Boosting the Electrochemical Performance of V2 O3 by Anchoring on Carbon Nanotube Microspheres with Macrovoids for Ultrafast and Long-Life Aqueous Zinc-Ion Batteries.

Zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) are next-generation energy storage systems with high safety and environmental friendliness because they can be operated in aqueous systems. However, the search for electrode materials with ideal nanostructures and compositions for aqueous ZIBs is in progress. Herein, the synthesis of porous microspheres, consisting of V2 O3 anchored on entangled carbon nanotubes (p-V2 O3 -CNT) and their application as cathode for ZIBs is reported. From various analyses, it is revealed that V2 O3 phase disappears after the initial charge process, and Zn3+ x (OH)2+3 x V2- x O7-3 x ∙2H2 O and zinc vanadate (Zny VOz ) phases undergo zinc-ion intercalation/deintercalation processes from the second cycle. Additionally, the electrochemical performances of p-V2 O3 -CNT, V2 O3 -CNT (without macrovoids), and porous V2 O3 (without CNTs) microspheres are compared to determine the effects of nanostructures and conductive carbonaceous matrix on the zinc-ion storage performance. p-V2 O3 -CNT exhibits a high reversible capacity of 237 mA h g-1 after 5000 cycles at 10 A g-1 . Furthermore, a reversible capacity of 211 mA h g-1 is obtained at an extremely high current density of 50 A g-1 . The macrovoids in V2 O3 nanostructure effectively alleviate the volume changes during cycling, and the entangled CNTs with high electrical conductivity assist in achieving fast electrochemical kinetics.

ODFM, an omics data resource from microorganisms associated with fermented foods.

ODFM is a data management system that integrates comprehensive omics information for microorganisms associated with various fermented foods, additive ingredients, and seasonings (e.g. kimchi, Korean fermented vegetables, fermented seafood, solar salt, soybean paste, vinegar, beer, cheese, sake, and yogurt). The ODFM archives genome, metagenome, metataxonome, and (meta)transcriptome sequences of fermented food-associated bacteria, archaea, eukaryotic microorganisms, and viruses; 131 bacterial, 38 archaeal, and 28 eukaryotic genomes are now available to users. The ODFM provides both the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool search-based local alignment function as well as average nucleotide identity-based genetic relatedness measurement, enabling gene diversity and taxonomic analyses of an input query against the database. Genome sequences and annotation results of microorganisms are directly downloadable, and the microbial strains registered in the archive library will be available from our culture collection of fermented food-associated microorganisms. The ODFM is a comprehensive database that covers the genomes of an entire microbiome within a specific food ecosystem, providing basic information to evaluate microbial isolates as candidate fermentation starters for fermented food production.

Evaluation of Sterilization Performance for Vaporized-Hydrogen-Peroxide-Based Sterilizer with Diverse Controlled Parameters.

Hydrogen-peroxide-based low-temperature sterilization is a new sterilization technology for temperature-dependent medical devices. The effect of the process parameters of hydrogen-peroxide-based sterilizer on the sterilization performance of process challenge devices (PCDs) needs to be investigated. Sterilant amount, operating temperature, vacuum pressure, diffusion time, and chamber loading of the sterilizer on the sterilization performance of PCDs were adjusted. Seven PCDs with various morphologies and material containing biological indicators (BI) (EZTest, Geobacillus stearothermophilus) were used to evaluate the sterilization performance. The sterilization success rates of PCDs were 86, 71, and 57% with controlled temperature and pressure, diffusion time, and sterilant volume injection, respectively. The PCD material and structure also obviously affected sterilization performance. The sterilization of PCD A is the least successful for all parameters. Meanwhile, the sterilization of PCD B was influenced by the diffusion time and the sterilant injection volume. PCD B and PCD C were successfully sterilized by controlling the temperature and pressure. The weights and volume of the sterilization loading chamber resulted in a different sterilization performance. Sterilization performances of PCD 1, PCD 2, and PCD 3 were <70, <90, and 100%, respectively. Sterilant volume, sterilant diffusion time, pressure, temperature, PCD types, and chamber loading were proven to be important process parameters of sterilizer that affect the sterilization performance of vaporized-hydrogen-peroxide-based sterilizers.

