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Photocatalysis is one of the most promising pathways to relieve the environmental contamination caused by the rapid development of modern technology. In this work, we demonstrate a green manufacturing process for the 3D/3D rod-shaped bamboo charcoal/Bi2WO6 photocatalyst (210BC-BWO) by controlled carbonization temperature. A series of morphology characterization and properties investigations (XRD, SEM, UV–vis DRS, transient photocurrent response, N2 absorption-desorption isotherms) indicate a 210BC-BWO photocatalyst with higher charge separation efficiency, larger surface area, and better adsorption capacity. The excellent photocatalytic performance was evaluated by degrading rhodamine B (RhB) (98.5%), tetracycline hydrochloride (TC-HCl) (77.1%), and H2 evolution (2833 μmol·g−1·h−1) coupled with furfuryl alcohol oxidation (3097 μmol·g−1·h−1) under visible light irradiation. In addition, the possible mechanisms for degradation of organic pollutants, H2 evolution, and furfuryl alcohol oxidation were schematically investigated, which make it possible to exert photocatalysis by increasing the active radical. This study shows that the combination of bamboo charcoal and bismuth tungstate can be a powerful photocatalyst that rationally combines H2 evolution coupled with furfuryl alcohol oxidation and degradation of pollutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct coagulation casting of alumina suspension via high valence counter ions (DCC-HVCI) using magnesium citrate as coagulating agent with glycerol diacetate as pH regulator was investigated. Influence of concentrations of glycerol diacetate and magnesium citrate on pH and rheological properties of alumina suspension was investigated. High viscosity enough to coagulate the suspension is achieved by adding magnesium citrate and glycerol diacetate. Hydrolysis of glycerol diacetate shifts the suspension to lower pH which promotes the decomposition of magnesium citrate and contributes enough magnesium ions to coagulate the suspension. Coagulated samples with different shapes can be demolded without deformation by treating 55 vol% alumina suspension with 2 vol% glycerol diacetate and 0.5-1.2 wt% magnesium citrate at room temperature for 2.5-6 h. Dense alumina ceramics with relative density above 99.5 % can be prepared by DCC-HVCI using magnesium citrate as coagulating agent with glycerol diacetate as pH regulator sintered at 1550 °C for 2 h. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Blue-and-white porcelain is a kind of famous underglaze color porcelain in Chinese ceramic history. In this paper, 13 pieces of blue-and-white porcelain shards collected in Beijing were adopted as samples. Microstructure characteristics and distributions of chemical elements were investigated. Quartz and mullite were the main crystalline phases in blue-and-white porcelain bodies. The column-like crystals in the glaze were anorthite crystals. Microstructures of interaction layers in the blue decorations could be divided into two categories with morphologically distinctive microstructures: column-like and flower-like structures. The coloring elements surrounded by dense anorthite crystals mainly concentrated in the center of interaction layers, and the cobalt blue pigments were identified as cobalt aluminate (CoAl2O4). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Alumina green bodies were prepared by direct coagulation casting via increasing high valence counter ions ( DCC- HVCI) method. Influence of calcium iodate concentration, coagulation temperature, and the solid loading on the compressive strength of coagulated bodies was investigated. The results show that the wet-coagulated bodies display higher compressive strength than dried ones. The wet strength is above 2.0 MPa which is about one order higher than that prepared by DCC method, whereas the dried strength is in the range of 1.0 MPa. The wet-coagulated body shows elastic deformation, whereas the dried body exhibits typical brittle failure behavior. The mechanism of high wet strength obtained by DCC- HVCI is also proposed. The coagulated bodies prepared from slurries of alumina loading in the range of 50 vol% showed linear shrinkage of 2.6% after drying at 80°C for 24 h. The sample with the powder content of 50 vol% displays a narrow average pore channel size, showing a mean pore diameter of 40 nm. A homogeneous green body and high wet strength can be obtained via the DCC- HVCI method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: As the major protein (approximately 36%) in rice bran, globulin exhibits excellent foaming and emulsifying properties, endowing its