Clinical evidence and potential mechanisms of traditional Chinese medicine for refractory heart failure: a literature review and perspectives.

Refractory heart failure (RHF), or end-stage heart failure, has a poor prognosis and high case fatality rate, making it one of the therapeutic difficulties in the cardiovascular field. Despite the continuous abundance of methods and means for treating RHF in modern medicine, it still cannot meet the clinical needs of patients with RHF. How to further reduce the mortality rate and readmission rate of patients with RHF and improve their quality of life is still a difficult point in current research. In China, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been widely used and has accumulated rich experience in the treatment of RHF due to its unique efficacy and safety advantages. Based on this, we comprehensively summarized and analyzed the clinical evidence and mechanism of action of TCM in the treatment of RHF and proposed urgent scientific issues and future research strategies for the treatment of RHF with TCM, to provide reference for the treatment of RHF.

Unraveling the role of VLDL in the relationship between type 2 diabetes and coronary atherosclerosis: a Mendelian randomization analysis.

Background: The causal link between Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and coronary atherosclerosis has been established through wet lab experiments; however, its analysis with Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) data remains unexplored. This study aims to validate this relationship using Mendelian randomization analysis and explore the potential mediation of VLDL in this mechanism. Methods: Employing Mendelian randomization analysis, we investigated the causal connection between T2D and coronary atherosclerosis. We utilized GWAS summary statistics from European ancestry cohorts, comprising 23,363 coronary atherosclerosis patients and 195,429 controls, along with 32,469 T2D patients and 183,185 controls. VLDL levels, linked to SNPs, were considered as a potential mediating causal factor that might contribute to coronary atherosclerosis in the presence of T2D. We employed the inverse variance weighted (IVW), Egger regression (MR-Egger), weighted median, and weighted model methods for causal effect estimation. A leave-one-out sensitivity analysis was conducted to ensure robustness. Results: Our Mendelian randomization analysis demonstrated a genetic association between T2D and an increased coronary atherosclerosis risk, with the IVW estimate at 1.13 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.07-1.20]. Additionally, we observed a suggestive causal link between T2D and VLDL levels, as evidenced by the IVW estimate of 1.02 (95% CI: 0.98-1.07). Further supporting lipid involvement in coronary atherosclerosis pathogenesis, the IVW-Egger estimate was 1.30 (95% CI: 1.06-1.58). Conclusion: In conclusion, this study highlights the autonomous contributions of T2D and VLDL levels to coronary atherosclerosis development. T2D is linked to a 13.35% elevated risk of coronary atherosclerosis, and within T2D patients, VLDL concentration rises by 2.49%. Notably, each standard deviation increase in VLDL raises the likelihood of heart disease by 29.6%. This underscores the significant role of lipid regulation, particularly VLDL, as a mediating pathway in coronary atherosclerosis progression.

In-Site Grown NiFeOOH Nanosheets Foam Directly as Robust Electrocatalyst for Efficient Urea Oxidation Application.

In this work, a series of morphology-controlled NiFeOOH nanosheets were directly developed through a one-step mild in-situ acid-etching hydrothermal process. Benefiting from the ultrathin interwoven geometric structure and most favorable electron transport structure, the NiFeOOH nanosheets synthesized under 120 °C (denoted as NiFe_120) exhibited the optimal electrochemical performance for urea oxidation reaction (UOR). An overpotential of merely 1.4 V was required to drive the current density of 100 mA cm-2 , and the electrochemical activity remains no change even after 5000 cycles' accelerated degradation test. Moreover, the assembled urea electrolysis set by using the NiFe_120 as bifunctional catalysts presented a reduced potential of 1.573 V at 10 mA cm-2 , which was much lower than that of overall water splitting. We believe this work will lay a foundation for developing high-performance urea oxidation catalysts for the large-scale production of hydrogen and purification of urea-rich sewage.

Metal transducer-assisted acoustic deformation potential characterization via coherent acoustic phonon dynamics.

Acoustic deformation potential (ADP) plays a significant role in quantifying carrier-acoustic phonon interactions in semiconductors. In this work, we report a novel ultrafast spectroscopy method to extract the ADP coupling constant of a semiconductor by jointly analyzing the coherent acoustic phonon signals with and without a metal transducer. By applying this method to GaAs, the ADP coupling constant corresponding to the band gap was extracted using a pump photon energy near the band gap, which agrees well with literature values. With a larger pump photon energy, the ADP coupling constant deviates from the one for the band gap, which is attributed to contributions from the carrier dynamics in multiple energy and wavevector states.

Porous Carbon Substrate Improving the Sensing Performance of Copper Nanoparticles Toward Glucose.

