Ulinastatin protects rats from sepsis-induced acute lung injury by suppressing the JAK-STAT3 pathway.

Sepsis is usually accompanied by pulmonary inflammations, leading to acute lung injury. During this process, endogenous factors that play a regulatory role could be exploited to therapeutically alleviate such lethal tissue injury. Here, we showed that ulinastatin (UTI) administration could reduce lung tissue necrosis and swelling during sepsis in rats. UTI treatment also decreased the levels of inflammatory mediators both in the lung and in the serum. Mechanistically, we showed that the phosphorylation levels of JAK2 and STAT3 in the lung of UTI-treated rats were lower than control rats and were correlated with the decreased levels of inflammatory mediators. Taken together, these results demonstrate the protective role of UTI in sepsis-induced acute lung injury.

Characterization and comparative profiling of the small RNA transcriptomes in two phases of flowering in Cymbidium ensifolium.

BACKGROUND: Cymbidium ensifolium is one of the most important ornamental flowers in China, with an elegant shape, beautiful appearance, and a fragrant aroma. Its unique flower shape has long attracted scientists. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are critical regulators in plant development and physiology, including floral development. However, to date, few studies have examined miRNAs in C. ensifolium. RESULTS: In this study, we employed Solexa technology to sequence four small RNA libraries from two flowering phases to identify miRNAs related to floral development. We identified 48 mature conserved miRNA and 71 precursors. These conserved miRNA belonged to 20 families. We also identified 45 novel miRNA which includes 21 putative novel miRNAs*, and 28 hairpin forming precursors. Two trans-acting small interfering RNAs (ta-siRNAs) were identified, one of which was homologous to TAS3a1. TAS3a1 belongs to the TAS3 family, which has been previously reported to target auxin response factors (ARF) and be involved in plant growth and floral development. Moreover, we built a C. ensifolium transctriptome database to identify genes targeted by miRNA, which resulted in 790 transcriptomic target unigenes. The target unigenes were annotated with information from the non-redundant (Nr), gene ontology database (GO), eukaryotic orthologous groups (KOGs) and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) database. The unigenes included MADS-box transcription factors targeted by miR156, miR172 and miR5179, and various hormone responding factors targeted by miR159. The MADS-box transcription factors are well known to determine the identity of flower organs and hormone responding factors involved in floral development. In expression analysis, three novel and four conserved miRNA were differentially expressed between two phases of flowering. The results were confirmed by RNA-seq and qRT-PCR. The differential expression of two miRNA, miR160 and miR396, targeted ARFs and growth regulating factor (GRF), respectively. However, most of these small RNA were clustered in the uncharacterized group, which suggests there may be many novel small non-coding RNAs yet to be discovered. CONCLUSION: Our study provides a diverse set of miRNAs related to cymbidium floral development and serves as a useful resource for investigating miRNA-mediated regulatory mechanisms of floral development.

Gene Expression of Type VI Secretion System Associated with Environmental Survival in Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae by Principle Component Analysis.

Valine glycine repeat G (VgrG) proteins are regarded as one of two effectors of Type VI secretion system (T6SS) which is a complex multi-component secretion system. In this study, potential biological roles of T6SS structural and VgrG genes in a rice bacterial pathogen, Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae (Aaa) RS-1, were evaluated under seven stress conditions using principle component analysis of gene expression. The results showed that growth of the pathogen was reduced by H2O2 and paraquat-induced oxidative stress, high salt, low temperature, and vgrG mutation, compared to the control. However, pathogen growth was unaffected by co-culture with a rice rhizobacterium Burkholderia seminalis R456. In addition, expression of 14 T6SS structural and eight vgrG genes was significantly changed under seven conditions. Among different stress conditions, high salt, and low temperature showed a higher effect on the expression of T6SS gene compared with host infection and other environmental conditions. As a first report, this study revealed an association of T6SS gene expression of the pathogen with the host infection, gene mutation, and some common environmental stresses. The results of this research can increase understanding of the biological function of T6SS in this economically-important pathogen of rice.

Copper nanoparticles on graphene support: an efficient photocatalyst for coupling of nitroaromatics in visible light.