useful application as a foaming and emulsifying agent in the food industry. However, the low water solubility restricts its commercial potential in industrial applications. The present study aimed to improve this protein's processing and functional properties. RESULTS: A novel covalent complex was fabricated by a combination of the Maillard reaction and alkaline oxidation using rice bran globulin (RBG), chitooligosaccharide (C), quercetin (Que) and resveratrol (Res). The Maillard reaction improved the solubility, emulsifying and foaming properties of RBG. The resultant glycosylated protein was covalently bonded with quercetin and resveratrol to form a (RBG‐C)‐Que‐Res complex. (RBG‐C)‐Que‐Res exhibited higher thermal stability and antioxidant ability than the native protein, binary globulin‐chitooligosaccharide or ternary globulin‐chitooligosaccharide‐polyphenol (only containing quercetin or resveratrol) conjugates. (RBG‐C)‐Que‐Res exerted better cytoprotection against the generation of malondialdehyde and reactive oxygen species in HepG2 cells, which was associated with increased activities of antioxidative enzymes superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH‐Px) through upregulated genes SOD1, CAT, GPX1 (i.e. gene for glutathione peroxidase‐1), GCLM (i.e. gene for glutamate cysteine ligase modifier subunit), SLC1A11 (i.e. gene for solute carrier family 7, member 11) and SRXN1 (i.e. gene for sulfiredoxin‐1). The anti‐apoptotic effect of (RBG‐C)‐Que‐Res was confirmed by the downregulation of caspase‐3 and p53 and the upregulation of B‐cell lymphoma‐2 gene expression. CONCLUSION: The present study highlights the potential of (RBG‐C)‐Que‐Res conjugates as functional ingredients in healthy foods. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grasslands across arid and semi‐arid regions are predicted to experience reductions in precipitation frequency. Besides, grassland degradation has become a serious problem in many of these areas. Despite increasing evidence suggesting compound effects of these synchronous alterations on biotic and abiotic ecosystem constituents, we still do not know how they will impact the coupling among ecosystem constituents and its consequences on ecosystem functioning.Here, we assessed the effects of decreased precipitation frequency and grassland degradation on ecosystem coupling, quantified based on the mean strength of pairwise correlations among multispecies communities and their physicochemical environment, individual functions and ecosystem multifunctionality, and reported their relationships within a mechanistic plant–nematode–micro‐organism–soil interactions framework.Decreased precipitation frequency led to poorly coupled ecosystems, and reduced aboveground plant biomass, soil water content, soil nutrient levels, soil biota abundance and multifunctionality. By contrast, belowground plant biomass and soil potential enzyme activities increased under decreased precipitation frequency treatment. Severe degradation resulted in decoupled ecosystems and suppressed most of individual functions and multifunctionality. Using structural equation modelling, we showed that coupling had a strong direct positive effect on multifunctionality (standardized total effect: 0.74), while multifunctionality was weakened by greater soil water variation (−0.54) and higher soil pH (−0.53).The great sensitivity of ecosystem coupling to altered precipitation regimes and degradation highlights the importance of considering interactions among biotic and abiotic components when predicting early ecological impacts under changing environments. Moreover, the positive relationship between ecosystem coupling and functioning suggests that restoration of degraded grasslands may be achieved by intensifying ecological interactions. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excessive sintering shrinkage leads to severe deformation and cracking, affecting the microstructure and properties of porous ceramics. Therefore, reducing sintering shrinkage and achieving near‐net‐size forming is one of the effective ways to prepare high‐performance porous ceramics. Herein, low‐shrinkage porous mullite ceramics were prepared by foam‐gelcasting using kyanite as raw material and aluminum fluoride (AlF3) as additive, through volume expansion from phase transition and gas generated from the reaction. The effects of AlF3 content on the shrinkage, porosity, compressive strength, and thermal conductivity of mullite‐based porous ceramics were investigated. The results showed that with the increase of content, the sintering shrinkage decreased, the porosity increased, and mullite whiskers were produced. Porous mullite