A novel catalyst derived from Co-ZIFs to grow N-doped carbon nanotubes for all-solid-state supercapacitors with high performance.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been widely used as electrode materials for electrochemical energy storage devices (e.g., supercapacitors) due to their excellent chemical and physical properties. However, conventional approaches (e.g., electron-beam vapor deposition and atomic layer deposition) to fabricate catalysts for the growth of CNTs are complex and demand high energy consumption. Herein, we report a facile method to synthesize catalysts derived from cobalt-containing zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (Co-ZIFs), which is exploited to in situ construct the three-dimensional (3D) CNT hybrid materials for all-solid-state supercapacitors. In brief, Co-ZIFs with a controllable structure is first grown on the inner porous surface of carbon foams pyrolyzed from commercial melamine foams, followed by thermal annealing and chemical vapor deposition to grow CNTs, achieving 3D free-standing CNT-based hybrids. The well-distributed Co-ZIFs in the carbon foam enable the grown CNTs with uniform structures and morphologies. Using the fabricated CNT-based hybrid as electrodes, the assembled all-solid-state supercapacitors show a high specific capacitance of 19.4 mF cm-2 at a current density of 0.5 mA cm-2, which could be further optimized to as high as 871.8 mF cm-2 by incorporating the pseudocapacitive material of manganese dioxide in CNT-based hybrids. This study provides a facile solution approach to fabricate the catalyst for the growth of a CNT inner porous substrate; the resultant 3D free-standing hybrids could be used as efficient electrodes for high-performance energy storage devices beyond supercapacitors.

Patient perception and treatment convenience of dabigatran versus vitamin K antagonist when used for stroke prophylaxis in atrial fibrillation: Real-world Evaluation of Long-term Anticoagulant Treatment Experience (RE-LATE) study.

PURPOSE: Dabigatran is a direct thrombin inhibitor approved for stroke prophylaxis in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). Real-world data about patient preference, satisfaction and convenience in patients in Asia are not available. The study aimed to explore the perception of patients with newly diagnosed NVAF regarding dabigatran versus vitamin K antagonists (VKAs), when used for stroke prevention. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This was a multinational, multicentre, non-interventional study involving 49 sites across 5 countries in South East Asia and South Korea where 934 patients newly diagnosed with NVAF were initiated on either dabigatran (N=591) or VKA (N=343). Data were collected at baseline and over two follow-up visits across 6 months. Treatment satisfaction and patient convenience were evaluated using the Perception on Anticoagulant Treatment Questionnaire-2 (PACT-Q2). RESULTS: The mean age of the patients was 65.9±10.4 years, and 64.2% were male. Mean CHA2DS2-VASc score was 2.4±1.5, and mean HAS-BLED score was 1.2±0.9. At baseline, patients initiated on dabigatran had higher stroke risk, bleeding risk, creatinine clearance and proportion of patients with concomitant illnesses compared with patients initiated on VKAs. Treatment convenience was perceived to be significantly better with dabigatran versus VKAs at visits 2 and 3 (p=0.0423 and 0.0287, respectively). Treatment satisfaction was significantly better with dabigatran compared with VKAs at visit 3 (p=0.0300). CONCLUSION: In this study, dabigatran is associated with better patient perception in terms of treatment convenience and satisfaction compared with VKAs when used for stroke prevention in newly diagnosed NVAF patients from South East Asia and South Korea. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT02849509. PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY: Patient satisfaction with dabigatran versus VKAs in South East Asia. Patients with atrial fibrillation are at high risk of stroke and require anticoagulants for stroke prevention. Two such anticoagulants are dabigatran and VKAs. We wanted to compare the extent of satisfaction and treatment convenience among newly diagnosed patients with atrial fibrillation from the South East Asian region when they were given either dabigatran or VKAs. Consenting patients filled out a standardised questionnaire called the PACT-Q2 over three visits after they were started on either dabigatran (591 patients) or VKAs (343 patients). We found that satisfaction and convenience were significantly higher when patients received dabigatran than when they received VKAs.