Copper is a low-cost plasmonic metal. Efficient photocatalysts of copper nanoparticles on graphene support are successfully developed for controllably catalyzing the coupling reactions of aromatic nitro compounds to the corresponding azoxy or azo compounds under visible-light irradiation. The coupling of nitrobenzene produces azoxybenzene with a yield of 90 % at 60 °C, but azobenzene with a yield of 96 % at 90 °C. When irradiated with natural sunlight (mean light intensity of 0.044 W cm(-2) ) at about 35 °C, 70 % of the nitrobenzene is converted and 57 % of the product is azobenzene. The electrons of the copper nanoparticles gain the energy of the incident light through a localized surface plasmon resonance effect and photoexcitation of the bound electrons. The excited energetic electrons at the surface of the copper nanoparticles facilitate the cleavage of the NO bonds in the aromatic nitro compounds. Hence, the catalyzed coupling reaction can proceed under light irradiation and moderate conditions. This study provides a green photocatalytic route for the production of azo compounds and highlights a potential application for graphene.

Construction, evaluation, and application of an electronic medical record corpus for cerebral palsy rehabilitation.

Objective: The electronic medical records (EMRs) corpus for cerebral palsy rehabilitation and its application in downstream tasks, such as named entity recognition (NER), requires further revision and testing to enhance its effectiveness and reliability. Methods: We have devised an annotation principle and have developed an EMRs corpus for cerebral palsy rehabilitation. The introduction of test-retest reliability was employed for the first time to ensure consistency of each annotator. Additionally, we established a baseline NER model using the proposed EMRs corpus. The NER model leveraged Chinese clinical BERT and adversarial training as the embedding layer, and incorporated multi-head attention mechanism and rotary position embedding in the encoder layer. For multi-label decoding, we employed the span matrix of global pointer along with softmax and cross-entropy. Results: The corpus consisted of 1405 EMRs, containing a total of 127,523 entities across six different entity types, with 24,424 unique entities after de-duplication. The inter-annotator agreement of two annotators was 97.57%, the intra-annotator agreement of each annotator exceeded 98%. Our proposed baseline NER model demonstrates impressive performance, achieving a F1-score of 93.59% for flat entities and 90.15% for nested entities in this corpus. Conclusions: We believe that the proposed annotation principle, corpus, and baseline model are highly effective and hold great potential as tools for cerebral palsy rehabilitation scenarios.

Visual trends and hot research on the relationship between intestinal microbiota and major lipids: a bibliometric analysis.

Objective: The association between intestinal microbiota and lipids has garnered significant scholarly interest. This study analyzes pertinent literature on intestinal microbiota and lipids to offer scientific guidance for future advancements and research directions. Methods: Articles focusing on intestinal microbiota and lipids were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). Following a rigorous screening process, 12,693 articles were included in the study. The collected data was processed comprehensively and visually analyzed using various academic tools such as CiteSpace, VOSviewer, R software, and Scimago Graphica. Results: The field of intestinal microbiota and its relationship with major lipids has witnessed a significant surge in scholarly attention, as indicated by the upward trend observed in related articles. Among countries, China had emerged as the leading contributor in publication output, with Chinese Acad Sci being the most prolific institution in this field. Notably, Nutrients and Nature were the prominent journals that published many articles and garnered the highest number of co-citations. Scholars have widely recognized Patrice D Cani's notable contributions in this field. Current research endeavors have focused on obesity, insulin resistance, metabolism, growth performance, the gut-brain axis, and others. Conclusions: Our analysis identified four primary research trends: "biochemical pathways," "exploration of diseases," "intervention and effect," and "health and diet." Future scholars must devote more attention to intestinal microbiota and major lipids to advance our understanding of human health.

Large scale production of highly-qualified graphene by ultrasonic exfoliation of expanded graphite under the promotion of (NH4)2CO3 decomposition.