ceramics with 30 wt% AlF3 content exhibited a whisker structure with the lowest shrinkage of 3.5%, porosity of 85.2%, compressive strength of 3.06 ± 0.51 MPa, and thermal conductivity of 0.23 W/(m·K) at room temperature. The temperature difference between the front and back sides of the sample reached 710°C under high temperature fire resistance test. The low sintering shrinkage preparation process effectively reduces the subsequent processing cost, which is significant for the preparation of high‐performance porous ceramics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. Automatic extraction of external elastic membrane border (EEM) and lumen-intima border (LIB) in intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) sequences aids atherosclerosis diagnosis. Existing IVUS segmentation networks ignored longitudinal relations among sequential images and neglected that IVUS images of different vascular conditions vary largely in intricacy and informativeness. As a result, they suffered from performance degradation in complicated parts in IVUS sequences. Approach. In this paper, we develop a 3D Pyramidal Densely-connected Network (PDN) with Adaptive learning and post-Correction guided by a novel cross-frame uncertainty (CFU). The proposed method is named PDN-AC. Specifically, the PDN enables the longitudinal information exploitation and the effective perception of size-varied vessel regions in IVUS samples, by pyramidally connecting multi-scale 3D dilated convolutions. Additionally, the CFU enhances the robustness of the method to complicated pathology from the frame-level (f-CFU) and pixel-level (p-CFU) via exploiting cross-frame knowledge in IVUS sequences. The f-CFU weighs the complexity of IVUS frames and steers an adaptive sampling during the PDN training. The p-CFU visualizes uncertain pixels probably misclassified by the PDN and guides an active contour-based post-correction. Main results. Human and animal experiments were conducted on IVUS datasets acquired from atherosclerosis patients and pigs. Results showed that the f-CFU weighted adaptive sampling reduced the Hausdorff distance (HD) by 10.53%/7.69% in EEM/LIB detection. Improvements achieved by the p-CFU guided post-correction were 2.94%/5.56%. Significance. The PDN-AC attained mean Jaccard values of 0.90/0.87 and HD values of 0.33/0.34 mm in EEM/LIB detection, preferable to state-of-the-art IVUS segmentation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The poor generalizability of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) analysis methods caused by the great diversity of IVUS datasets is hopefully addressed by the domain adaptation strategy. However, existing domain adaptation models underperform in intravascular structural preservation, because of the complex pathology and low contrast in IVUS images. Losing structural information during the domain adaptation would lead to inaccurate analyses of vascular states. In this paper, we propose a M ultilevel S tructure- P reserved G enerative A dversarial N etwork (MSP-GAN) for transferring IVUS domains while maintaining intravascular structures. On the generator-discriminator baseline, the MSP-GAN integrates the transformer, contrastive restraint, and self-ensembling strategy, for effectively preserving structures in multi-levels, including global, local, and fine levels. For the global-level pathology maintenance, the generator explores long-range dependencies in IVUS images via an incorporated vision transformer. For the local-level anatomy consistency, a region-to-region correspondence is forced between the translated and source images via a superpixel-wise multiscale contrastive (SMC) constraint. For reducing distortions of fine-level structures, a self-ensembling mean teacher generates the pixel-wise pseudo-label and restricts the translated image via an uncertainty-aware teacher-student consistency (TSC) constraint. Experiments were conducted on 20 MHz and 40 MHz IVUS datasets from different medical centers. Ablation studies illustrate that each innovation contributes to intravascular structural preservation. Comparisons with representative domain adaptation models illustrate the superiority of the MSP-GAN in the structural preservation. Further comparisons with the state-of-the-art IVUS analysis accuracy demonstrate that the MSP-GAN is effective in enlarging the generalizability of diverse IVUS analysis methods and promoting accurate vessel and lumen segmentation and stenosis-related parameter quantification. • We provide a method to transfer IVUS domains while preserving intravascular structures. • Making data-specific analysis methods attain state-of-the-art accuracy on domain-different