Trace Iron-Doped Nickel-Cobalt selenide with rich heterointerfaces for efficient overall water splitting at high current densities.

Developing bifunctional electrocatalysts based on non-precious metals for overall water splitting, while maintaining high catalytic activity and stability under high current densities, remains challenging. Herein, we successfully constructred trace iron-doped nickel-cobalt selenide with abundant CoSe2 (210)-Ni3Se4 (202) heterointerfaces via a simple one-step selenization reaction. The synthesized Fe-NiCoSex/NCFF (NCFF stands for nickel-cobalt-iron foam) exhibits outstanding hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity with low overpotentials of 328 mV for HER and 345 mV for OER at a high current density of 1000 mA cm-2, while maintaining stability for over 20 h. Additionally, the Fe-NiCoSex/NCFF exhibits the lowest Tafel slope values for both HER (33.7 mV dec-1) and OER (55.92 mV dec-1), indicating the fastest kinetics on its surface. The Fe-NiCoSex/NCFF features uniformly distributed micrometer-sized selenide particles with dense nanowires on their surface, providing a large reactive surface area and abundant active sites. Moreover, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analyses reveal that the catalyst is composed of nickel, cobalt, and iron, forming micrometer-sized particles with both crystalline and amorphous phases, thereby enhancing HER and OER performance under high current density. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations demonstrate that the heterostructure CoSe2 (210)-Ni3Se4 (202), with high electron density and suitable adsorption capacity for reaction intermediates, and low energy barriers for HER (-0.384 eV) and OER (ΔG1st: 0.243 eV, ΔG2nd: 0.376 eV), serves as an active center for both HER and OER.

Effect of Internet Use to Obtain News on Rural Residents' Satisfaction with the Social Environment: Evidence from China.

The deterioration of satisfaction with the social environment in rural areas recently has become a major issue in the rural governance of China. This study examined if using the Internet to obtain news would affect rural residents' satisfaction with their social environment. It used data from the China Family Panel Studies to determine the influencing factors of rural residents' satisfaction with their social environment in the Internet era. The research found that: (1) The Internet has become the main medium for rural residents to obtain news, which affects rural residents' satisfaction with the social environment. Specifically, as the number of days rural residents use the Internet to obtain weekly news increased, their satisfaction with China's social environment worsened. Internet use also affected satisfaction with the social environment more than traditional media, such as TV. (2) The influencing factors of rural residents' social environment satisfaction were heterogeneous among groups with different characteristics, with the phenomenon of the "digital divide" emerging. Women, middle-aged and older adults, and illiterate/semi-illiterate people used the Internet to obtain news less frequently. Based on the above research conclusions, governments should focus on and be vigilant against false public opinions disseminated online as well as improve the digital literacy of vulnerable rural groups.

How Does the Land Rental Market Participation Affect Household Efficiency? Evidence from Rural China.

The active land rental market affects inter-household efficiency. Using nationally representative household panel data in China from 2017 to 2019, we estimate rural household efficiency with consideration of diversification, and analyze the effect of land rental market participation on household efficiency using a control function approach. Results show that: (1) the mean technical efficiency and allocative efficiency were 0.45 and 0.64 in 2017 and 0.44 and 0.66 in 2019, respectively, suggesting the existence of efficiency loss; (2) land rented-in activities improve rural households' technical efficiency but not allocative efficiency; (3) land rented out activities decrease household technical efficiency but increase allocative efficiency. Further analysis showed that farm size heterogeneity might be the main reason for the efficiency difference. Households with large farms and plot sizes on rented land have significant advantages in technical efficiency and insignificant impacts on allocative efficiency. The results explain why the land rental market promotes efficient land transfer, but households with a large farm size are still rare in rural areas. Finally, we provide suggestions on how to stimulate the land rental market under diversification circumstances.

m6A Methyltransferase KIAA1429 Regulates the Cisplatin Sensitivity of Gastric Cancer Cells via Stabilizing FOXM1 mRNA.