Highly-qualified graphene was prepared by the ultrasonic exfoliation of commercial expanded graphite (EG) under the promotion of (NH4)2CO3 decomposition. The yield of graphene from the first exfoliation is 7 wt%, and it can be increased to more than 65 wt% by repeated exfoliations. Atomic force microscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Raman analysis show that the as-prepared graphene only has a few defects or oxides, and more than 95% of the graphene flakes have a thickness of ~1 nm. The electrochemical performance of the as-prepared graphene is comparable to reduced graphene oxide in the determination of dopamine (DA) from the mixed solution of ascorbic acid, uric acid and DA. These results show that the decomposition of (NH4)2CO3 molecules in the EG layers under ultrasonication promotes the exfoliation of graphite and provides a low-priced route for large scale production of highly-quality graphene.

Carbon coated Co-SiC nanocomposite with high-performance microwave absorption.

A carbon coated Co-SiC nanocomposite was fabricated via in situ pyrolysis of methane on a hierarchical Co3O4-SiC nanostructure, which was obtained by hydrothermal synthesis. By the reduction of methane, the Co3O4 was in situ converted to cobalt nanoparticles, and coated by carbon or filled in the CNTs. The as-prepared composite exhibits excellent microwave absorption performance in the frequency range of 2-18 GHz. When the match thickness is 1.8 mm, the composite has a reflection loss value below -10 dB in the range 12.2 to 18 GHz, which nearly covers the whole Ku-band (12-18 GHz). When the thickness is 2.6 mm, the reflection loss value below -10 dB distributes at 8.2-11.5 GHz, covering most of the X-band (8-12 GHz). Moreover, by further tuning the match thickness, the composite can selectively absorb some certain frequency bands of microwaves.

Reyanning Mixture on Asymptomatic or Mild SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Children and Adolescents: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effect and safety of Reyanning Mixture (RYN) in treating asymptomatic or mild severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in children and adolescents. METHODS: This is a prospective, open-label, randomized controlled trial. Patients aged 1-17 years and diagnosed with asymptomatic or mild coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) were assigned to an intervention group (RYN plus standard care) and a control group (standard care) according to a randomization list. The primary outcomes were SARS-CoV-2 negative conversion time. Secondary outcomes included negative conversion rate on days 3 and 7, hospital length of stay, symptom relief rate, new-onset symptoms of asymptomatic infected patients, and progressive disease rate. The cycle threshold (Ct) values of ORF1ab or N genes were also tested. RESULTS: A total of 214 patients in the intervention group and 217 in the control group were analyzed. The SARS-CoV-2 negative conversion time was significantly shortened in the intervention group [5 days (interquartile range (IQR): 5-6) vs. 7 days (IQR: 6-7), P<0.01]. By days 3 and 7, the negative conversion rates were significantly higher in the intervention group (day 3: 32.7% vs. 21.2%, P=0.007; day 7: 75.2% vs. 60.8%, P=0.001). Ct values significantly increase on day 2 [ORF1ab gene: 35.62 (IQR: 29.17-45.00) vs. 34.22 (IQR: 28.41-39.41), P=0.03; N gene: 34.97 (IQR: 28.50-45.00) vs. 33.51 (IQR: 27.70-38.25), P=0.024] and day 3 [ORF1ab gene: 38.00 (IQR: 32.72-45.00) vs. 35.81 (IQR: 29.96-45.00), P=0.003; N gene: 37.16 (IQR: 32.01-45.00) vs. 35.26 (IQR: 29.09-45.00), P=0.01]. No significant difference was found in hospital length of stay between the two groups (P>0.05). Symptoms of cough were significantly improved (82.2% vs. 70.0%, P=0.02) and wheezing was significantly reduced (0.7% vs. 12.9%, P<0.01) in the intervention group compared with the control group. During the trial, no disease progression or serious adverse events were reported. CONCLUSION: Adding RYN to standard care may be a safe and effective treatment for children with asymptomatic and mild SARS-CoV-2 infection. (Registration No. ChiCTR2200060292).

