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Dysregulation of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) still greatly challenges the treatments for bladder cancer (BC), where exosomal miRNAs derived from CAFs are one of the essential effectors for tumor progression. miR-93-5p is reported to be upregulated in BC, however, it is barely investigated in BC-derived CAFs.The CAF markers were immunofluorescent-labeled and examined by western blotting assay in CAFs and normal fibroblasts (NFs). CAFs- and NFs-derived exosomes (CAFs-exo/NFs-exo) were authenticated by transmission electron microscope and nanoparticle tracking analysis. Cell viability was determined by cell counting kit-8 assay, and cell mobility was evaluated by wound healing and transwell assays. Real-time quantitative PCR was used to quantify the RNA expressions, and a western blotting assay was used for protein expression. Interaction between miR-93-5p and Platelet-Activating Factor Acetylhydrolase IB Subunit Beta (PAFAH1B1) was verified by luciferase reporter assay. HE staining assay was applied to assess the histological changes of xenografts.CAFs-exo notably enhanced cell mobility and the expression levels of miR-93-5p of BC cells compared to NFs-exo. However, inhibition of miR-93-5p in CAFs-exo exhibited attenuated pro-metastatic ability on BC cells. PAFAH1B1 was one of the predicted targets of miR-93-5p, whose mRNA level was most significantly downregulated after miR-93-5p transfection. The interaction between PAFAH1B1 and miR-93-5p was verified, and miR-93-5p negatively regulated the protein level of PAFAH1B1. Overexpression of PAFAH1B1 could efficiently reverse the effects of miR-93-5p mimic on BC cell mobility. Finally, inhibition of miR-93-5p was proved to impair the carcinogenic function of CAFs-exo in vivo.Exosomal miR-93-5p derived from CAFs confers oncogenicity on BC cells via sponging PAFAH1B1, suggesting a novel therapeutic strategy for BC.

Tungsten carbide (WC)-based materials are widely considered as the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) process catalysts due to their “Pt-like” electronic structure. Nonetheless, traditional powder electrodes have a high cost, and display problems related to the process itself and the poor stability over operation time. This paper presented a self-supported asymmetric porous ceramic electrode with WO3−x whiskers formed in situ on the walls of the finger-like holes and membrane surface, which was prepared by combining phase inversion tape-casting, pressureless sintering, and thermal treatment in a CO2 atmosphere. The optimized ceramic electrode displayed good catalytic HER activity and outstanding stability at high current densities. More specifically, it demonstrated the lowest overpotentials of 107 and 123 mV and the lowest Tafel slopes of 59.3 and 72.4 mV·dec−1 at 10 mA·cm−2 in acidic and alkaline media, respectively. This superior performance was ascribed to the structure of the ceramic membrane and the charge transfer efficiency, which was favored by the in situ developed WC/WO3−x heterostructure and the oxygen vacancies.

Objective. This study was designed to explore the efficacy of azithromycin plus glucocorticoid adjuvant therapy on the levels of serum inflammatory factors and the incidence of adverse reactions in children with mycoplasma pneumonia. Method. A total of 90 eligible children with mycoplasma pneumonia in our hospital from January 2019 to January 2020 were recruited. They were assigned to receive either azithromycin (control group) or azithromycin plus glucocorticoid (experimental group) according to the order of admission. Outcome measures included clinical efficacy, serum inflammatory factor indicators, lung function, clinical symptom mitigation, length of hospital stay, immune function, incidence of adverse reactions, and psychological status of the eligible children. Results. Azithromycin plus glucocorticoid was associated with a significantly higher total clinical efficacy compared with azithromycin P < 0.05 . No significant differences were found in the serum inflammatory factor indices between the two groups P > 0.05 . The children given azithromycin plus glucocorticoid showed lower levels of serum inflammatory factors versus those given azithromycin alone P < 0.001 . Azithromycin plus glucocorticoid outperformed the monotherapy of azithromycin in terms of lung function P < 0.001 . Children after azithromycin plus glucocorticoid therapy had a faster clinical symptom disappearance and shorter length of hospital stay compared with after azithromycin alone P < 0.001 . Azithromycin plus glucocorticoid resulted in higher levels of immune function indices compared with azithromycin alone P < 0.001 . Azithromycin plus glucocorticoid was associated with a lower incidence of adverse reactions compared with azithromycin P < 0.05 . Lower Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) scores were witnessed in children given azithromycin plus glucocorticoid compared with monotherapy of azithromycin P < 0.001 . Conclusion. Azithromycin plus glucocorticoid in children with mycoplasma pneumonia can effectively improve the clinical indicators of the children with promising efficacy and high safety, which is worthy of promotion and application.