IVUS datasets. • Incorporating vision transformer, contrastive learning and mean-teacher maintains multilevel structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simple and effective one-step method is proposed for the fabrication of hollow periodic mesoporous organosilica spheres (HPMOSs). The obtained HPMOSs possess well-defined spherical morphology, uniform and tunable particle size, adjustable hollow void structure, and radially oriented mesochannels in their shells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: As one of the excellent colloidal ceramic forming methods for fabricating complex shaped ceramic components, gelcasting has been extensively investigated in the past two decades. In this article, a novel nontoxic system for gelcasting of ceramics was investigated using gellan gum as gelling agent. The rheological and gelling properties of gellan gum solutions with different types of cations and different concentrations of divalent magnesium ions were studied. Influences of concentration of gellan gum and solid loading of alumina suspension on the rheological properties and gelling properties of alumina suspension were investigated. The rheological properties of concentrated alumina suspension mixing with gellan gum and magnesium chloride were evaluated. Dense ceramics prepared by gellan gum gelation showed homogeneous microstructure and good mechanical properties. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Direct coagulation casting of alumina suspension via controlled release of high valence counter ions ( DCC- HVCI) using calcium citrate as coagulating agent was reported. Hydrolysis of glycerol diacetate shifts the pH of suspension to weakly acidic region which helps to decompose calcium citrate and release calcium ions. The effect of concentration of glycerol diacetate and calcium citrate on the pH and viscosity of alumina suspension was investigated at 25°C and 60°C, respectively. The pH of suspensions with glycerol diacetate and calcium citrate decreases to 8.6 and 7.5 treated at 25°C and 60°C, respectively. It is indicated that high viscosity is achieved by adding 2 vol% glycerol diacetate and 0.5 wt% calcium citrate which is enough to coagulate the suspension. Green body with compressive strength of 1.0 MPa is obtained by treating the alumina suspension with 2 vol% glycerol diacetate and 0.5 wt% calcium citrate at 60°C for 1 h. The alumina ceramics sintered at 1550°C have homogeneous microstructure with relative density above 99.0%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnetic sensor array has become increasingly widespread in use. Because of the manufacturing process, magnetic sensors in an array inevitably experience calibration factor errors. Therefore, the calibration of a magnetic sensor array is very important before use. However, it lacks explicit and quantitative measures on how to calibrate a magnetic sensor array. By using magnetic fields produced by a standard magnetic source at different locations, a practicable method was proposed based on the least-squares method to calibrate a magnetic sensor array. The dimensions of sensor array are about $50\times 50\times50$ cm3 and the level of magnetic field aiming to be measured is ~nT. Both the simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is effective in identifying the calibration factor of a magnetic sensor array. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AC vector magnetometers have recently become increasingly widespread. The calibration of ac vector magnetometers before use is critical. Based on traditional ellipsoid fitting, which is suitable for calibrating dc vector magnetometers, a method suitable for calibrating ac vector magnetometers is presented. Simulation analysis and experimental verification demonstrate that this method is effective in calibrating ac vector magnetometers, including scaling factors, angular misalignments, and offset errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myeloid leukemia factors (MLF1 and MLF2) are proteins associated with leukemia and several other cancers. However, little is known about the regulatory mechanisms underlying the stability of these proteins. Here, we show that DDB1 and CUL4 associated factor 8 (DCAF8), which can form a functional E3 ligase complex (CRL4DCAF8), has a strong interaction with the MLF2 protein. DCAF8 could promote MLF2 degradation through the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway. In contrast, ubiquitin specific peptidase 11 (USP11) associates with MLF2, thereby increasing its stability. Since MLF1 is highly related to MLF2, we demonstrated that MLF1 also interacts with DCAF8 and USP11, suggesting