Efficacy of Lianhua Qingwen for children with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection: A propensity score-matched retrospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Lianhua Qingwen Granules or Capsules (LHQW) has accumulated much research evidence in the fight against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic. However, there are still few data on its efficacy and safety in children with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. PURPOSE: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of LHQW in children with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection. METHODS: We conducted a single-center, propensity-score matched retrospective cohort study of children with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection in Shanghai New International Expo Center mobile cabin hospital between April 1st and June 1st, 2022. Eligible patients received either LHQW granules/capsules plus supportive care (LHQW group) or supportive care alone (control group). The primary outcome was the negative conversion time of nucleic acid. Secondary outcomes included the negative conversion rate of nucleic acid, the length of hospital stay, clinical disease progression, and cycle threshold [Ct] values for SARS-CoV-2 open reading frame [ORF1ab] or nucleocapsid [N] genes. RESULTS: Overall, 2808 patients were enrolled, and 346 patients in each group were included in the analysis. Among the propensity-score matched groups, LHQW treatment was associated with an accelerated negative conversion time of nucleic acid (median: 5 d vs. 6 d, Hazard ratio: 1.25, 95% CI: 1.08 - 1.46, Log-rank p < 0.001), a higher negative conversion rate of nucleic acid (Day 2 - 6: 2.9% vs. 0.6%, p = 0.036; 29.8% vs. 5.5%, p < 0.001; 42.5% vs. 24.3%, p < 0.001; 51.4% vs. 31.5%, p < 0.001; 63.3% vs. 55.2%, p = 0.030), shorter hospital stay (median: 10 d vs. 11 d, Hazard ratio: 1.50, 95% CI: 1.29 - 1.74, Log-rank p < 0.001), and lower rates of asymptomatic infection progressing to mild (37.9% vs. 46.5%, p = 0.021). CONCLUSION: Our study suggested that LHQW treatment was associated with faster clinical recovery in children with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection.

Efficacy and safety of Reyanning mixture in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant: A prospective, open-label, randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: A wave of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron variant rapidly resulted in a steep increase in the infected population and an overloaded healthcare system. Effective medications for Omicron are currently limited. The previous observational study supports the efficacy and safety of Reyanning (RYN) mixture in the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). PURPOSE: To evaluate the efficacy of RYN in asymptomatic and mildly infected patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: This study was a prospective, open-label, randomized controlled trial. We consecutively recruited 2830 patients from Shanghai New International Expo Center mobile cabin hospital and randomized them in a 1:1 ratio to receive RYN plus standard care or receive standard care alone. The primary outcomes were the negative conversion of nucleic acid. Secondary outcomes included the hospital duration, new-onset symptoms, proportion of disease progression, and the viral load measured by the cycle threshold (Ct) value. RESULTS: A total of 1393 patients in the intervention group and 1407 patients in the control group completed the study. The negative conversion time of nucleic acid was significantly shortened in the intervention group (median: 6 d vs. 7 d, Hazard ratio: 0.768, 95CI %: 0.713-0.828, p < 0.0001). The negative conversion rate of nucleic acid was significantly higher in the intervention group (Day 3: 32.4% vs. 18.3%; Day7: 65.3% vs. 55.2%, p < 0.001). The hospitalization duration was significantly shortened in the intervention group (median: 8 d vs. 9 d, Hazard ratio: 0.759, 95% CI: 0.704-0.818, p < 0.0001). The proportion of new-onset fever (2.4% vs. 4.1%, p = 0.012), coughing (12.2% vs. 14.8%, p = 0.046), and expectoration (6.0% vs. 8.0%, p = 0.032) in the intervention group was significantly lower. RYN treatment increased Ct values and reduced the viral load. No disease progression and serious adverse events were reported during the study. CONCLUSION: RYN is a safe and effective treatment that can accelerate virus clearance and promote disease recovery in asymptomatic and mild Omicron infections.

Semisupervised Semantic Segmentation by Improving Prediction Confidence.

