High-Efficiency Pure-Red CsPbI3 Quantum Dot Light-Emitting Diodes Enabled by Strongly Electrostatic Potential Solvent and Sequential Ligand Post-treatment Process.

Efficient pure-red emission light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are essential for high-definition displays, yet achieving pure-red emission is hindered by challenges like phase segregation and spectral instability when using halide mixing. Additionally, strongly confined quantum dots (QDs) produced through traditional hot-injection methods face byproduct contamination due to poor solubility of metal halide salts in the solvent octadecene (ODE) at low temperatures. Herein, we introduced a novel method using a benzene-series strongly electrostatic potential solvent instead of ODE to prevent PbI2 intermediates and promote their dissolution into [PbI3]-. Increasing methyl groups on benzene yields precisely sized (4.4 ± 0.1 nm) CsPbI3 QDs with exceptional properties: a narrow 630 nm PL peak with photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of 97%. Sequential ligand post-treatment optimizes optical and electrical performance of QDs. PeLEDs based on optimized QDs achieve pure-red EL (CIE: 0.700, 0.290) approaching Rec. 2020 standards, with an EQE of 25.2% and T50 of 120 min at initial luminance of 107 cd/m2.

High-Performance Biodegradable Energy Storage Devices Enabled by Heterostructured MoO3 -MoS2 Composites.

Biodegradable implantable devices are of growing interest in biosensors and bioelectronics. One of the key unresolved challenges is the availability of power supply. To enable biodegradable energy-storage devices, herein, 2D heterostructured MoO3 -MoS2 nanosheet arrays are synthesized on water-soluble Mo foil, showing a high areal capacitance of 164.38 mF cm-2 (at 0.5 mA cm-2 ). Employing the MoO3 -MoS2 composite as electrodes of a symmetric supercapacitor, an asymmetric Zn-ion hybrid supercapacitor, and an Mg primary battery are demonstrated. Benefiting from the advantages of MoO3 -MoS2 heterostructure, the Zn-ion hybrid supercapacitors deliver a high areal capacitance (181.86 mF cm-2 at 0.5 mA cm-2 ) and energy density (30.56 µWh cm-2 ), and the Mg primary batteries provide a stable high output voltage (≈1.6 V) and a long working life in air/liquid environment. All of the used materials exhibit desirable biocompatibility, and these fabricated devices are also fully biodegradable. Demonstration experiments display their potential applications as biodegradable power sources for various electronic devices.

Self-assembled ratiometric sensor for specific detection of hypoxia in living cells based on lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles and gold nanoparticles.

We describes the development of a self-assembled nanoprobe for ratiometric sensing of hypoxia in living cells. The probe, UC-AuNPs, is composed of azo-functionalized upconversion nanoparticles (azo-UCNPs) and gold nanoparticles functionalized withß-cyclodextrin (CD-AuNPs). Under hypoxic conditions, reductases reduce azo derivatives on the UCNPs, leading to detachment of the CD-AuNPs and subsequent fluorescence recovery of the green emission. The ratiometric measurement incorporated into the strategy reduces the impact of external factors and improves sensitivity of the probe. The use of NIR excitation effectively minimizes interference from strong luminescence backgrounds in biosystems. The UC-AuNPs nanoprobe is able to effectively sense and monitor hypoxia conditions in living cells and has the potential to distinguish hypoxia-related diseases from healthy tissue, making it a valuable tool for early clinical diagnosis.

Semi-Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of 25(R)-26-Acetoxy-3ß,5α-Dihydroxycholest-6-One.