that CRL4DCAF8 and USP11 may also regulate the expression of MLF1. TCGA analysis revealed that both the myeloid leukemia factors (MLF1 and MLF2) show significant differential expression in various tumors. The results of our study indicate that CRL4DCAF8 and USP11 play opposite roles in the regulation of MLF1 and MLF2, which may, in turn, affect their biological functions in various cancers. • MLF2 associates with CRL4DCAF8 complex. • DCAF8 promotes the proteasomal degradation of MLF2. • USP11 stabilizes the levels of MLF2. • CRL4DCAF8 and USP11 may regulate protein levels of MLF1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A deep dielectric charging effects monitor was proposed for providing in situ measurements of deep dielectric charging effects on satellites via measurements of the surface leakage currents and the internal charging potential of the dielectric. The detailed design and the first flight results onboard a medium Earth orbit (MEO) navigation satellite were discussed. Large temporal variations of the leakage currents were observed in the outer zone. The first flight data showed that the maximum charging electric field of the FR4 dielectric was less than 1.5 × 104 V/m, the incident internal flux was less than 100 pA/m2 , and no charging risk was determined in this period. The calculated conductivity of the FR4 dielectric was about 1.4–3.7 × 10−15 S/m. These results showed that conductivity obtained by the traditional method overestimated the true value, whereas that obtained by the charge decay method underestimated the true value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autophagy is critically involved in myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (I/R). Autophagy inhibition exacerbates myocardial I/R injury. Few effective agents target autophagy to prevent myocardial I/R injury. Effective drugs that promote autophagy in myocardial I/R warrant further investigation. Galangin (Gal) enhances autophagy and alleviates I/R injury. Here we conducted both in vivo and in vitro experiments to observe the changes in autophagy after galangin treatment and investigated the cardioprotective effects of galangin on myocardial I/R. After 45-min occlusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery, myocardial I/R was induced by slipknot release. One day before surgery and immediately after surgery, the mice were injected intraperitoneally with the same volume of saline or Gal. The effects of Gal were evaluated using echocardiography, 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride staining (TTC staining), western blotting, and transmission electron microscopy. Primary cardiomyocytes and bone marrow–derived macrophages were extracted in vitro to measure the cardioprotective effects of Gal. Compared with the saline-treated group, Gal significantly improved cardiac function and limited infarct enlargement after myocardial I/R. In vivo and in vitro studies demonstrated that Gal treatment promoted autophagy during myocardial I/R. The anti-inflammatory effects of Gal were validated in bone marrow–derived macrophages. These results strongly suggest that Gal treatment can attenuate myocardial I/R injury. Our data demonstrated that Gal could improve left ventricular ejection fraction and reduce infarct size after myocardial I/R by promoting autophagy and inhibiting inflammation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Honeycomb-like structured porous Si 3 N 4 ceramics with exceptionally high number of cells per square inch were prepared by the self-organization method of alginate. The obtained samples have highly ordered channels, high porosity and well mechanical strength. It is found that the microstructure and properties of obtained porous Si 3 N 4 ceramics can be effectively controlled by choosing different kinds of alginates. And it is worth to note that the obtained ceramics possess interesting hierarchical pore structure, including the unidirectionally aligned channels with pore size of 50–120 µm (first pore structure) and the interlocked microstructure of fibrous β-Si 3 N 4 grains within channel walls with pore size of 0.8–2.6 µm (secondary pore structure), making it desirable for filter applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We prepared porous Si 3 N 4 ceramics with highly ordered and unidirectionally aligned channels by the self-organization method using an alginate template. The obtained samples show uniform pore distribution, high cell density, good mechanical strength and hierarchical pore structure. A great number of long fibrous β-Si 3 N 4 grains protrude into channels, and other short length fibrous β-Si 3 N 4 grains interlock within