Scalable fabrication of membrane substrates, having high strength, customizable pore size, high gas and water permeation, has been key issue in recent years due to the rapid growth of engineered separation processes. This work provides a novel fabrication method for porous Al2O3 membrane substrates (PAS) by using suspension emulsions as pore forming agents and gel-tape-casting as a shaping method. The substrates displayed a smooth surface and a porous internal structure. By adjusting the volume ratio of water and oil from 1:1 to 1:4, the average pore size increased from 0.53 to 1.06 μm. Moreover, the porosity increased from 50.7% to 75.8%, in contrast, the bending strength decreased from 46.7 ± 1.5 to 17.3 ± 1.1 MPa. In addition, the permeability of the N2 and water was improved from 8.13 × 105 to 5.10 × 106 L m−2 h−1 bar−1 and 5.02 × 103 to 1.84 × 104 L m−2 h−1 bar−1 respectively and as a result, this can qualify the membranes for a wide range of applications.

Understanding the causal relations between the load situation and the lifetime at high temperature is extremely important in the application of alumina foams in high temperature industry. In this work, alumina foams were obtained at the sintering temperature of 1700 °C. The observation of microstructure of alumina foams showed that the structure of grains in the pore wall were of point contact structure. Key properties, such as flexural strength, elastic modulus, compressive creep, coefficient of thermal expansion and thermal conductivity of alumina foams were measured from room temperature to 1400 °C. The variation of the above properties of alumina foams as a function of temperature was investigated. The results showed that significant decrease in flexural strength and elastic modulus were observed when the temperature was over 1000 °C. Under this unique structure, minor liquid phase at the grain boundary could lead to the grain slip and further the remarkable decreases of the high temperature performance.

The application of traditional MIEC cathode material Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3-δ (BSCF) in the solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) field is limited due to its susceptibility to CO2 and high thermal expansion coefficient. Therefore, improving the stability of BSCF cathode in CO2-containing environments and the matching degree between BSCF and electrolyte are the key factors to achieve its excellent electrochemical and stable performance for intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells (IT-SOFCs). Herein, the cathode materials Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2-xTaxO3-δ (X = 0, 0.1, 0.2) are successfully prepared and the effects of Ta-doped content are investigated systematically. With the increase of Ta-doped content, the thermal expansion coefficient of BSCF0.2-xTx decreases from 25.1 × 10−6 K−1 to 16.5 × 10−6 K−1, which indicated that Ta-doped enhanced the combination of cathode material and electrolyte. In single-cell applications, the maximum power density of 926.4 mW cm−2 and the lowest polarization resistance of 0.06 Ω cm2 at 700 °C are achieved. Furthermore, theoretical calculations show that the CO2 adsorption energy of BSCFT is 0.12 eV higher than that of BSCF, indicating that BSCFT exhibited improved resistance to CO2 corrosion compared with BSCF. It is indicated that the Ta-doping strategy has the advantage of improving both the performance and stability of BSCF cathode materials.

After the removal of Pb (II) from wastewater by Fe-Mg metal-organic complex adsorbent (Fe-Mg-BDC) without desorption, As(V) was removed again by the formed complex of Fe-Pb(Mg)-BDC. The results showed that Fe-Mg-BDC could effectively remove Pb(II), and the removal mechanism was ion exchange. As(V) was also removed efficiently and rapidly by Fe-Pb(Mg)-BDC saturated with Pb(II). In particular, Fe-Pb(Mg)-BDC had a good adsorption capacity on As (V) at low concentrations, and could control the concentration of As (V) below the standard concentration of drinking water. Moreover, Fe-Pb(Mg)-BDC had a good renewable ability. Therefore, Fe-Mg organometallic complexes had a certain application prospect in the removal of oxygen-containing anions and cations.

