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Background Data are limited on the relationship between waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and mortality risk among maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients. Moreover, the combined association of body mass index (BMI) and WHR with mortality remains uncertain. Therefore, we aimed to explore the individual and combined association of BMI and WHR with the all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. Methods In this multicenter prospective cohort study, we enrolled 1034 MHD patients. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality and secondary outcome was CVD mortality. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards models were used to evaluate the individual and combined association of BMI and WHR with the risk of mortality. Results A nonlinear inverse relationship was found between BMI and risk of all-cause mortality (P for nonlinearity Conclusions In patients undergoing hemodialysis from China, low BMI and high WHR were individually and jointly associated with higher risk of mortality. Our results emphasize that BMI and WHR may jointly affect the prognosis of MHD patients.

Two-dimensional materials (2D materials) show great advantages in high-performance lithium ion battery materials due to the inherent ion channels and rich ion sites. Unfortunately, rare 2D materials own all desired attributes to meet complex scenarios. Further enriching the 2D materials database for lithium ion battery use is of high interest. In this work, we extend the list of candidates for lithium ion batteries based on a 2D material identification theory. More importantly, a usability identification framework leveraging the competitive mechanism between the adsorbability and reversibility of ions on a 2D material is proposed to assist the deeper screening of practicable 2D materials. As a result, 215 2D materials including 158 anodes, 21 cathodes, and 36 solid electrolytes are predicted to be practicable for lithium ion battery use. The comparison between the identified 2D materials with the known ones verifies the reliability of our strategy. This work significantly enriches the choices of 2D materials to satisfy the various battery demands and provides a general methodology to assess the usability of unexploited 2D materials for lithium ion batteries.

We aimed to evaluate the relationship of the albumin-to-creatinine ratio (ACR) with the risk of first stroke and examine possible effect modifiers in hypertensive patients. A total of 11,632 hypertensive participants with urinary ACR measurements and without a history of stroke from the China Stroke Primary Prevention Trial (CSPPT) were included in this analysis. The primary outcome was first stroke. Over a median follow-up of 4.4 years, 728 first strokes were identified, of which 633 were ischemic, 89 were hemorrhagic, and 6 were uncertain types. Overall, there was a significant positive association between natural log-transformed ACR and the risk of first stroke (HR, 1.11; 95% CI: 1.03-1.20) and first ischemic stroke (HR, 1.12; 95% CI: 1.03-1.22). Consistently, participants with ACR ≥ 10 mg/g had a significantly higher risk of first stroke (HR, 1.26; 95% CI: 1.06-1.50) and first ischemic stroke (HR, 1.33; 95% CI: 1.10-1.59) than those with ACR

Background and objectives Fat-based energy-dense nutritional supplements may offer benefits over protein- or carbohydrate-dense supplements for patients receiving dialysis because of the adverse metabolic consequences of the latter. We conducted a randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of the short-term use of a fat-based nutritional supplement on various measures of nutritional status in patients receiving maintenance hemodialysis who have low dietary energy intake. Design, setting, participants, & measurements We enrolled nondiabetic patients receiving hemodialysis for >3 months who had inadequate dietary energy intake ( Results The average age of the total population was 47 (SD: 12) years, and 55% were men. The median of dialysis vintage was 43.4 (22.5–76.3) months; 240 participants were randomly assigned to the intervention (n=120) or control group (n=120). In total, 228 (95%) participants completed the trial. The change in phase angle did not differ significantly between the intervention and control groups (estimate, 0.0; 95% confidence interval, −0.1 to 0.1 versus estimate, 0.0; 95% confidence interval, −0.1 to 0.1; estimated difference, 0.0; 95% confidence interval −0.2 to 0.2; P=0.99). None of the 19 domains of quality of life differed between the groups. Adverse events were reported in 23 (19%) participants in the control group and 40 (33%) participants in the intervention group. Conclusions In nondiabetic patients on maintenance hemodialysis, short-term administration of fat-based energy-dense nutritional supplement has no clinically significant effect on nutritional status as measured by phase angle. Podcast This article contains a podcast at https://https://www.asn-online.org/media/podcast/CJASN/2021_08_03_CJN16821020.mp3

