Dipole Moment and Built-In Polarization Electric Field Induced by Oxygen Vacancies in BiOX for Boosting Piezoelectric-Photocatalytic Removal of Uranium(VI).

Piezoelectric-photocatalysis is distinguished by its piezoelectricity as an external force that induces deformation within the catalyst to engender a polarized electric field compared to conventional photocatalysis. Herein, the piezoelectric photocatalyst BiOBr has been expertly synthesized via a plasma process and applied for piezoelectric-photocatalysis removal of uranium(VI) for the first time. The abundant surface oxygen vacancies (OVs) could induce a dipole moment and built-in electric field, which endows BiOBr with excellent separation and transport efficiency of photogenerated charges to actuate more charges to participate in the piezoelectric-photocatalytic reduction process. Consequently, under visible light and ultrasound (150 W and 40 kHz), the removal rate constant of OVs-BiOBr-30 (0.0306 min-1) was 2.4, 30.6, and 6 times higher than those of BiOBr (0.01273 min-1), ultrasound, or photocatalysis, respectively. The piezoelectric-photocatalytic synergy is also universal for BiOX (X = Cl, Br, or I) to accelerate the reduction rate of uranium(VI). This work highlights the role of piezoelectric-photocatalysis in the treatment of uranium-containing wastewater, which is of great significance for resource conservation and environmental remediation.

Lactoferrin ameliorated obesity-induced endothelial dysfunction by inhibiting the Tak1/IL-18/eNOS pathway between PVAT and vascular endothelium.

Vascular endothelial dysfunction (ED) is one of the mechanisms underlying obesity-related hypertension. Perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT) surrounds blood vessels and influences the vascular endothelium function. Previous studies have demonstrated the antihypertensive effects of lactoferrin (LF) and its hydrolysates through various mechanisms. However, the effect of LF on ED and PVAT has not yet been investigated. In this study, we examined the influence of LF on ED and PVAT using high-fat diet mice as well as MAEC cells and 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Finally, LF supplementation decreases the systolic blood pressure (SBP), serum adhesion molecule (ICAM-1 and VCAM-1), and aorta ROS levels, and improves endothelium-dependent relaxation function in high-fat diet mice. Moreover, LF supplementation down-regulates the Tak1/IL-18/eNOS pathway between PVAT and aorta and enhances the NO generation in high-fat diet mice. In addition, we observe that LF decreases the expression levels of IL-18 and p-Tak1 in 3T3-L1 adipocytes, but fails to influence the eNOS and p-eNOS expression levels in MAEC cells. Finally, the significant associations between LF and IL-18 and SBP and hypertension risk are also observed in obesity children only. These findings provide evidence that the Tak1/IL-18/eNOS pathway between the aorta and PVAT is important in obesity-related ED, and LF may improve ED or even hypertension by down-regulating this pathway.

Application of Artificial Intelligence within Virtual Reality for Production of Digital Media Art.

As technology changes, virtual reality generates realistic images through computer graphics and provides users with an immersive experience through various interactive means. In the context of digitalization, the application of VR for digital media art creation becomes a normalized method. Today's digital media art creation is closely related to vigorous technological innovation behind it, so the influence of modern technology is inevitable. Virtual reality and artificial intelligence have gradually become the main technical means in line with the development aim for digital media art creation. This work proposes an art object detection method AODNET in virtual reality digital media art creation with AI. Aiming at the particularity of object detection in this direction, an art object detection strategy based on residual network and clustering idea is proposed. First of all, it uses ResNet50 as backbone, which deepens network depth and improves the model feature extraction ability. Second, it uses the K-means++ algorithm to perform clustering statistics on the size of the real annotated boxes in the dataset to obtain appropriate hyperparameters for preset candidate boxes, which enhances the tolerance of the algorithm to the target size. Third, it replaces the ROI pooling algorithm with ROI align to eliminate the error caused by the quantization operation on the characteristics of the candidate region. Fourth, to reduce the missed detection rate of overlapping targets, soft-NMS algorithm is used instead of the NMS algorithm to post-process the candidate boxes. Finally, this work conducts extensive experiments to verify the superiority of AODNET for object detection in virtual reality digital media art creation.

Lactoferrin Prevents Chronic Alcoholic Injury by Regulating Redox Balance and Lipid Metabolism in Female C57BL/6J Mice.

This study aimed to investigate the preventive effects of lactoferrin (Lf) on chronic alcoholic liver injury (ALI) in female mice. Female C57BL/6J mice were randomly divided into four groups: control group (CON), ethanol administration group (EtOH), low-dose Lf treatment group (LLf), and high-dose Lf group (HLf). In the last three groups, chronic ALI was induced by administering 20% ethanol ad libitum for 12 weeks. Mice in the CON and EtOH groups were fed with AIN-93G diet. Meanwhile, 0.4% and 4% casein in the AIN-93G diet were replaced by Lf as the diets of LLf and HLf groups, respectively. HLf significantly reduced hepatic triglyceride content and improved pathological morphology. HLf could inhibit cytochrome P450 2E1 overexpression and promote alcohol dehydrogenase-1 expression. HLf activated protein kinase B and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), as well as upregulating nuclear-factor-erythroid-2-related factor-2 expression to elevate hepatic antioxidative enzyme activities. AMPK activation also benefited hepatic lipid metabolism. Meanwhile, HLf had no obvious beneficial effects on gut microbiota. In summary, Lf could alleviate chronic ALI in female mice, which was associated with redox balance and lipid metabolism regulation.