Although cisplatin is frequently used to treat gastric cancer, the resistance is the main obstacle for effective treatment. mRNA modification, N6-methyladenosine (m6A), is involved in the tumorigenesis of many types of cancer. As one of the largest m6A methyltransferase complex components, KIAA1429 bridges the catalytic m6A methyltransferase components, such as METTL3. In gastric cancer, KIAA1429 was reported to promote cell proliferation. However, whether KIAA1429 is involved in the resistance of gastric cancer to cisplatin remains unclear. Here, we generated cisplatin resistant gastric cancer cell lines, and compared the m6A content between resistant cells and wild type cells. The m6A content as well as KIAA1429 expression are higher in resistant cells. Interestingly, the expression of KIAA1429 was significantly increased after cisplatin treatment. We then used shRNA to knockdown KIAA1429 and found that resistant cells responded more to cisplatin treatment after KIAA1429 depletion, while overexpression of KIAA1429 decreased the sensitivity. Moreover, we identified a putative p65 binding site on the promoter area of KIAA1429 and ChIP assay confirmed the binding. p65 depletion decreased the expression of KIAA1429. YTHDF1 is the most abundant m6A "reader" that interacts with m6A modified mRNA. Mechanistically, YTHDF1 was recruited to the 3'-untranslated Region (3'-UTR) of transcriptional factor, FOXM1 by KIAA1429 and stabilized FOXM1 mRNA. More importantly, KIAA1429 knockdown increased the sensitivity of resistant cells to cisplatin in vivo. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that KIAA1429 facilitated cisplatin resistance by stabilizing FOXM1 mRNA in gastric cancer cells.

Impact of the participation of rural households in the appraisal on poor households' identification.

Developing countries have common goals of poverty eradication and improving people's livelihoods. As the largest developing country, China has made remarkable achievements in poverty alleviation during the 30 years of reform. Although a targeted poverty alleviation mechanism was established by the Chinese government in 2013, the identification of poor households has been an arduous journey. Based on a total of 688 samples of grassroots officials and 2,621 rural households from 69 village-level divisions in 9 provinces in China, this study conducted cross-validation on the impact of the participation of rural households in the identifying poor households that required government assistance. This was from the perspectives of grassroots officials and rural households. It was investigated whether this participation led to an anomaly between the identification of poor households and the actual situation. Empirical results show that the participation of rural households in appraisals significantly increases the probability of identifying a non-poor household as a poor household (first error) and decreases the probability of failing to identify a poor household as a poor household (second error). As the impact of the first error is greater than that of the second error, the participation of rural households in appraisals has the overall effect of increasing the incorrect registrations of poor households. These results are still valid after addressing the self-selection problem. For other developing countries to successfully apply effort into poverty alleviation, in addition to focusing on increasing farmers' participation in public affairs, they should prevent any bias that may be caused by farmers' participation in public affairs; strengthen publicity and guidance; focus on the nurture of officials; perfect top-level design; and set clearer targets for poverty alleviation policies.

A benchmark study of deep learning-based multi-omics data fusion methods for cancer.

BACKGROUND: A fused method using a combination of multi-omics data enables a comprehensive study of complex biological processes and highlights the interrelationship of relevant biomolecules and their functions. Driven by high-throughput sequencing technologies, several promising deep learning methods have been proposed for fusing multi-omics data generated from a large number of samples. RESULTS: In this study, 16 representative deep learning methods are comprehensively evaluated on simulated, single-cell, and cancer multi-omics datasets. For each of the datasets, two tasks are designed: classification and clustering. The classification performance is evaluated by using three benchmarking metrics including accuracy, F1 macro, and F1 weighted. Meanwhile, the clustering performance is evaluated by using four benchmarking metrics including the Jaccard index (JI), C-index, silhouette score, and Davies Bouldin score. For the cancer multi-omics datasets, the methods' strength in capturing the association of multi-omics dimensionality reduction results with survival and clinical annotations is further evaluated. The benchmarking results indicate that moGAT achieves the best classification performance. Meanwhile, efmmdVAE, efVAE, and lfmmdVAE show the most promising performance across all complementary contexts in clustering tasks. CONCLUSIONS: Our benchmarking results not only provide a reference for biomedical researchers to choose appropriate deep learning-based multi-omics data fusion methods, but also suggest the future directions for the development of more effective multi-omics data fusion methods. The deep learning frameworks are available at https://github.com/zhenglinyi/DL-mo .

m6A methyltransferase KIAA1429 acts as an oncogenic factor in colorectal cancer by regulating SIRT1 in an m6A-dependent manner.