The energy-filtering effect has been widely employed to elucidate the enhanced thermoelectric properties of organic/inorganic hybrids. However, the traditional Mott criterion cannot identify the energy-filtering effect of organic/inorganic hybrids due to the limitations of the Hall effect measurement in determining their carrier concentration. In this work, a carrier concentration-independent strategy under the theoretical framework of the Kang-Snyder model is proposed and demonstrated using PANI/MWCNT composites. The result indicates that the energy-filtering effect is triggered on increasing the temperature to 220 K. The energy-filtering effect gives a symmetry-breaking characteristic to the density of states of the charge carriers and leads to a higher thermopower of PANI/MWCNT than that of each constituent. From a morphological perspective, a paracrystalline PANI layer with a thickness of 3 nm is spontaneously assembled on the MWCNT network and serves as a metallic percolation pathway for carriers, resulting in a 5.56-fold increase in conductivity. The cooperative 3D carrier transport mode, including the 1D metallic transport along the paracrystalline PANI and the 2D cross-interface energy-filtering transport, co-determines a 4-fold increase in the power factors of PANI/MWCNT at 300 K. This work provides a physical insight into the improvement of the thermoelectric performance of organic/inorganic hybrids

High fibre intake is associated with reduced mortality risk in both general and chronic kidney disease populations. However, in dialysis patients, such data are limited. Therefore, the association between dietary fibre intake (DFI) and the risk of all-cause and CVD mortality was examined in this study. A total of 1044 maintenance haemodialysis (MHD) patients from eight outpatient dialysis centres in China were included in this study. Data on DFI were collected using 24-h dietary recalls for 3 d in a week and were normalised to actual dry weight. The study outcomes included all-cause and CVD mortality. Over a median of 46 months of follow-up, 354 deaths were recorded, of which 210 (59 %) were due to CVD. On assessing DFI as tertiles, the CVD mortality risk was significantly lower in patients in tertiles 2–3 (≥0·13 g/kg per d; hazard ratio (HR) 0·71; 95 % CI 0·51, 0·97) compared with those in tertile 1 (v. tertile 1; HR 0·83; 95 % CI 0·64, 1·07) and all-cause mortality. In summary, higher DFI was associated with lower CVD mortality risk among Chinese MHD patients. This study emphasises the significance of DFI in MHD patients and provides information that is critical for the improvement of dietary guidelines for dialysis patients.

We aimed to evaluate the relationship of the albumin-to-creatinine ratio (ACR) with the risk of first stroke and examine possible effect modifiers in hypertensive patients. A total of 11,632 hypertensive participants with urinary ACR measurements and without a history of stroke from the China Stroke Primary Prevention Trial (CSPPT) were included in this analysis. The primary outcome was first stroke. Over a median follow-up of 4.4 years, 728 first strokes were identified, of which 633 were ischemic, 89 were hemorrhagic, and 6 were uncertain types. Overall, there was a significant positive association between natural log-transformed ACR and the risk of first stroke (HR, 1.11; 95% CI: 1.03-1.20) and first ischemic stroke (HR, 1.12; 95% CI: 1.03-1.22). Consistently, participants with ACR ≥ 10 mg/g had a significantly higher risk of first stroke (HR, 1.26; 95% CI: 1.06-1.50) and first ischemic stroke (HR, 1.33; 95% CI: 1.10-1.59) than those with ACR 10 mg/g. Moreover, the association of ACR with first stroke was significantly stronger in participants with higher total homocysteine (tHcy) levels (10 versus ≥ 10 μmol/L; P for interaction = 0.044). However, there was no significant association between ACR and first hemorrhagic stroke (per natural log [ACR] increment: HR, 1.02; 95% CI: 0.82-1.27). In summary, hypertensive patients with ACR ≥ 10 mg/g had a significantly increased risk of first stroke or first ischemic stroke. This positive association was more pronounced among participants with higher tHcy levels.