A Peapod-like CoP@C Nanostructure from Phosphorization in a Low-Temperature Molten Salt for High-Performance Lithium-Ion Batteries.

A mild phosphorization process in low-temperature molten salt (NaCl-KCl-AlCl3 ) has been developed to synthesize peapod-like CoP@C nanostructures by using low-toxicity industrial PCl3 as the phosphorus source and Mg as the reductant at 250 °C. Importantly, high efficiency of the phosphorous source is achieved since only stoichiometric PCl3 is required to complete the reaction. The molten NaCl-KCl-AlCl3 not only provides a liquid environment but also participates in the electron transport by the reversible conversion of the Al3+ /Al redox couple. The obtained 0D-in-1D peapod CoP@C structure exhibits excellent lithium storage performance, delivering a superiorly stable capacity of 500 mAh g-1 after 800 cycles at a high current of 1.0 A g-1 .

Room temperature solvent-free reduction of SiCl4 to nano-Si for high-performance Li-ion batteries.

SiCl4 can be directly reduced to nano-Si with commercial Na metal under solvent-free conditions by mechanical milling. Crystalline nano-Si with an average size of 25 nm and quite uniform size distribution can be obtained, which shows excellent lithium storage performance, for a high reversible capacity of 1600 mA h g-1 after 500 cycles at 2.1 A g-1.

MENT: methylation and expression database of normal and tumor tissues.

Integrated analysis of DNA methylation and gene expression can reveal specific epigenetic patterns that are important during carcinogenesis. We built an integrated database of DNA methylation and gene expression termed MENT (Methylation and Expression database of Normal and Tumor tissues) to provide researchers information on both DNA methylation and gene expression in diverse cancers. It contains integrated data of DNA methylation, gene expression, correlation of DNA methylation and gene expression in paired samples, and clinicopathological conditions gathered from the GEO (Gene Expression Omnibus) and TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas). A user-friendly interface allows users to search for differential DNA methylation by either 'gene search' or 'dataset search'. The 'gene search' returns which conditions are differentially methylated in a gene of interest, while 'dataset search' returns which genes are differentially methylated in a condition of interest based on filtering options such as direction, DM (differential methylation value), and p-value. MENT is the first database which provides both DNA methylation and gene expression information in diverse normal and tumor tissues. Its user-friendly interface allows users to easily search and view both DNA methylation and gene expression patterns. MENT is freely available at http://mgrc.kribb.re.kr:8080/MENT/.

GENT: gene expression database of normal and tumor tissues.

BACKGROUND: Some oncogenes such as ERBB2 and EGFR are over-expressed in only a subset of patients. Cancer outlier profile analysis is one of computational approaches to identify outliers in gene expression data. A database with a large sample size would be a great advantage when searching for genes over-expressed in only a subset of patients. DESCRIPTION: GENT (Gene Expression database of Normal and Tumor tissues) is a web-accessible database that provides gene expression patterns across diverse human cancer and normal tissues. More than 40000 samples, profiled by Affymetrix U133A or U133plus2 platforms in many different laboratories across the world, were collected from public resources and combined into two large data sets, helping the identification of cancer outliers that are over-expressed in only a subset of patients. Gene expression patterns in nearly 1000 human cancer cell lines are also provided. In each tissue, users can retrieve gene expression patterns classified by more detailed clinical information. CONCLUSIONS: The large samples size (>24300 for U133plus2 and >16400 for U133A) of GENT provides an advantage in identifying cancer outliers. A cancer cell line gene expression database is useful for target validation by in vitro experiment. We hope GENT will be a useful resource for cancer researchers in many stages from target discovery to target validation. GENT is available at http://medicalgenome.kribb.re.kr/GENT/ or http://genome.kobic.re.kr/GENT/.

Mitome: dynamic and interactive database for comparative mitochondrial genomics in metazoan animals.