Vanadium redox flow battery (VRB), as the most promising large-scale electrical energy storage units, has attracted extensive attention. Amphoteric ion exchange membrane (AIEM), as the core part of VRB, separates electrolyte on both sides of electrolytic tank and conducts H+. The AIEM with cation and anion groups possesses excellent performances, such as high ion conductivity (σ), low vanadium ion permeability (PVn+), relative stability and low cost. However, the performance of AIEM directly depends on the chemical structure of polymers. In addition to ensuring foundational physical performance, ion selectivity of AIEM is significant since the crossover of vanadium ion with various valences may reduce the battery capacity. In this paper, AIEMs for VRB and their chemical structures as well as synthesis approaches to realize all kinds of high-performing AIEMs are reviewed. The current trend and future direction of prospective materials for the VRB separators are documented in detail as well.

High flexibility, as one target for wearable batteries, requires each component of battery devices to be soft. However, softness, as an index reflecting the soft degree, was seldom applied in battery field. Here, several metal-deposited soft substrates, including cloth, paper and sponge were produced using a universal electroless plating method. High conductivity (4~200 kS m‒1) and high coverage of active materials was achieved without sacrificing the softness (~8 mm) of cotton cloth. Given such a visible value, the softness of the total battery device can be tuned. Consequently, batteries based on these metal-conductive cloths show excellent performance and high softness. The assembled Ag cloth//Zn battery delivered a stable output of 1.0 mAh cm‒2 with a softness of 4.21 mm. The Ni cloth//Zn battery provided a high discharge capacity of 0.98 mAh cm‒2 at 4 mA cm‒2 with a high discharge plateau around 1.7 V (energy density of 1.7 mWh cm–2 at a power density of 8.5 mW cm–2). Moreover, a large size (360 cm2) of flexible Ni cloth//Zn device with a softness of 3.34 mm and discharge capacity of 132 mAh is fabricated and mounted on a human cloth to power electronics.

To investigate the effects of incorporating gas and the associated influencing factors on polymer melt, a method of evaluating the gas-laden ability using modified rheometric measurements was proposed. In this study, common and widely used thermoplastic materials—polypropylene (PP) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE), and their blends with different weight ratios—were selected, and the rheological properties of neat melt and gas-laden melts were tested using a modified torque rheometer. The foamed samples were also produced using a regular injection-molding machine, and the foamed morphology was examined by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The comparison of rheological curves of neat melt and gas-laden melt indicated that the incorporation of gas influenced the rheological properties of the gas-laden polymer melts as evidenced by a decrease of zero-rotational torque and an increase in the melt flow index. The results also suggested that the gas-laden ability of polymer melt could be evaluated quantitatively by the decay (due to desorption) of gas using the modified rheological measurement method. This study also demonstrated that the gas-laden ability can be used to predict the foaming behavior of polymer melts.

Wearable piezoresitive sensors have exhibited promising potentials for applications in motion detection and human-computer interactions. Herein, we reported a facile sol-gel followed by hydrothermal reduction approach to prepare polypyrrole/reduced graphite oxide aerogel (PPy@rGA) film, which is more oriented to flexible wearable piezoresistive sensors as compared with traditional cylindrical reduced graphene oxide (rGO) aerogel. The strong π-π interactions between rGO and PPy enhance the interfacial strength and help to maintain the integrity of the composite aerogel film. Meanwhile, the PPy nanoparticles anchoring on the edges and defects of rGO sheets create more electrically conductive paths when an external pressure is applied, and therefore give rise to significant changes in the resistance value and thus excellent piezoresistive sensing performance. The PPy2@rGA film (pyrrole monomer: graphene oxide is 2:1 wt%)–based piezoresistive sensor exhibits a high sensitivity of 0.9 kPa−1 in a linear range that is of 0 to 1 kPa, a short response time of 165 ms, and a short relaxation time of 132 ms, and is able to withstand 10,000 cycles. Moreover, the wearable sensor is capable of detecting large as well as small human motion. This study shows the feasibility of fabricating wearable piezoresitive sensors from rGO aerogel films reinforced by intrinsically conductive polymers. In this polypyrrole/reduced graphite oxide aerogel film which is more oriented to flexible wearable piezoresistive sensors, PPy nanoparticles anchor adjacent rGO sheets via strong π-π interfacial forces and meanwhile serve as nano-spacers that contribute to an enhanced piezoresistive sensing performance.