channel walls forming a peculiar hierarchical pore structure. The pore size, thickness of channel walls, cell density, porosity and mechanical properties of the sintered porous Si 3 N 4 ceramics could be controlled by choosing different solid loadings, whereas β-Si 3 N 4 grains growth could be controlled by adopting different sinter temperatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ceramics with high strength and reliability are highly demanded in engineering applications. In this paper, a modified direct coagulation casting via high valence counter ions (DCC-HVCI) method for alumina using calcium citrate complex assisted by glycerol diacetate was investigated. Calcium citrate complex suspensions were prepared by mixing tri-ammonium citrate and calcium chloride in water. Effect of reaction time on the chelating properties of the prepared suspensions was investigated. Concentrated alumina suspensions with a solid loading of 50 vol% were prepared by mixing the calcium citrate complex suspensions and alumina powder at pH of 10.5. Then the suspensions were coagulated by adding 3–6 vol% glycerol diacetate at temperatures of 40–70 °C for 2–6 h. The compressive strength of the coagulated wet samples is in the range 1.1–2.4 MPa. Alumina ceramics sintered at 1550 °C shows homogeneous microstructures with flexural strength and Weibull modulus of 455±17 MPa and 30, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A direct coagulation casting method for silicon nitride suspension via dispersant reaction was reported. Tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAOH) was used as dispersant to prepare silicon nitride suspension with high solid loading and low viscosity. Influences of TMAOH and pH value on the dispersion of silicon nitride powder were investigated. Glycerol diacetate (GDA) was used to coagulate the silicon nitride suspension. Influences of the concentration of glycerol diacetate on the viscosity and pH value of the suspension were investigated. It was indicated that high viscosity sufficient to coagulate the suspension was achieved by adding 1.0–2.0 vol% glycerol diacetate at 40–70 °C. The coagulation mechanism was proposed that the silicon nitride suspension was destabilized by dispersant reacting with acetic acid which was hydrolyzed from glycerol diacetate at elevated temperature. Coagulated samples could be demolded without deformation by treating 50 vol% silicon nitride suspensions with 0.2 wt% tetramethylammonium hydroxide and 1.0–2.0 vol% glycerol diacetate at different temperatures. Dense silicon nitride ceramics with relative density above 98.8% had been prepared by this method using glycerol diacetate as coagulating agent sintered by different methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ceramics were prepared by direct coagulation casting via high valence counterions (DCC–HVCI) using magnesium citrate as a coagulating agent assisted by the hydrolysis of glycerol diacetate. The colloidal behavior of PZT suspensions was evaluated by measuring the zeta potential and the viscosity. The dispersant content and solid loading were optimized to prepare concentrated PZT suspension. The results indicated that PZT suspension with solid loading up to 56 vol% can be prepared by the addition of 0.5 wt% ammonium polyacrylate at pH=10.6. The critical coagulation concentrations of magnesium and lead in 56 vol% PZT suspensions are 15 and 35 mM, respectively. The viscosity of 56 vol% PZT suspensions with 0.5–1.0 wt% magnesium citrate and 2 vol% glycerol diacetate is higher than 30 Pa s at 60 °C for 30 min which is sufficient to coagulate the suspensions. The coagulating time is 60–90 min at 50–70 °C. The compressive strength of the coagulated wet samples decreases with the increase of coagulating temperature, but increases with the increase of magnesium citrate content. The strength is in the range 1.5–2.8 MPa which is sufficiently high for demolding and handling without deformation. Dense PZT ceramics sintered at 1250–1280 °C show homogeneous microstructures with relative densities of 99.2–99.7% and good piezoelectric properties compared with a traditional die pressing method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel nontoxic system for gelcasting of alumina suspensions was investigated using curdlan as gelling agent. The rheological and gelling behavior of curdlan suspensions in the temperature range 10–85 °C either on heating or cooling were studied. Influences of concentration of curdlan and solid loading of alumina suspension on the rheological properties and gelling behavior of alumina suspension were investigated. Complex shaped green bodies with compressive strength around 