Mitome is a specialized mitochondrial genome database designed for easy comparative analysis of various features of metazoan mitochondrial genomes such as base frequency, A+T skew, codon usage and gene arrangement pattern. A particular function of the database is the automatic reconstruction of phylogenetic relationships among metazoans selected by a user from a taxonomic tree menu based on nucleotide sequences, amino acid sequences or gene arrangement patterns. Mitome also enables us (i) to easily find the taxonomic positions of organisms of which complete mitochondrial genome sequences are publicly available; (ii) to acquire various metazoan mitochondrial genome characteristics through a graphical genome browser; (iii) to search for homology patterns in mitochondrial gene arrangements; (iv) to download nucleotide or amino acid sequences not only of an entire mitochondrial genome but also of each component; and (v) to find interesting references easily through links with PubMed. In order to provide users with a dynamic, responsive, interactive and faster web database, Mitome is constructed using two recently highlighted techniques, Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and Web Services. Mitome has the potential to become very useful in the fields of molecular phylogenetics and evolution and comparative organelle genomics. The database is available at: http://www.mitome.info.

CONSORF: a consensus prediction system for prokaryotic coding sequences.

CONSORF is a fully automatic high-accuracy identification system that provides consensus prokaryotic CDS information. It first predicts the CDSs supported by consensus alignments. The alignments are derived from multiple genome-to-proteome comparisons with other prokaryotes using the FASTX program. Then, it fills the empty genomic regions with the CDSs supported by consensus ab initio predictions. From those consensus results, CONSORF provides prediction reliability scores, predicted frame-shifts, alternative start sites and best pair-wise match information against other prokaryotes. These results are easily accessed from a website.

GAzer: gene set analyzer.

UNLABELLED: Gene Set Analyzer (GAzer) is a web-based integrated gene set analysis tool covering previously reported parametric and non-parametric models. Based on a simulation test for the reported algorithms, we classified and implemented three main statistical methods consisting of the z-statistic, gene permutation and sample permutation for ten gene set categories including Gene Ontology (GO) for human, mouse, rat and yeast. This tool identifies significantly altered gene sets scored by z-statistics and P-values from the z-test or permutation test and provides q-values and Bonferroni P-values to correct multiple hypothesis testing. GAzer allows users to observe changes in expression of each gene in a gene set or to see the significance of the gene sets containing a gene(s) of interest, thus allowing interactive data analysis both at the gene and gene set level. Moreover, GAzer offers extensive annotation for each gene. AVAILABILITY: The GAzer gene set analyzer is freely available at http://integromics.kobic.re.kr/GAzer/. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This can be found on the web page (http://integromics.kobic.re.kr/GAzer/supplement.jsp).

ADGO: analysis of differentially expressed gene sets using composite GO annotation.

MOTIVATION: Genes are typically expressed in modular manners in biological processes. Recent studies reflect such features in analyzing gene expression patterns by directly scoring gene sets. Gene annotations have been used to define the gene sets, which have served to reveal specific biological themes from expression data. However, current annotations have limited analytical power, because they are classified by single categories providing only unary information for the gene sets. RESULTS: Here we propose a method for discovering composite biological themes from expression data. We intersected two annotated gene sets from different categories of Gene Ontology (GO). We then scored the expression changes of all the single and intersected sets. In this way, we were able to uncover, for example, a gene set with the molecular function F and the cellular component C that showed significant expression change, while the changes in individual gene sets were not significant. We provided an exemplary analysis for HIV-1 immune response. In addition, we tested the method on 20 public datasets where we found many 'filtered' composite terms the number of which reached approximately 34% (a strong criterion, 5% significance) of the number of significant unary terms on average. By using composite annotation, we can derive new and improved information about disease and biological processes from expression data. AVAILABILITY: We provide a web application (ADGO: http://array.kobic.re.kr/ADGO) for the analysis of differentially expressed gene sets with composite GO annotations. The user can analyze Affymetrix and dual channel array (spotted cDNA and spotted oligo microarray) data for four species: human, mouse, rat and yeast. CONTACT: chu@kribb.re.kr SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: http://array.kobic.re.kr/ADGO.