Most of the recent image segmentation methods have tried to achieve the utmost segmentation results using large-scale pixel-level annotated data sets. However, obtaining these pixel-level annotated training data is usually tedious and expensive. In this work, we address the task of semisupervised semantic segmentation, which reduces the need for large numbers of pixel-level annotated images. We propose a method for semisupervised semantic segmentation by improving the confidence of the predicted class probability map via two parts. First, we build an adversarial framework that regards the segmentation network as the generator and uses a fully convolutional network as the discriminator. The adversarial learning makes the prediction class probability closer to 1. Second, the information entropy of the predicted class probability map is computed to represent the unpredictability of the segmentation prediction. Then, we infer the label-error map of the segmentation prediction and minimize the uncertainty on misclassified regions for unlabeled images. In contrast to existing semisupervised and weakly supervised semantic segmentation methods, the proposed method results in more confident predictions by focusing on the misclassified regions, especially the boundary regions. Our experimental results on the PASCAL VOC 2012 and PASCAL-CONTEXT data sets show that the proposed method achieves competitive segmentation performance.

Synergistic Effect of Segregated Pd and Au Nanoparticles on Semiconducting SiC for Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogenation of Nitroarenes.

Efficient catalytic hydrogenation of nitroarenes to anilines with molecular hydrogen at room temperature is still a challenge. In this study, this transformation was achieved by using a photocatalyst of SiC-supported segregated Pd and Au nanoparticles. Under visible-light irradiation, the nitrobenzene hydrogenation reached a turnover frequency as high as 1715 h-1 at 25 °C and 0.1 MPa of H2 pressure. This exceptional catalytic activity is attributed to a synergistic effect of Pd and Au nanoparticles on the semiconducting SiC, which is different from the known electronic or ensemble effects in Pd-Au catalysts. This kind of synergism originates from the plasmonic electron injection of Au and the Mott-Schottky contact at the interface between Pd and SiC. This three-component system changes the electronic structures of the SiC surface and produces more active sites to accommodate the active hydrogen that spills over from the surface of Pd. These active hydrogen species have weaker interactions with the SiC surface and thus are more mobile than on an inert support, resulting in an ease in reacting with the N═O bonds in nitrobenzene absorbed on SiC to produce aniline.

Formation mechanism of Si3N4 nanowires via carbothermal reduction of carbonaceous silica xerogels.

Si3N4 nanowires prepared from the carbothermal reduction of carbonaceous silica xerogels with metal salt additives usually contain a small amount of nanotubes. This paper is devoted to the investigation of the formation mechanism of the Si3N4 nanowires. As-prepared samples heated at 1300 degrees C for different reaction times (1, 5, 10, and 30 h) were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The results showed that all the samples mainly consisted of nanowires, while their crystalline phases changed with the heating time. Nitrogen-doped silicon oxide nanowires were first produced via the vapor-liquid-solid process and then underwent a stepwise surface nitrogenization to silicon nitride. The suggested mechanism can easily explain the existence of nanotubes in the Si3N4 nanowires.

[Vacuum sealing drainage combined with free skin graft in repairing cutaneous deficiency of traumatic shank amputation stump].

OBJECTIVE: To observe clinical efficacy in treating cutaneous deficiency of traumatic shank amputation stump with full-thickness skin graft combined with vacuum sealing drainage. METHODS: From September 2009 to December 2012, 15 patients with cutaneous deficiency of traumatic shank amputation stump were treated with full-thickness skin graft combined with vacuum sealing drainage. Among patients, there were 11 males and 4 females with an average age of 41.5 (ranged from 25 to 62) years old. Ten cases were caused by traffic accident and 5 cases were caused by heavy object, 9 cases on left and 6 cases on right. Six patients with smashed wound were treated with debridement and amputation, combined with vacuum aspiration in-emergency; 9 patients caused by infection and necrosis were treated with debridement and amputation, combined with vacuum aspiration, and full-thickness skin graft were performed at stage II. The skin defect area of residual limbs ranged from 40 cm x 20 cm to 25 cm x 15 cm. RESULTS: All patients were followed up from 3 months to 1 year. Full-thickness skin graft of residual limbs were survived,and obtained satisfactory walking function with prosthetic. Residual skin increased thicken, wearproof without rupture and pain. CONCLUSION: Full-thickness skin graft combined with vacuum sealing drainage in treating cutaneous deficiency of traumatic shank amputation stump could reserve the length of residual limbs, increase survival rate of skin graft with less scar of survival skin, get good wearability and it is conducive to prosthetic wear. It is a simple and easy treatment method.

