noise entropy based on the grey theory. The results indicate that the entropy method is sensitive to amplitude, frequency, and seismic phase changes. Compared with traditional methods, the entropy method has better noise immunity. In terms of the influence of the pickup parameter on the resulting error, the entropy method demonstrated the best result and produces the smallest error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of ramie (Boehmeria nivea, previously known as a fibre crop and also called "China grass") included in diets on growth performance, antioxidative capacity and muscular fatty acid profile of finishing pigs. A total of 180 Xiangcun Black pigs (initial body weight =70.71 ± 1.21 kg) were randomly allotted to 1 of 5 dietary treatments with six pens of six pigs per pen. The pigs were provided a basal diet or a diet contained 3%, 6%, 9% or 12% of ramie powder during a 50‐day experiment period. The results showed that the inclusion of ramie increased (quadratic, p < 0.05) the average daily gain (ADG) and gain:feed ratio (G:F) with the highest value of ADG and G:F in 3% ramie group, but ramie content in the diet up to 9% reduced the growth performance of the pigs compared with that of 3% ramie group. The activity of serum total superoxide dismutase (SOD) was increased (linear, p < 0.05) by ramie, while content of malondialdehyde was decreased (linear, p < 0.05). As increasing the dietary ramie level, the mRNA expression level of SOD1 was increased quadratically (p < 0.05) in muscle tissues. Moreover, the addition of ramie linearly increased (p < 0.05) polyunsaturated fatty acids content, whereas it linearly reduced (p < 0.05) the lipid indices of atherogenicity (AI) and thrombogenicity (TI) in muscle tissues, and lower values of AI and TI reflect a "healthier" fat composition. The results indicated that ramie in a diet not more than 9% may improve antioxidative capacity with no detrimental impact on growth performance of Chinese native finishing pigs; meanwhile, it could beneficially change the pork fatty acid pattern which has a positive impact on consumer's health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel metal-free allylic C−C σ-bond cleavage of simple olefins to give valuable cinnamyl aldehydes is reported. 1,2-Aryl or alkyl migration through allylic C−C bond cleavage occurs in this transformation, which is assisted by an alkyl azide reagent. This method enables O-atom incorporation into simple unfunctionalized olefins to construct cinnamyl aldehydes. The reaction features simple hydrocarbon substrates, metal-free conditions, and high regio- and stereoselectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights Curing high‐performance carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) structures with economical and energy‐efficient off‐oven techniques is important for the widespread application of the composite. In this work, we reported a magnetic particle‐induced in situ heating method to controllably cure CFRP laminates with stacking sequences of [0]8, [0/90]4s and [0/45/90/−45]2s. Results showed that all the laminates can undergo a consistent, layup‐independent two‐staged heating protocol via regulating the magnetic field intensity. Under the same curing protocol, the three stacking‐sequenced CFRP laminates can be cured more completely under induction heating than oven heating, in addition to a moderately improved tensile and flexural properties. However, the porosity of the laminates slightly increased under induction heating. The proposed new curing method provides a new avenue to the fabrication of advanced CFRP composite structures without oven or autoclave. A particle‐induced in situ heating method to controllably cure carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates was proposed. This method was capable to cure CFRP laminates with different stacking sequences. Mechanical property of laminates was moderately improved under this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of high‐performance low‐temperature lithium metal batteries (LMBs) is hindered by severe lithium dendrite growth and sluggish charge transfer, both of which can be effectively addressed by constructing a robust solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) with improved Li+ transport kinetics. Compared to the soft organic SEI layers, LiF‐rich SEI shows sufficient mechanical strength to impede lithium dendrite growth, however, its extremely low ionic conductivity (≈10−13 S cm−1) hinders Li+ transport kinetics at low temperatures. Herein, a quasi‐ionic liquid (QIL, [Li(15‐crown‐5)]NO3) additive with rich NO3− is developed by introducing 15‐crown‐5 into LiNO3, which induces the in situ formation of SEI with abundant Li3N. Impressively, this Li3N SEI exhibits superior lithium affinity and lower ionic diffusion barriers as learned from empirical and computational studies, suggesting that it may be powerful to conquer the sluggish Li+ kinetics at low temperature. With the assistance of QIL additive, Li/LiCoO2 cells with a high mass loading of 11.5 mg cm−2 demonstrate stable cycling for 250 cycles without any capacity decay at ‐20 °C. This work opens an emerging avenue to construct high‐performance low‐temperature LMBs by manipulating SEI composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]