Previously, we identified a series of steroids (1-6) that showed potent anti-virus activities against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), with IC50 values ranging from 3.23 to 0.19 µM. In this work, we first semi-synthesized and characterized the single isomer of 5, 25(R)-26-acetoxy-3ß,5α-dihydroxycholest-6-one, named as (25R)-5, in seven steps from a commercially available compound diosgenin (7), with a total yield of 2.8%. Unfortunately, compound (25R)-5 and the intermediates only showed slight inhibitions against RSV replication at the concentration of 10 µM, but they possessed potent cytotoxicity activities against human bladder cancer 5637 (HTB-9) and hepatic cancer HepG2, with IC50 values ranging from 3.0 to 15.5 µM without any impression of normal liver cell proliferation at 20 µM. Among them, the target compound (25R)-5 possessed cytotoxicity activities against 5637 (HTB-9) and HepG2 with IC50 values of 4.8 µM and 15.5 µM, respectively. Further studies indicated that compound (25R)-5 inhibited cancer cell proliferation through inducing early and late-stage apoptosis. Collectively, we have semi-synthesized, characterized and biologically evaluated the 25R-isomer of compound 5; the biological results suggested that compound (25R)-5 could be a good lead for further anti-cancer studies, especially for anti-human liver cancer.

Evaluate the Outcomes of Senile Femoral Intertrochanteric Fractures Treated with Proximal Femoral Nail Anti-Rotation Internal Fixation to Those Treated with Prosthetic Femoral Head Replacement.

Objective: This study aims to evaluate the outcomes of senile femoral intertrochanteric fractures treated with proximal femoral nail anti-rotation (PFNA) internal fixation to those treated with prosthetic femoral head replacement. Methods: A total of 100 elderly patients suffering from femoral intertrochanteric fracture were selected for the study. They were divided into two groups (n = 50 in each group) based on fracture condition and preferred treatment. We compared perioperative indexes, complications, Soluble cell adhesion molecules-1 (sICAM-1), and TGF-1 levels, and assessed hip function using the Harris hip score (Harris) at 3, 6, and 12 months after surgery in two groups of patients. Results: Although the study group had shorter operating times and less intraoperative bleeding than the control group (P < .05), they had longer hospital stays and required more time before returning to full weight-bearing after surgery (P < .05). Neither group had a higher or lower rate of problems than the other (P > .05). Patients' sICAM-1 and TGF-1 levels were not significantly different from one another before surgery (P > .05), but after surgery, the sICAM-1 level in the control group was lower than that in the study group, and the TGF-1 level was higher than that in the study group (P < .05). Conclusion: PFNA internal fixation treatment offers the advantages of short operation time and low intraoperative bleeding, ensuring surgical safety. However, it requires a longer bed rest time post-operation and extended full weight-bearing time, although long-term hip recovery is preferable.

An exploration of biomarkers for noise exposure: mitochondrial DNA copy number and micronucleus frequencies in Chinese workers.

Few studies have been conducted that use biomarkers as early warning signals for noise-associated health hazards. To explore potentially effective biomarkers for noise-exposed populations, we recruited 218 noise-exposed male workers in China. We calculated cumulative noise exposure (CNE) through noise intensity and noise-exposed duration. When the model was fully adjusted, ln-transformed relative mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn) decreased by 0.014 (95% confidence interval (CI): -0.026, -0.003) units with each 1 dB(A)∙year increase in CNE levels. CNE was further included in the model as a grouping variable, and the results showed a negative dose-effect relationship between relative mtDNAcn and CNE (P-trend = 0.045). However, we did not find a correlation between CNE and micronucleus (MN) frequencies. Our findings suggest that CNE in workers was associated with a decrease in relative mtDNAcn which may provide a potential biomarker for noise and for certain health risk but not with MN frequencies.

Optical properties of broadband reflection of cholesteric liquid crystal by thermal diffusion of benzotriazoles.

Polymer stabilized cholesteric liquid crystal broadband reflective films are prepared by the thermal diffusion of a benzotriazoles organic ultraviolet (UV) absorber (UV-327) combined with photopolymerization. A gradient of UV intensity is established in the direction of film thickness, inducing the formation of a pitch gradient distribution, thus broadening the reflected bandwidth. The effects of UV-327 concentration, UV irradiation intensity, irradiation time, polymerization temperature, and C6M concentration on the reflected bandwidth of the sample are examined in detail. The results indicate that the diffusion method of the organic UV absorber enables the reflected bandwidth to be broadened under appropriate conditions.

[Synthesis of seleno-polysaccharides from Lonicerae Japonicae Flos via microwave and its immunological activity].