3.7 MPa were obtained by heating 50 vol% alumina suspensions with 0.625–0.750 wt% curdlan (based on alumina powder) at 80 °C for 1 h and by subsequently cooling to room temperature. Dense alumina parts with relative density above 98% have been prepared by curdlan gelation with homogeneous microstructures and good mechanical properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• H-151 treatment can preserve myocardial function and attenuate cardiac fibrosis in murine myocardial infarction. • H-151 treatment can inhibit the cGAS-STING-IRF3 pathway and inflammation in macrophages infiltrated in heart during myocardial infarction. • H-151 treatment can inhibit the type I interferon response in bone marrow-derived macrophages elicited by dsDNA extracted from hearts. • H-151 treatment on macrophages can decrease the apoptosis of adult cardiomyocytes and fibrosis of cardiac fibroblasts. During myocardial infarction (MI), the stimulation of the cGAS-STING-IRF3 pathway in infiltrated macrophages can induce the apoptosis of cardiomyocytes and the fibrosis of cardiac fibroblasts, while H-151 is reported as a selective STING inhibitor. We intended to use H-151 to alleviate MI injury. Male C57BL/6J mice were subjected to induce MI, while H-151 (750 nmol) were used for treatment. Myocardial function was assessed through echocardiology and cardiac fibrosis was evaluated by Masson's Trichrome-staining. The stimulation of the STING pathway and the aggravation of inflammation was assessed by levels of protein and mRNA. BMDMs were stimulated by dsDNA extracted from the murine heart, while H-151 was used as treatment. After co-culturing adult cardiomyocytes and cardiac fibroblasts with supernatant of BMDMs, the apoptosis of adult cardiomyocytes and the fibrosis of cardiac fibroblasts was assessed. H-151 treatment showed significant function in preserving myocardial function and decreasing cardiac fibrosis 28 days after MI. H-151 treatment showed significant function in inhibiting the cGAS-STING-IRF3 pathway and inflammation, especially type I interferon response. H-151 could alleviate the type I interferon response in BMDMs elicited by cardiac dsDNA, and thus H-151 could attenuate the apoptosis of adult cardiomyocytes and fibrosis of cardiac fibroblasts after co-culturing them with the supernatant of BMDMs. H-151, a selective inhibitor of the cGAS-STING-IRF3 pathway, can preserve myocardial function and alleviate cardiac fibrosis after MI by inhibiting the type I interferon response in infiltrated macrophages triggered by cardiac dsDNA which increase the apoptosis of adult cardiomyocytes and fibrosis of cardiac fibroblasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct coagulation casting via controlled release of high valance counter ions (DCC-HVCI) has been reported in recent years. In this paper, concentrated yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) suspensions were coagulated using DCC-HVCI method with magnesium citrate as coagulating agent assisted by pH shift in the presence of glycerol diacetate. The effect of ammonium polyacrylate (PAA-NH 4 ) on the dispersibility of YSZ powder was investigated. The influence of concentrations of glycerol diacetate and magnesium citrate on pH and viscosities of YSZ suspensions was studied. The results indicate that concentrated YSZ suspensions can be coagulated by adding 2 vol% glycerol diacetate and magnesium citrate above 0.5 wt% at room temperature for 2–5 h. The compressive strength of coagulated wet samples is above 2.0 MPa. YSZ ceramics sintered at 1450 °C show homogeneous microstructures with relative densities of 98.9–99.2%. Flexural strength of YSZ ceramics is 869±84 MPa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thermo-sensitive liposomes were prepared using reverse phase evaporation method using natural lipid egg phosphatidylcholine ( EPC) and cholesterol ( CH). Inorganic salts containing high valence counterions ( HVCI) are encapsulated by the liposomes. The phase transition temperature of the liposome is at 38°C with 50 wt% addition of cholesterol. The encapsulation rate of liposomes reaches 85% for high valence anion ( SO42−) and 55% for high valence cation ( Ca2+). The liposomes are introduced into ceramic colloidal forming and dispersed in the suspension for identical charge with alumina particles at room temperature. The release of HCVI from the liposomes can coagulate the alumina suspension after heating at 38°C for 3 h, but the de-moldable time is ~ 6-7 h. Dense ceramic products with relative density of above 98% and uniform microstructure can be prepared by this method without burnout process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]