An accurate sensor to rapidly determine the glucose concentration is of significant importance for the human body health, as diabetes has become a very high incidence around the world. In this work, copper nanoparticles accommodated in porous carbon substrates (Cu NP@PC), synthesized by calcinating the filter papers impregnated with copper ions at high temperature, were designed as the electrode active materials for electrochemical sensing of glucose. During the formation of porous carbon, the copper nanoparticles spontaneously accommodated into the formed voids and constituted the half-covered composites. For the electrochemical glucose oxidation, the prepared Cu NP@PC composites exhibit much superior catalytic activity with the current density of 0.31 mA/cm2 at the potential of 0.55 V in the presence of 0.2 mM glucose. Based on the high electrochemical oxidation activity, the present Cu NP@PC composites also exhibit a superior glucose sensing performance. The sensitivity is determined to be 84.5 µA /(mmol.L) with a linear range of 0.01 ~ 1.1 mM and a low detection limit (LOD) of 2.1 µmol/L. Compared to that of non-porous carbon supported copper nanoparticles (Cu NP/C), this can be reasonable by the improved mass transfer and strengthened synergistic effect between copper nanoparticles and porous carbon substrates.

Ultralow-noise broadband source for interferometric fiber optic gyroscopesemploying a semiconductor optical amplifier.

A novel scheme of an ultralow relative intensity noise (RIN) broadband source module employing a double pumped backward (DPB) Er-doped superfluorescence fiber source (EDSFS) and a semiconductor optical amplifier for interferometric fiber optic gyroscopes (IFOGs) is proposed. With optimized parameters, the optimal twin-peak output profile of the source is obtained. The effective optical spectrum width of the source is 38.6 nm, and the output power is about 12.5 mW. Compared with the DPB EDSFS with a similar spectrum, the ultralow RIN broadband source proposed demonstrates a lower RIN of about 8.4 dB. A high-precision IFOG utilizing the ultralow RIN broadband source is set up, and the performance of the IFOG is experimentally studied. An angle random walk coefficient of 6.93×10-5o/h1/2 is demonstrated, which is reduced by about 31.5% compared with the same IFOG system utilizing conventional DPB EDSFS with a similar spectrum profile. The ultralow RIN broadband source module proposed is quite feasible for high-precision IFOGs used in strategic-grade navigation systems and satellites.

[Characteristics of agricultural climate resource changes during the growth stages of tobacco during 1961-2017 in Panxi Region, China]. / 1961­2017年攀西烤烟生育期农业气候资源变化特征.

It is of great significance for the sustainable development of regional agriculture to understand the changes of agricultural climate resources during the growth period of local main crops. Based on data from 15 meteorological stations in tobacco planting area of Panxi region, Sichuan, from 1961 to 2017, the average temperature, diurnal temperature range, water deficit, and radiation were used to analyze the temporal and spatial distribution of agricultural climate resources such as light, temperature, and water in the whole growth period and each growth stages respectively. From 1961 to 2017, the average temperature of tobacco during the whole growth period gradually decreased from south to north in Panxi, while temperature showed an increasing trend in most areas. The area with significantly increased temperature accounted for 54.5% of the total planting area. The diurnal temperature range in most area of the eastern Panxi and some of the central Panxi showed an upward trend, and these areas accounted for 76.4% of the whole Panxi region. Water deficit gradually decreased from south to north, with an increasing trend in the whole region. The radiation during the growth stage of tobacco was high in the southwest and low in the northeast, and the climatic tendency was positive values in the southwest. During the study period, average temperature was the highest in the period from vigorous growth to the beginning of maturity, with an overall upward trend. The diurnal temperature rage and water deficit were the highest in transplanting squatting seedling stage. Radiation was the highest at the beginning of maturity, which increased slightly at the beginning of seedling growth.

Nickel Catalysts Supported on Acetylene Black for High-Efficient Electrochemical Oxidation and Sensitive Detection of Glucose.

Electrocatalytic glucose oxidation is a very important reaction in glucose fuel cell and medical diagnosis, which is limited by sluggish reaction kinetics and low diffusion coefficient. Herein, a composite (donated as Ni6/AB) consisting of atomically precise nickel catalyst with defined crystal structure [Ni6(SC12H25)12] and acetylene black(AB) has been initiated as a novel and high-efficient non-noble metal catalyst for the electrochemical oxidation of glucose benefiting from its high exposure of active sites and increased electron/mass transport. The present Ni6/AB composites display the onset potential of +1.24 V and the maximum current density of 5 mA cm-2 at the potential of +1.47 V in the electrolyte of 0.1 M KOH with 5 mM glucose. This electrochemical performance is much superior to the alone nickel catalysts, acetylene black, and previous reported nanomaterials. Furthermore, the obtained Ni6/AB composites are also expected to find important application in the electrochemical detection of glucose due to its high electrochemical performance. The sensitivity and the detection of limit are determined to be 0.7709 mA cm-2 mM-1 and 1.9 µM, respectively. Our study demonstrates that atomically precise nickel catalysts on acetylene black could be potential promising materials for next-generation energy devices and electrochemical sensors.