In this study, the microwave-assisted method was used to synthesize seleno-polysaccharides from Lonicerae Japonicae Flos, and the optimal process conditions were optimized.Meanwhile, the immunological activity of seleno-polysaccharides from Lonicerae Japonicae Flos was investigated.The results showed that under the conditions of nitric acid concentration of 0.512%, reaction temperature of 70.0 ℃, microwave power of 600 W, reaction time of 44.0 min, and m(Na_2SeO_3)∶m(polysaccharides)=1.0, the selenium content of Lonicerae Japonicae Flos seleno-polysaccharides was 3.89 mg·g~(-1).The results of in vitro immunoassay showed that polysaccharides and seleno-polysaccharides from Lonicerae Japonicae Flos could promote the proliferation of mouse RAW264.7 macrophages as compared with the conditions in the normal group.Compared with Lonicerae Japonicae Flos polysaccharides, Lonicerae Japonicae Flos seleno-polysaccharides could significantly facilitate the proliferation of mouse RAW264.7 macrophages and promote the production of IL-1ß and TNF-α at the concentration of 20-160 µg·mL~(-1).This study provided references for broadening the application of polysaccharides from Lonicerae Japonicae Flos.

A Denoising Scheme for Randomly Clustered Noise Removal in ICCD Sensing Image.

An Intensified Charge-Coupled Device (ICCD) image is captured by the ICCD image sensor in extremely low-light conditions. Its noise has two distinctive characteristics. (a) Different from the independent identically distributed (i.i.d.) noise in natural image, the noise in the ICCD sensing image is spatially clustered, which induces unexpected structure information; (b) The pattern of the clustered noise is formed randomly. In this paper, we propose a denoising scheme to remove the randomly clustered noise in the ICCD sensing image. First, we decompose the image into non-overlapped patches and classify them into flat patches and structure patches according to if real structure information is included. Then, two denoising algorithms are designed for them, respectively. For each flat patch, we simulate multiple similar patches for it in pseudo-time domain and remove its noise by averaging all the simulated patches, considering that the structure information induced by the noise varies randomly over time. For each structure patch, we design a structure-preserved sparse coding algorithm to reconstruct the real structure information. It reconstructs each patch by describing it as a weighted summation of its neighboring patches and incorporating the weights into the sparse representation of the current patch. Based on all the reconstructed patches, we generate a reconstructed image. After that, we repeat the whole process by changing relevant parameters, considering that blocking artifacts exist in a single reconstructed image. Finally, we obtain the reconstructed image by merging all the generated images into one. Experiments are conducted on an ICCD sensing image dataset, which verifies its subjective performance in removing the randomly clustered noise and preserving the real structure information in the ICCD sensing image.

IL-37 Is a Novel Proangiogenic Factor of Developmental and Pathological Angiogenesis.

OBJECTIVE: Angiogenesis is tightly controlled by growth factors and cytokines in pathophysiological settings. Interleukin 37 (IL-37) is a newly identified cytokine of the IL-1 family, some members of which are important in inflammation and angiogenesis. However, the function of IL-37 in angiogenesis remains unknown. We aimed to explore the regulatory role of IL-37 in pathological and physiological angiogenesis. APPROACH AND RESULTS: We found that IL-37 was expressed and secreted in endothelial cells and upregulated under hypoxic conditions. IL-37 enhanced endothelial cell proliferation, capillary formation, migration, and vessel sprouting from aortic rings with potency comparable with that of vascular endothelial growth factor. IL-37 activates survival signals including extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 and AKT in endothelial cells. IL-37 promoted vessel growth in implanted Matrigel plug in vivo in a dose-dependent manner with potency comparable with that of basic fibroblast growth factor. In the mouse model of retinal vascular development, neonatal mice administrated with IL-37 displayed increased neovascularization. We demonstrated further that IL-37 promoted pathological angiogenesis in the mouse model of oxygen-induced retinopathy. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that IL-37 is a novel and potent proangiogenic cytokine with essential role in pathophy siological settings.

Cube search, revisited.