Low bleeding and thromboembolic risk with continued dabigatran during cardiovascular interventions: the GLORIA-AF study.

BACKGROUND: Prospective data on nonvitamin-K-antagonist oral anticoagulant (NOAC) management during cardiovascular interventions are limited. We therefore evaluated the safety and effectiveness of uninterrupted dabigatran therapy as well as dabigatran management during atrial fibrillation (AF)-cardioversions, AF-ablations, pacemaker implantations and coronary angiography and/or stenting procedures. METHOD: GLORIA-AF is an international registry programme involving patients with newly diagnosed AF. Dabigatran users were followed for ≤2 years. The primary outcome was occurrence of stroke/systemic embolism and major bleeding ≤8 weeks after a cardiovascular intervention during uninterrupted dabigatran therapy. RESULTS: During the 2-year follow-up, 599 cardiovascular interventions were identified in 479 eligible patients. 412/599 (69%) interventions were performed with uninterrupted dabigatran therapy: 299/354 (84%) AF-cardioversions, 38/89 (43%) AF-ablations, 25/58 (43%) pacemaker implantations, and 50/98 (51%) coronary angiography and/or stenting procedures. During an average follow-up of 8.4 weeks after intervention, one major bleed and one systemic embolic event occurred (risk 0.25% for both outcomes; 95% confidence interval, 0.01%-1.36%). CONCLUSIONS: More than two thirds of the interventions were performed with uninterrupted dabigatran therapy, of which most were AF-cardioversions. Uninterrupted dabigatran therapy was associated with low major bleeding and stroke/systemic embolism risk, supporting the favourable safety and effectiveness profile of dabigatran in clinical practice-based settings.

Real-world evaluation of perception, convenience and anticoagulant treatment satisfaction of patients with atrial fibrillation switched from long-term vitamin K antagonist treatment to dabigatran.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Real-world data about treatment convenience and satisfaction in Asian non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) patients after switching from vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) to non-VKA oral anticoagulants were evaluated. METHODS: In this non-interventional study involving 49 sites across five countries in Southeast Asia and South Korea, 379 stable NVAF patients who switched from VKA therapy to dabigatran during routine clinical practice were recruited and followed up for 6 months. Treatment convenience and satisfaction were evaluated using Perception on Anticoagulant Treatment Questionnaire-2 (PACT-Q2). Through post hoc analysis, factors associated with improved treatment convenience scores at visit 2 were described. RESULTS: Treatment convenience and satisfaction significantly improved after switching from VKAs to dabigatran at visit 2 and visit 3 (convenience: p<0.001 each vs baseline; satisfaction: p=0.0174 (visit 2), p=0.0004 (visit 3) compared with baseline). Factors predictive of higher (>80th percentile) response on treatment convenience were female sex, younger age (<75 years), higher baseline stroke risk, higher creatinine clearance and absence of concomitant hypertension, stroke or gastrointestinal diseases. CONCLUSION: Dabigatran was associated with a significant improvement in treatment convenience and satisfaction after switching from VKAs when used for stroke prevention in NVAF patients from Southeast Asia and South Korea.

A novel data mining method to identify assay-specific signatures in functional genomic studies.

BACKGROUND: The highly dimensional data produced by functional genomic (FG) studies makes it difficult to visualize relationships between gene products and experimental conditions (i.e., assays). Although dimensionality reduction methods such as principal component analysis (PCA) have been very useful, their application to identify assay-specific signatures has been limited by the lack of appropriate methodologies. This article proposes a new and powerful PCA-based method for the identification of assay-specific gene signatures in FG studies. RESULTS: The proposed method (PM) is unique for several reasons. First, it is the only one, to our knowledge, that uses gene contribution, a product of the loading and expression level, to obtain assay signatures. The PM develops and exploits two types of assay-specific contribution plots, which are new to the application of PCA in the FG area. The first type plots the assay-specific gene contribution against the given order of the genes and reveals variations in distribution between assay-specific gene signatures as well as outliers within assay groups indicating the degree of importance of the most dominant genes. The second type plots the contribution of each gene in ascending or descending order against a constantly increasing index. This type of plots reveals assay-specific gene signatures defined by the inflection points in the curve. In addition, sharp regions within the signature define the genes that contribute the most to the signature. We proposed and used the curvature as an appropriate metric to characterize these sharp regions, thus identifying the subset of genes contributing the most to the signature. Finally, the PM uses the full dataset to determine the final gene signature, thus eliminating the chance of gene exclusion by poor screening in earlier steps. The strengths of the PM are demonstrated using a simulation study, and two studies of real DNA microarray data--a study of classification of human tissue samples and a study of E. coli cultures with different medium formulations. CONCLUSION: We have developed a PCA-based method that effectively identifies assay-specific signatures in ranked groups of genes from the full data set in a more efficient and simplistic procedure than current approaches. Although this work demonstrates the ability of the PM to identify assay-specific signatures in DNA microarray experiments, this approach could be useful in areas such as proteomics and metabolomics.

