A Single Component, Single Layer Flexile Foam Evaporator with the Higher Efficiency for Water Generation.

One of the greenest and promising ways to solve the problem of freshwater crisis is surface solar steam generation from seawater. A great number of photothermal materials with multi-component and multi-layered delicate yet complex structures often suffer from either low evaporation rate or high energy loss. Here, this work presents a single component foam evaporator with steam generation rate of up to 4.32 kg m-2 h-1 under 1 sun irradiation. The evaporator is constructed from an aniline oligomer as a single light-absorbing component, covalent linked with polyethylene glycol to form a monolithic polymer foam. Floating on the seawater, the foam has absorbance of 99.5% over the entire solar spectral range and low thermal conductivity (0.0077 W K-1m-1) that effectively retains heat in the material and at the interface. After 3 months of continuous outdoor natural sunlight irradiation, the evaporator maintains a stable and durable evaporation rate. Moreover, the materials have good mechanical properties (7.48 MPa young's modulus and 57.38% elongation at break) and excellent chemical resistance in 10 common organic solvents and aqueous solutions of pH = 1 to 14. This study provides a new system and strategy for desalination, steam power generation, treatment of polluted water and sewage, etc.

Branched chemically modified poly(A) tails enhance the translation capacity of mRNA.

Although messenger RNA (mRNA) has proved effective as a vaccine, its potential as a general therapeutic modality is limited by its instability and low translation capacity. To increase the duration and level of protein expression from mRNA, we designed and synthesized topologically and chemically modified mRNAs with multiple synthetic poly(A) tails. Here we demonstrate that the optimized multitailed mRNA yielded ~4.7-19.5-fold higher luminescence signals than the control mRNA from 24 to 72 h post transfection in cellulo and 14 days detectable signal versus <7 days signal from the control in vivo. We further achieve efficient multiplexed genome editing of the clinically relevant genes Pcsk9 and Angptl3 in mouse liver at a minimal mRNA dosage. Taken together, these results provide a generalizable approach to synthesize capped branched mRNA with markedly enhanced translation capacity.

Biomimetic, knittable aerogel fiber for thermal insulation textile.

Aerogels have been considered as an ideal material for thermal insulation. Unfortunately, their application in textiles is greatly limited by their fragility and poor processability. We overcame these issues by encapsulating the aerogel fiber with a stretchable layer, mimicking the core-shell structure of polar bear hair. Despite its high internal porosity over 90%, our fiber is stretchable up to 1000% strain, which is greatly improved compared with that of traditional aerogel fibers (~2% strain). In addition to its washability and dyeability, our fiber is mechanically robust, retaining its stable thermal insulation property after 10,000 stretching cycles (100% strain). A sweater knitted with our fiber was only one-fifth as thick as down, with similar performance. Our strategy for this fiber provides rich possibilities for developing multifunctional aerogel fibers and textiles.

Characteristics of plasma exosomes in drug-resistant tuberculosis patients.

BACKGROUND: Increasing prevalence of drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) poses a major challenge to the early detection and effective control of tuberculosis (TB). Exosomes carrying proteins and nucleic acid mediate intercellular communication between host and pathogen including Mycobacterium tuberculosis. However, molecular events of exosomes indicating the status and development of DR-TB remain unknown. This study determined the proteomics of exosome in DR-TB and explored the potential pathogenesis of DR-TB. METHODS: Plasma samples were collected from 17 DR-TB patients and 33 non-drug-resistant tuberculosis (NDR-TB) patients using grouped case-control study design. After exosomes of plasma were isolated and confirmed by compositional and morphological measurement for exosomal characteristics, a label-free quantitative proteomics of exosomes was performed and differential protein components were determined via bioinformatics analysis. RESULTS: Compared with the NDR-TB group, we identified 16 up-regulated proteins and 10 down-regulated proteins in the DR-TB group. The down-regulated proteins were mainly apolipoproteins and mainly enriched in cholesterol metabolism-related pathways. Apolipoproteins family including APOA1, APOB, APOC1 were key proteins in protein-protein interaction network. CONCLUSION: Differentially expressed proteins in the exosomes may indicate the status of DR-TB from NDR-TB. Apolipoproteins family including APOA1, APOB, APOC1 may be involved in the pathogenesis of DR-TB by regulating cholesterol metabolism via exosomes.