In situ grafted carbon on sawtooth-like SiC supported Ni for high-performance supercapacitor electrodes.

A novel C-Ni-SiC composite using sawtooth-like SiC as support and carbon as modified material was prepared by hydrothermal synthesis and thermochemical pyrolysis. As a supercapacitor electrode, it exhibits very high specific capacitance (1780 F g(-1)) and excellent cycling performance (>96% for 2500 cycles).

[Thumb replantation through bridging ulnar proper digital artery and dorsal carpal branch of radial artery].

OBJECTIVE: To introduce treatment method of replantation of severed thumb trauma with proximal arterial, and to evaluate its efficacy. METHODS: From February 2007 to March 2009,13 patients with severed thumb in serious injury of proximal arterial were treated with vein graft of volar forearm,bridging between dorsal carpal branch of radial artery on nasopharyngeal fossa and distal stump of ulnar proper digital artery. Among them, there were 11 males and 2 females with an average age of 34.5 years ranging from 16 to 50 years. Seven cases were in the left thumb,6 in the right thumb. Eight cases were complete separation, incomplete separation in 5 cases. Ten cases recieved emergency reimplantation, 3 cases with the arterial crisis after conventional replantation were explorated and repaired. RESULTS: Thumb of 13 cases all survived. All patients were followed-up for 8 to 17 months (averaged, 11 months). Replantation thumb obtained satisfactory appearance. According to Chinese Medical Association Society of Hand Surgery Trial criteria, the results were excellent in 9 fingers, good in 3 fingers, 1 poor finger. Two point discrimination of finger pulp was 5 to 8 mm (averaged 6.5 mm). CONCLUSION: By repairing artery of thumb with vein graft of volar forearm, bridging between dorsal carpal branch of radial artery on nasopharyngeal fossa and distal stump of ulnar proper digital artery,complex severed thumb replants on surgery position comfortable,without affecting the blood supply of the hand, expanding the indications for replantation and improving the success rate of replantation.

[Treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome with mini-incision decompression].

OBJECTIVE: To introduce the method of the transverse carpal ligament (TCL) transection through palmar mini-incision for carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and evaluate its efficacy and safety. METHODS: From January 2006 to September 2007, 15 patients (18 hands) with CTS were treated with palmar longitudinal mini-incision decompression. There were 2 males and 13 females, with an average age of 48 years (ranged 34 to 69) and an average course of 18 months (ranged 8 to 26). The main clinical symptom including the radial numbness or pain of the 3 and a half fingers, wrist pain and radiation to the forearm, the night awake history of numbness, thenar muscle atrophy, positive Tinel sign and Phalen sign. Median nerve electrophysiology showed that sensory nerve conduction velocity (SCV) slowed down and sensory nerve action potential (SNAP) decreased or missed, short abductor muscle of thumb had spontaneous potential in severe cases. Clinical effect were evaluated according to the Global symptom score (GSS) scoring in aspect of pain, numbness, paraesthesia, weakness and nocturnal awakening. RESULTS: Postoperative wound smoothly healed in all patients and no complications occurred. All patients were followed up from 20 to 28 months with an average of 24 months. Symptoms of 1 patient had not incomplete relief, other patient's symptoms disappeared and muscle force of abductor pollicis brevis reinforced. Postoperative GSS scoring obviously improved than preoperative (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome through palmar mini-incision decompression has advantages such as higher safe, shorter operative time, less invasive, smaller scar, which can cut off carpi transversum ligament and thoroughly decompress median nerve under direct sight, it is a safe and effective operative approach.

Cuprous oxide nanoparticles dispersed on reduced graphene oxide as an efficient electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction.

Cuprous oxide (Cu(2)O) nanoparticles dispersed on reduced graphene oxide (RGO) were prepared by reducing copper acetate supported on graphite oxide using diethylene glycol as both solvent and reducing agent. The Cu(2)O/RGO composite exhibits excellent catalytic activity and remarkable tolerance to methanol and CO in the oxygen reduction reaction.