Observers can quickly search among shaded cubes for one lit from a unique direction. However, replace the cubes with similar 2-D patterns that do not appear to have a 3-D shape, and search difficulty increases. These results have challenged models of visual search and attention. We demonstrate that cube search displays differ from those with "equivalent" 2-D search items in terms of the informativeness of fairly low-level image statistics. This informativeness predicts peripheral discriminability of target-present from target-absent patches, which in turn predicts visual search performance, across a wide range of conditions. Comparing model performance on a number of classic search tasks, cube search does not appear unexpectedly easy. Easy cube search, per se, does not provide evidence for preattentive computation of 3-D scene properties. However, search asymmetries derived from rotating and/or flipping the cube search displays cannot be explained by the information in our current set of image statistics. This may merely suggest a need to modify the model's set of 2-D image statistics. Alternatively, it may be difficult cube search that provides evidence for preattentive computation of 3-D scene properties. By attributing 2-D luminance variations to a shaded 3-D shape, 3-D scene understanding may slow search for 2-D features of the target.

Fast multi-view clustering via correntropy-based orthogonal concept factorization.

Owing to its ability to handle negative data and promising clustering performance, concept factorization (CF), an improved version of non-negative matrix factorization, has been incorporated into multi-view clustering recently. Nevertheless, existing CF-based multi-view clustering methods still have the following issues: (1) they directly conduct factorization in the original data space, which means its efficiency is sensitive to the feature dimension; (2) they ignore the high degree of factorization freedom of standard CF, which may lead to non-uniqueness factorization thereby causing reduced effectiveness; (3) traditional robust norms they used are unable to handle complex noises, significantly challenging their robustness. To address these issues, we establish a fast multi-view clustering via correntropy-based orthogonal concept factorization (FMVCCF). Specifically, FMVCCF executes factorization on a learned consensus anchor graph rather than directly decomposing the original data, lessening the dimensionality sensitivity. Then, a lightweight graph regularization term is incorporated to refine the factorization process with a low computational burden. Moreover, an improved multi-view correntropy-based orthogonal CF model is developed, which can enhance the effectiveness and robustness under the orthogonal constraint and correntropy criterion, respectively. Extensive experiments demonstrate that FMVCCF can achieve promising effectiveness and robustness on various real-world datasets with high efficiency.

Fast Multiview Anchor-Graph Clustering.

Due to its high computational complexity, graph-based methods have limited applicability in large-scale multiview clustering tasks. To address this issue, many accelerated algorithms, especially anchor graph-based methods and indicator learning-based methods, have been developed and made a great success. Nevertheless, since the restrictions of the optimization strategy, these accelerated methods still need to approximate the discrete graph-cutting problem to a continuous spectral embedding problem and utilize different discretization strategies to obtain discrete sample categories. To avoid the loss of effectiveness and efficiency caused by the approximation and discretization, we establish a discrete fast multiview anchor graph clustering (FMAGC) model that first constructs an anchor graph of each view and then generates a discrete cluster indicator matrix by solving the discrete multiview graph-cutting problem directly. Since the gradient descent-based method makes it hard to solve this discrete model, we propose a fast coordinate descent-based optimization strategy with linear complexity to solve it without approximating it as a continuous one. Extensive experiments on widely used normal and large-scale multiview datasets show that FMAGC can improve clustering effectiveness and efficiency compared to other state-of-the-art baselines.

Design and optimization of heat pump with infrared drying for Glycyrrhiza uralensis (Licorice) processing.

A new dryer, integrating infrared and heat pump drying technologies, was designed to enhance licorice processing standardization, aiming at improved drying efficiency and product quality. Numerical simulation using COMSOL software validated the air distribution model through prototype data comparison. To address uneven air distribution, a spoiler was strategically placed based on CFD simulation to optimize its size and position using the velocity deviation ratio and non-uniformity coefficient as indices. Post-optimization, the average velocity deviation ratio decreased from 0.5124 to 0.2565%, and the non-uniformity coefficient dropped from 0.5913 to 0.3152, achieving a more uniform flow field in the drying chamber. Testing the optimized dryer on licorice demonstrated significant improvements in flow field uniformity, reducing licorice drying time by 23.8%. Additionally, optimized drying enhanced licorice color (higher L* value) and increased retention rates of total phenol, total flavone, and vitamin C. This research holds substantial importance for advancing licorice primary processing, fostering efficiency, and improving product quality.