Although greater dietary intake of protein has been associated with beneficial health effects among patients receiving maintenance hemodialysis (MHD), the effects of plant protein intake are less certain. We studied the association of the proportion of protein intake derived from plant sources with the risk of mortality among patients receiving MHD and explored factors that may modify these associations.Prospective observational cohort study.1,119 Chinese hemodialysis patients aged over 18 years receiving MHD in 2014-2015.The proportion of plant protein intake to total protein intake.All-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality.Segmented regression models were fit to examine the association of plant protein intake proportion with the risk of all-cause mortality and CVD mortality. Multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional and cause-specific hazards models were used to estimate the hazard ratios (HR) and 95% CI for these outcomes.The means of plant protein intake normalized to ideal body weight and plant protein intake proportion were 0.6±0.2 (SD) g/kg per day and 0.538±0.134, respectively. During a median follow-up period of 28.0 months, 249 deaths occurred, with 146 of these deaths resulting from CVD. Overall, there was a U-shaped association between plant protein intake proportion and the risk of all-cause mortality, with an inflection point at 45%. Among patients with a plant protein intake proportion45%, there was a 17% lower rate of mortality with each 5% greater plant protein intake proportion (HR, 0.83 [95% CI, 0.73-0.96]). Among patients with plant protein intake proportion≥45%, there was a 9% greater rate of mortality with each 5% greater plant protein intake proportion. A similar U-shaped association was observed for CVD mortality, with an inflection point at 44%.Observational study, potential unmeasured confounding.There was a U-shaped association between plant protein intake proportion and the risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in MHD patients. If confirmed, these findings suggest a potential avenue to improve outcomes in this patient population.

Theoretically understanding the thermal conductivity of the nanoparticle packed beds (NPBs) is critical for designing high-performance thermal insulation materials. Currently, the classical effective medium assumption (EMA) model, Nan model, just show their good prediction at a high porosity of NPBs (≥0.75). Herein, we propose a generalized model of the thermal conductivity that almost covers the whole porosity range by considering the effect of the nanoparticle deformations on the thermal contact resistance ( R ). It has been demonstrated that our model matches the experimental results great well. It is also found that at high porosity R is dominated by the phonon diffusive scatterings ( R cd ), while it is determined by the phonon ballistic scatterings ( R cb ) at a low porosity. More interestingly, R can determine the porosity at which the lowest thermal conductivity of NPBs appears. This work opens a new way to design the desired thermal insulation materials.

Metallic nanowires are widely used in energy conversion and storage, especially in the thermal management area, because of their high specific surface area, rich active sites, and high thermal conductivity. Metallic nanowires, such as copper or silver nanowires, are extensively applied to prepare the next-generation thermal interface materials with excellent thermal conductivity, light weight, high strength and ductility. Metallic hollow nanowires, which hold the typical one-dimension hollow nanostructures, have high axial thermal conductivity to prepare advanced thermal interface materials applied in thermal management and waste heat recovery of high-power microelectronic devices. Thermal conductivity is one of the most important indicators to assess the thermal performance of thermal interface materials. Over the past decades, many studies in both theory and experiment have been carried out to evaluate the thermal conductivity of solid nanowires. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation has been applied to calculate the thermal conductivity of single nanowires, single core-shell nanowires and super-lattice nanowires. Meanwhile, advanced measuring techniques, including 3ω method, Raman spectroscopy and T-type method, have been invented and developed to measure the thermal conductivity of single nanowires. However, investigations on the thermal conductivity of metallic hollow nanowires are limited. Considering the difficulty in the fabrication and thermal conductivity measurement of single hollow metallic nanowires, creating a theoretical thermal conductivity model is urgently required. This work developed the electrical thermal conductivity model, phonon thermal conductivity model and phonon specific heat model of metallic nanowires to study the size effect on the mean free path, group velocity and specific heat capacity of the material. This study also proposed the effective thermal conductivity model of metallic hollow nanowire. These models have been used to study the effect of the both length and thickness of the metallic hollow nanowire on the effective thermal conductivity as well as the influence of the wall thickness on the electronic and phonon thermal conductivity. Finally, the mechanism of size effect on the thermal conductivity was discussed, and a reasonable interpretation based on the developed model was also proposed. Results show that an exact thermal conductivity model, validated by the experimental data from open-reported literature, was established with a correlation coefficient high than 90%. The size effect on the thermal conductivity of both hollow copper nanowire and solid copper nanowire was observed with the increased length and thickness. The thermal conductivity of solid copper nanowire was about 1.2 times higher than that of the hollow copper nanowire with the same length of 800 nm. In detail, the electronic thermal conductivity of solid copper nanowire was nearly 18.7% higher than that of hollow copper nanowire, while their phonon thermal conductivities almost remained unchanged. The size effect on the specific heat of hollow copper nanowire was also observed. The thermal conductivity of the hollow copper nanowire was 1.6 times higher than that of bulk copper and 1.2 times higher than that of a solid copper nanowire with the similar thickness.