With fluidity and dangerous corrosiveness, liquid insulating bromine elemental (Br2) can hardly be confined by traditional conductive carriers (mainly carbon materials) for efficient redox without ...

Supramolecular polymers have the combined properties of both traditional polymers and supramolecules. They are generally formed via the self-assembled polymerization driven noncovalent interactions such as hydrogen bonding, π-π stacking, metal coordination, and host-guest interaction between building blocks. The driving force for the formation of supramolecular polymers has changed from single noncovalent interactions to multiple noncovalent interactions. The advantages of multiple noncovalent interactions driving the formation of supramolecular polymers are reviewed from four aspects: polymer construction, the enhancement of bonding strength, properties and topological structure. The applications are illustrated with detailed examples including self-healing, drug delivery, bioimaging, biomedicine, environmental sensing and electronics.

The Zn metal anodes of aqueous zinc ion batteries (ZIBs) suffer from dendrites and severe side reactions, such as the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and passivation, which seriously restrict the shelf life of ZIBs. Herein, these issues were addressed with a solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) based on the poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) filled by the poly(methyl acrylate) grafted MXenes (denoted as PVHF/MXene-g-PMA) for the first time. Homogeneously dispersed MXenes were achieved benefiting from the intriguing interaction between the highly grafted PMA and PVHF matrix. The resulting SPE exhibits three orders of magnitude larger ionic conductivity than the PVHF matrix, reaching 2.69 × 10−4 S cm−1 at room temperature. Dendrite-free Zn plating/stripping with high reversibility was achieved (over 1000 h cycles at room temperature and 200 h at high temperature). Subsequently, the fabricated solid full cells with eliminated HER and suppressed anode dendrites exhibited excellent cycling performance of 10 000 cycles at 2C at room temperature and could work normally at temperatures ranging from −35 °C to 100 °C. Most importantly, over 90 days of shelf life was attained for the all-solid-state ZIBs after storage at low/high temperatures. Our work represents a substantial progress on the all-solid-state ZIBs with superior stability and reliability, reflected by the effectively suppressed dendrites and side reactions, excellent cycling performance and remarkable shelf life.

In order to study the forming law of the disc cutter ring in the independently researched die, the finite element model (FEM) of disc cutter ring for die forging has been established and the die forging process has been simulated by the plastic forming software. The metal flow field, temperature field, stress and strain field of the filling process were obtained by simulation. The exerted force of the die was also simulated and analyzed; thus, the die forging process was optimized. Based on the designed process parameters and simulation results, the experimental study on die forging forming of cutter ring was carried out. The comparison shows that the numerical simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental results, which proves that the die forging model of disc cutter ring in this paper is feasible.

The (photo)electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction for ammonia (NH3) production is an appealing alternative to the traditional high-energy Haber–Bosch reaction. However, the future of this approach is bleak because of the ultralow N2 solubility and the nonpolar NN bond causing the NH3 yield and selectivity to be unsatisfactory. Nitrate electroreduction (NORR) into NH3 brings promise for the future landscape of NH3 electrosynthesis due to the low NO bond energy and high nitrate solubility. Here, we report a highly efficient Pd-doped TiO2 nanoarray electrode for NH3 production from the NORR. With weakened adsorption abilities to the intermediates induced by Pd introduction, the catalyst delivers a record-high NH3 yield of 1.12 mg cm−2 h−1 (or 0.066 mmol cm−2 h−1), an impressive NH3 faradaic efficiency (FE) of 92.1%, and an exceptional nitrate conversion of 99.6%. Considering an eight-electron nitrate-to-ammonia reaction and the excellent electrocatalytic activity of Pd/TiO2, we, for the first time, propose and develop a Zn–nitrate battery system, which delivers striking bifunctionality for harnessing the electrons related to the NORR to generate electricity and directly produce NH3, specified by a power density of 0.87 mW cm−2 and a high NH3 FE of 81.3%. Our work not only verifies the positive effect of Pd doping on facilitating the NORR, but also demonstrates a galvanic nitrate-based cell providing a promising strategy for NH3 production and broadening the field of Zn-based batteries.