Discussion of tumor mutation burden as an indicator to predict efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors: A case report.

There are many treatment options for advanced lung cancer, among which immunotherapy has developed rapidly and benefited a lot of patients. However, immunotherapy can only benefit a subgroup of patients, and how to select patients suitable for this therapy is critical. Tumor mutation burden (TMB) is one of the important reference indicators for immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). However, there are many factors influencing the usage of this indicator, which will lead to considerable consequences if not treated well. In this study, we performed a case study on a male advanced lung squamous cell carcinoma patient of age 83. The patient suffered from "cough and sputum", and did chest CT scans on 24 October 2018, which showed "a mass-like mass in the anterior segment of the right lung upper lobe, about 38mm×28mm". He was treated with systemic chemotherapy; however, the tumor was still under progression. Although PD-L1 was not tested in gene testing, he had a TMB value of 10.26 mutations/Mb with a quantile value 88.63%. Thus, "toripalimab injection" was added as immunotherapy and the size of the lesion decreased. In summary, we adopted a clinical case as the basis to explore the value and significance of TMB in immunotherapy in this study. We hope that more predictive molecular markers will be discovered, which will bring more treatment methods for advanced lung cancer.

A sustainable single-component "Silk nacre".

Synthetic composite materials constructed by hybridizing multiple components are typically unsustainable due to inadequate recyclability and incomplete degradation. In contrast, biological materials like silk and bamboo assemble pure polymeric components into sophisticated multiscale architectures, achieving both excellent performance and full degradability. Learning from these natural examples of bio-based "single-component" composites will stimulate the development of sustainable materials. Here, we report a single-component "Silk nacre," where nacre's typical "brick-and-mortar" structure has been replicated with silk fibroin only and by a facile procedure combining bidirectional freezing, water vapor annealing, and densification. The biomimetic design endows the Silk nacre with mechanical properties superior to those of homogeneous silk material, as well as to many frequently used polymers. In addition, the Silk nacre shows controllable plasticity and complete biodegradability, representing an alternative substitute to conventional composite materials.

PINE: Universal Deep Embedding for Graph Nodes via Partial Permutation Invariant Set Functions.

Graph node embedding aims at learning a vector representation for all nodes given a graph. It is a central problem in many machine learning tasks (e.g., node classification, recommendation, community detection). The key problem in graph node embedding lies in how to define the dependence to neighbors. Existing approaches specify (either explicitly or implicitly) certain dependencies on neighbors, which may lead to loss of subtle but important structural information within the graph and other dependencies among neighbors. This intrigues us to ask the question: can we design a model to give the adaptive flexibility of dependencies to each node's neighborhood. In this paper, we propose a novel graph node embedding method (named PINE) via a novel notion of partial permutation invariant set function, to capture any possible dependence. Our method 1) can learn an arbitrary form of the representation function from the neighborhood, without losing any potential dependence structures, and 2) is applicable to both homogeneous and heterogeneous graph embedding, the latter of which is challenged by the diversity of node types. Furthermore, we provide theoretical guarantee for the representation capability of our method for general homogeneous and heterogeneous graphs. Empirical evaluation results on benchmark data sets show that our proposed PINE method outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches on producing node vectors for various learning tasks of both homogeneous and heterogeneous graphs.

A Transparent, Skin-Inspired Composite Film with Outstanding Tear Resistance Based on Flat Silk Cocoon.

Flexible and transparent substrates play a fundamental role as a mechanical support in advanced electronic devices. However, commonly used polymer films, such as polydimethylsiloxane, show low tear resistance because of their crack sensitivity. Herein, inspired by the excellent mechanical robustness of the skin and its fibrous structure, an epoxy-resin-based composite with a flat silk cocoon as a reinforcing fiber network is fabricated. With only 1 wt% of silk fiber, the tensile strength and modulus of the as-prepared composite film are considerably increased by 300% and 612% compared to those of pure resin, while still maintaining flexibility and transparency. More importantly, the composite shows remarkable tear resistance: without fracture after ≈30 000 tensile cycles. The potential application of such transparent composite films as mechanically robust substrates for flexible electronics is also demonstrated. In addition, this study represents a bioinspired strategy to construct high-performance functional composite materials.