Background: Several studies have reported that low serum uric acid (SUA) levels are related to increased risk of mortality in maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients. However, the possible detrimental effects of high SUA on the mortality risk have not been well examined. Moreover, the possible effect modifiers for the SUA-mortality association have not been fully investigated. To address the aforementioned gap, we aimed to explore the nonlinear relationship between SUA levels and all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality risk, and to examine any possible effect modifiers in MHD patients. Methods: We conducted a multicenter, prospective cohort study among 1,018 MHD patients from 8 hemodialysis centers. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality, and the secondary outcomes were CVD mortality and non-CVD mortality. Results: The mean value for SUA in the total population was 8.5 ± 1.9 mg/dL. The lowest and highest quintiles of SUA were 10.1 mg/dL, respectively. Over a median follow-up of 45.6 months, 343 deaths were recorded, of which 202 (58.9%) were due to CVD. When SUA was assessed as quintiles, a significantly higher risk of all-cause mortality was found in patients in quintile 1 (p for interaction = 0.018). Similar trends were found for CVD mortality and non-CVD mortality. Conclusion: There was a U-shaped relationship between SUA levels and the risk of all-cause mortality, CVD mortality, and non-CVD mortality in MHD patients.

Freestanding 3D graphene with a controllable electronic state is quite desirable for high-power all-carbon electronics. Although field-effect doping and charge doping have been demonstrated to manipulate the electronic properties of graphene derivatives, using these strategies to achieve nanoscale control remains a challenge. Herein, we developed a strategy for in situ triggering metallicity in semiconductor 3D graphene films (GFs) by building 1D wrinkles. Moreover, the controllable engineering of wrinkles represents a feasible way to realize the manipulation of 1D metallic states with characteristic width ranging from nanoscale to mesoscale. The global metallicity is achieved in GFs by constructing wrinkle percolation networks. The idea of in situ triggering metallicity in semiconducting graphene demonstrates potential application in high-power nanoelectronics. A striking case is that in situ constructing 1D metallic wrinkle provides a promising candidate as the metallic wire interconnects in all-carbon electronics.

The association between dietary protein intake (DPI) and mortality in people receiving maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) remains uncertain. We aimed to explore the relationship of DPI with all-cause and cardiovascular (CV) mortality, and to examine the possible modifiers for the associations, in Chinese MHD patients.This multicenter prospective cohort study was conducted in eight outpatient dialysis centers in South China. We enrolled 1044 MHD patients in 2014 and 2015. The DPI was assessed using a 3-d 24-h dietary recall. Using Cox proportional hazard models, we estimated the hazard ratios (HRs) with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for all analyzed end points.During a median follow-up of 45 mo, there were 354 (33.9%) deaths, 210 of which were CV related. Compared with patients with a DPI of 1.0 to1.4 g/kg ideal body weight (IBW)/d, a significantly higher risk of all-cause mortality was found in those with a DPI1.0 g/kg IBW/d (adjusted HR, 1.84; 95% CI, 1.42-2.38) or ≥ 1.4 g/kg IBW/d (adjusted HR, 1.49; 95% CI, 1.00-2.22). Similar trends were found for CV mortality. Moreover, we found a significantly stronger positive association between DPI (≥ 1.4 versus 1.0 to1.4 g/kg IBW/d) and all-cause mortality in women (adjusted HR, 2.05; 95% CI, 1.00-4.22) than in men (adjusted HR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.49-1.63; P for interaction = 0.0487).In Chinese MHD patients, a DPI of 1.0 to1.4 g/kg IBW/d was associated with lower risks of all-cause and CV mortality.

Supplementary material for article entitled "U-shaped association of serum uric acid and mortality in maintenance hemodialysis patients: a multicenter cohort study"

Supplementary material for article entitled "U-shaped association of serum uric acid and mortality in maintenance hemodialysis patients: a multicenter cohort study"

Supplementary material for article entitled "U-shaped association of serum uric acid and mortality in maintenance hemodialysis patients: a multicenter cohort study"