N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modifications of RNAs are involved in various aspects of colorectal carcinogenesis via regulation of mRNA stability, splicing, and translation. KIAA1429, an m6A methyltransferase, was found deregulated in multiple cancer types. However, its role in colorectal cancer remains elusive. By analyzing TCGA and GEPIA database, we found that KIAA1429 in colorectal cancer was highly expressed. In addition, we used immunohistochemistry, western blotting, and QRT-PCR to detect the expression of KIAA1429 in colorectal cancer samples and cell lines, and we found that KIAA1429 was overexpressed in colorectal cancer sample and cell line. Functionally, silencing of KIAA1429 by shRNA in colorectal cancer cell lines resulted in decreased cell proliferation, colony formation, and migration. On the contrary, overexpression of KIAA1429 increased cell proliferation, colony formation, and migration. Further mechanism analysis demonstrated that KIAA1429 increased the expression of SIRT1 via regulating its mRNA stability in an m6A-dependent manner. More importantly, in vivo experiment showed that depletion of KIAA1429 significantly inhibited colorectal tumor growth. In conclusion, our results suggested that the m6A methyltransferase KIAA1429 promotes the growth and motility of colorectal cancer and could be a potent therapeutic target.

Computed Tomographic Studies of Noncalcified Nodules Related to Neuroendocrine Lung Tumor Using 68Gallium-Tagged Somatostatin Variant for Improvement in Diagnosis: A Non-Experimental, Non-Randomized, Cross-Sectional Study.

BACKGROUND 18Fluoro-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)- based positron-emission computed tomography (PET) has less specificity for noncalcified nodules (NNs). Somatostatin receptors affect the expression of normal and malignant cells. The purpose of the study was to compare the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 68Gallium-tagged DOTA-octreotate (Ga-tDO) with that of FDG PET for diagnosis of newly detected and/or untreated NNs in lung cancer patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS A total of 45 patients with lung cancer were included in the cross-sectional study and underwent Ga-tDO and FDG PET. We further confirmed observed outcomes by testing immune histochemical staining for subtype 2A of somatostatin receptor in a granuloma tissue array. The chi-square test was performed for sensitivity and specificity of predictive values among the 3 diagnostic modalities. McNemar's test was performed to compare accuracy between Ga-tDO and FDG PET. Results were considered significant at 95% confidence level. RESULTS Ga-tDO had less sensitivity (69% vs. 89%) but more specificity (91% vs. 78%) than FDG PET. Ga-tDO and FDG PET were characterized as 36 and 6 and in 36 and 3 lesions as accurate and inaccurate, respectively. There was an insignificant difference between Ga-tDO and FDG PET regarding diagnostic accuracy (p=0.7). Dosimetry results showed that the lungs were one of the least critically affected organs. CONCLUSIONS Ga-tDO was more specific but less sensitive than FDG PET scanning and imaging.

In Vivo Therapeutic Effect of Vaccinium Meridionale Swartz in Ischemia-Reperfusion Induced Male Albino Rats.

This study was aimed to investigate the cardioprotective and antioxidant effect of Vaccinium meridionale Swartz in ischemia-induced male albino Wistar strain rats. Rats were grouped into 5 of 6 numbers each. Group I served as a sham, group II served as control and group III, IV, and V served for 1, 10, and 25 mg/kg/d of an extract of Vaccinium meridionale Swartz for 15 consecutive days of treatment. Serum marker enzymes, lipid peroxidation, and myeloperoxidase were increased, whereas antioxidant enzymes were reduced in control due to injury. Increased phenol and anthocyanin contents and increased free radical scavenging activity was noted following treatment. Serum marker enzymes, necrosis, and lipid peroxidation, were reduced, whereas antioxidant enzymes and reduced glutathione were increased. Nitric oxide synthase and Akt expression were also increased following treatment. Taking all these data together, it is suggested that Vaccinium meridionale Swartz may be a potential therapeutic agent for the treatment of ischemic injury.