Virtual population pharmacokinetic using physiologically based pharmacokinetic model for evaluating bioequivalence of oral lacidipine formulations in dogs.

The aim of the present study was to investigate virtual population pharmacokinetic using physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model for evaluating bioequivalence of oral lacidipine formulations in dogs. The dissolution behaviors of three lacidipine formulations including one commercial product and two self-made amorphous solid dispersions (ASDs) capsules were determined in 0.07% Tween 80 media. A randomized 3-period crossover design in 6 healthy beagle dogs after oral administration of the three formulations at a single dose of 4 mg was conducted. The PBPK modeling was utilized for the virtual bioequivalence study. In vitro dissolution experiment showed that the dissolution behaviors of lacidipine amorphous solid dispersions (ASDs) capsules, which was respectively prepared by HPMC-E5 or Soluplus, as polymer displayed similar curves compared with the reference formulation in 0.07% Tween 80 media. In vivo pharmacokinetics experiments showed that three formulations had comparable maximum plasma drug concentration (Cmax ), and the time (Tmax ) to reach Cmax of lacidipine tablet, which was prepared by Soluplus, as polymer was slower than other two formulations in consistency with the in vitro dissolution rate. The 90% confidence interval (CI) for the Cmax , AUC0-24 h and AUC0-∞ of the ratio of the test drug to the referencedrug exceeded the acceptable bioequivalence (BE) limits (0.80-1.25). However, the 90% CI of the AUC0-24 h, AUC0-∞ and Cmax of the ratio of test to reference drug were within the BE limit, calculated using PBPK modeling when the virtual subjects reached 24 dogs. The results all demonstrated that virtual bioequivalence study can overcome the inequivalence caused by inter-subject variability of the 6 beagle dogs involved in in vivo experiments.

Targeting tumor highly-expressed LAT1 transporter with amino acid-modified nanoparticles: Toward a novel active targeting strategy in breast cancer therapy.

Designing active targeting nanocarriers with increased cellular accumulation of chemotherapeutic agents is a promising strategy in cancer therapy. Herein, we report a novel active targeting strategy based on the large amino acid transporter 1 (LAT1) overexpressed in a variety of cancers. Glutamate was conjugated to polyoxyethylene stearate as a targeting ligand to achieve LAT1-targeting PLGA nanoparticles. The targeting efficiency of nanoparticles was investigated in HeLa and MCF-7 cells. Significant increase in cellular uptake and cytotoxicity was observed in LAT1-targeting nanoparticles compared to the unmodified ones. More interestingly, the internalized LAT1 together with targeting nanoparticles could recycle back to the cell membrane within 3 h, guaranteeing sufficient transporters on cell membrane for continuous cellular uptake. The LAT1 targeting nanoparticles exhibited better tumor accumulation and antitumor effects. These results suggested that the overexpressed LAT1 on cancer cells holds a great potential to be a high-efficiency target for the rational design of active-targeting nanosystems.

[Development and usage of the convenient moxa cone maker].

Moxibustion therapy is a non-invasive and natural therapy that is accepted by modern society with advantages of effectiveness and low-cost. However, the traditional process of producing hand-made moxa cone is time consuming, complicated, inefficient and difficult for mass production. Consequently, it hardly meets the clinical demands. This seriously reduces the popularization and promotion of traditional therapy with moxa cone. To deal with this problem, a new type of convenient moxa cone maker, which can easily and quickly produce multi-model moxa cones in mass production with constant specifications and uniform density. The mass production process is saving in material and low cost with high production efficiency. Application of the convenient moxa cone maker meets the needs of moxa cone in the clinical and scientific research and contributes to the popularization and promotion of traditional therapy with moxa cone.

A small sphere and large margin approach for novelty detection using training data with outliers.

We present a small sphere and large margin approach for novelty detection problems, where the majority of training data are normal examples. In addition, the training data also contain a small number of abnormal examples or outliers. The basic idea is to construct a hypersphere that contains most of the normal examples, such that the volume of this sphere is as small as possible, while at the same time the margin between the surface of this sphere and the outlier training data is as large as possible. This can result in a closed and tight boundary around the normal data. To build such a sphere, we only need to solve a convex optimization problem that can be efficiently solved with the existing software packages for training \nu\hbox{-}Support Vector Machines. Experimental results are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.