Molecular cloning and recombinant expression of cytochrome P450 CYP6B6 from Helicoverpa armigera in Escherichia coli.

The cytochrome P450 s play a significant role in the detoxification of plant allelochemicals and synthetic insecticides in Lepidoptera. In the cotton bollworm Helicoverpa armigera, 2-tridecanone and quercetin can induce P450-dependent monooxygenase activity increased, to further the characterization of P450, the CYP6B6 of cotton bollworm (H. armigera) was cloned, sequenced and expressed in pMAL-p2x vector and expressed in Escherichia coli. The deduced amino acid sequences of cytochrome P450 in the midgut and fat body of H. armigera showed 98.23 and 97.84 % similarity with CYP6B6, respectively. According to nomenclature of P450 s, the P450 genes we got belong to CYP6B. Purification of recombinant protein based on the affinity of MBP for maltose was achieved by Mal-Tag magnetic beads. The purified protein was used to raise polyclonal antibody according to classical procedure. SDS-PAGE and Western blot results indicated that MBP-CYP6B6 had been successfully expressed. The ethoxycoumarin-O-deethylase activity of the purified recombinant protein was 36.5 ± 8.12 pmol of 7-hydroxycoumarin/min/mg protein, which showed the fusion MBP-CYP6B6 had the ability to o-deethylase of 7-ethoxycoumarin.

[Changes in activities of SOD and GSH-Px in induced sputum and their significance among silicosis patients].

OBJECTIVE: To observe the changes in activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxide (GSH-Px) in the induced sputum of silicosis patients, and to investigate the roles of SOD and GSH-Px in the development and progression of silicosis and the significance of measuring activities of SOD and GSH-Px in induced sputum among silicosis patients. METHODS: Fifty hotel attendants were chosen as control group, 50 workers with more than one year of silica dust exposure as dust exposure group, 32 silica dust-exposed workers as observation subject group, and 52 silicosis patients as silicosis group. The activities of SOD and GSH-Px in their induced sputum were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. RESULTS: Compared with the control group, the observation subject group and silicosis group had significantly decreased SOD activity (68.16 ± 30.17 and 66.38 ± 47.32 U/ml vs 75.81 ± 11.92 U/ml, P < 0.05); compared with the dust exposure group, the silicosis group had significantly decreased SOD activity (66.38 ± 47.32 U/ml vs 70.12 ± 14.31 U/ml, P < 0.05). Compared with the control group and dust exposure group, the observation subject group and silicosis group had significantly increased GSH-Px activity (268.21 ± 15.45 and 279.34 ± 29.26 U/ml vs 224.22 ± 12.64 and 236.41 ± 14.54 U/ml, P < 0.05 or P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: The SOD activity in dust exposure group and silicosis group decreased, but there were no significant differences between patients with different stages of silicosis. The GSH-Px activity in dust exposure group and silicosis group was significantly higher than that in control group, and there were significant differences between patients with different stages of silicosis. These suggest that the imbalance of oxidative/antioxidant systems is associated with the development and progression of silicosis.

ECCA: Efficient Correntropy-Based Clustering Algorithm With Orthogonal Concept Factorization.

One of the hottest topics in unsupervised learning is how to efficiently and effectively cluster large amounts of unlabeled data. To address this issue, we propose an orthogonal conceptual factorization (OCF) model to increase clustering effectiveness by restricting the degree of freedom of matrix factorization. In addition, for the OCF model, a fast optimization algorithm containing only a few low-dimensional matrix operations is given to improve clustering efficiency, as opposed to the traditional CF optimization algorithm, which involves dense matrix multiplications. To further improve the clustering efficiency while suppressing the influence of the noises and outliers distributed in real-world data, an efficient correntropy-based clustering algorithm (ECCA) is proposed in this article. Compared with OCF, an anchor graph is constructed and then OCF is performed on the anchor graph instead of directly performing OCF on the original data, which can not only further improve the clustering efficiency but also inherit the advantages of the high performance of spectral clustering. In particular, the introduction of the anchor graph makes ECCA less sensitive to changes in data dimensions and still maintains high efficiency at higher data dimensions. Meanwhile, for various complex noises and outliers in real-world data, correntropy is introduced into ECCA to measure the similarity between the matrix before and after decomposition, which can greatly improve the clustering effectiveness and robustness. Subsequently, a novel and efficient half-quadratic optimization algorithm was proposed to quickly optimize the ECCA model. Finally, extensive experiments on different real-world datasets and noisy datasets show that ECCA can archive promising effectiveness and robustness while achieving tens to thousands of times the efficiency compared with other state-of-the-art baselines.

Endothelial Rbpj deletion normalizes Notch4-induced brain arteriovenous malformation in mice.

Upregulation of Notch signaling is associated with brain arteriovenous malformation (bAVM), a disease that lacks pharmacological treatments. Tetracycline (tet)-regulatable endothelial expression of constitutively active Notch4 (Notch4*tetEC) from birth induced bAVMs in 100% of mice by P16. To test whether targeting downstream signaling, while sustaining the causal Notch4*tetEC expression, induces AVM normalization, we deleted Rbpj, a mediator of Notch signaling, in endothelium from P16, by combining tet-repressible Notch4*tetEC with tamoxifen-inducible Rbpj deletion. Established pathologies, including AV connection diameter, AV shunting, vessel tortuosity, intracerebral hemorrhage, tissue hypoxia, life expectancy, and arterial marker expression were improved, compared with Notch4*tetEC mice without Rbpj deletion. Similarly, Rbpj deletion from P21 induced advanced bAVM regression. After complete AVM normalization induced by repression of Notch4*tetEC, virtually no bAVM relapsed, despite Notch4*tetEC re-expression in adults. Thus, inhibition of endothelial Rbpj halted Notch4*tetEC bAVM progression, normalized bAVM abnormalities, and restored microcirculation, providing proof of concept for targeting a downstream mediator to treat AVM pathologies despite a sustained causal molecular lesion.

Catalytic probes based on aggregation-induced emission-active Au nanoclusters for visualizing MicroRNA in living cells and in vivo.

Highly sensitive monitoring of cancer-related miRNAs is of great significance for tumor diagnosis. Herein, catalytic probes based on DNA-functionalized Au nanoclusters (AuNCs) were prepared in this work. The aggregation-induced emission-active Au nanoclusters showed an interesting phenomenon of aggregation induced emission (AIE) affected by the aggregation state. Leveraging this property, the AIE-active AuNCs were used to develop catalytic turn-on probes for detecting in vivo cancer-related miRNA based on a hybridization chain reaction (HCR). The target miRNA triggered the HCR and induced aggregation of AIE-active AuNCs, leading to a highly luminescent signal. The catalytic approach demonstrated a remarkable selectivity and a low detection limit in comparison to noncatalytic sensing signals. In addition, the excellent delivery the ability of MnO2 carrier made it possible to use the probes for intracellular imaging and in vivo imaging. Effective in situ visualization of miR-21 was achieved not only in living cells but also in tumors in living animals. This approach potentially offers a novel method for obtaining information for tumor diagnosis via highly sensitive cancer-related miRNA imaging in vivo.

Sea Buckthorn Pretreatment, Drying, and Processing of High-Quality Products: Current Status and Trends.

Sea buckthorn is a kind of berry rich in nutritional and industrial value. Due to its thin skin, juicy pulp, and short shelf life, it is usually preserved via freezing methods or directly processed into sea buckthorn puree after harvest. It can also be dried and processed into products such as dried sea buckthorn fruit, freeze-dried sea buckthorn powder, and sea buckthorn oil. This review, therefore, provides an overview of the existing state of drying and high-quality processing of sea buckthorn. The effects of different pretreatment and drying techniques on the drying characteristics and quality of sea buckthorn and the existing problems of superior-quality processing of sea buckthorn products are summarised. The development trend of sea buckthorn drying methods and the ways to achieve high-quality processing of sea buckthorn products are indicated. These ways are mainly related to the following: (1) The application of combined pretreatment and drying techniques to find a balance between economy, ecology, and efficiency; (2) Introducing new online measurement and control technology into drying equipment; (3) Optimising the existing process to form a complete sea buckthorn industrial chain and develop the sea buckthorn deep-processing industry.