The lung function profile of once-daily tiotropium and olodaterol via Respimat(®) is superior to that of twice-daily salmeterol and fluticasone propionate via Accuhaler(®) (ENERGITO(®) study).

BACKGROUND: Tiotropium + olodaterol has demonstrated improvements beyond lung function benefits in a large Phase III clinical program as a once-daily maintenance treatment for COPD and may be a potential option for the initiation of maintenance treatment in COPD. Despite guideline recommendations that combined long-acting ß2-agonists and inhaled corticosteroids should only be used in individuals at high risk of exacerbation, there is substantial use in individuals at lower risk. This raises the question of the comparative effectiveness of this combination as maintenance treatment in this group compared to other combination regimens. OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to assess the effect on lung function of once-daily tiotropium + olodaterol versus twice-daily salmeterol + fluticasone propionate in all participants with Global initiative for chronic Obstructive Lung Disease 2 or 3 (moderate to severe) COPD. METHODS: This was a randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, four-treatment, complete crossover study in which participants received once-daily tiotropium + olodaterol (5/5 µg and 2.5/5 µg) via Respimat(®) and twice-daily salmeterol + fluticasone propionate (50/500 µg and 50/250 µg) via Accuhaler(®) for 6 weeks. The primary end point was change in forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) area under the curve from 0 hour to 12 hours (AUC0-12) relative to the baseline after 6 weeks. RESULTS: Tiotropium + olodaterol 5/5 µg and 2.5/5 µg demonstrated statistically significant improvements in FEV1 AUC0-12 compared to salmeterol + fluticasone propionate (improvements from baseline were 317 mL and 295 mL with tiotropium + olodaterol 5/5 µg and 2.5/5 µg, and 188 mL and 192 mL with salmeterol + fluticasone propionate 50/500 µg and 50/250 µg, respectively). Tiotropium + olodaterol was superior to salmeterol + fluticasone propionate in lung function secondary end points, including FEV1 area under the curve from 0 hour to 24 hours (AUC0-24). CONCLUSION: Once-daily tiotropium + olodaterol in participants with moderate-to-severe COPD provided superior lung function improvements to twice-daily salmeterol + fluticasone propionate. Dual bronchodilation can be considered to optimize lung function in individuals requiring maintenance treatment for COPD.

Ethanol Production from Nondetoxified Dilute-Acid Lignocellulosic Hydrolysate by Cocultures of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Y5 and Pichia stipitis CBS6054.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae Y5 (CGMCC no. 2660) and Issatchenkia orientalis Y4 (CGMCC no. 2159) were combined individually with Pichia stipitis CBS6054 to establish the cocultures of Y5 + CBS6054 and Y4 + CBS6054. The coculture Y5 + CBS6054 effectively metabolized furfural and HMF and converted xylose and glucose mixture to ethanol with ethanol concentration of 16.6 g/L and ethanol yield of 0.46 g ethanol/g sugar, corresponding to 91.2% of the maximal theoretical value in synthetic medium. Accordingly, the nondetoxified dilute-acid hydrolysate was used to produce ethanol by co-culture Y5 + CBS6054. The co-culture consumed glucose along with furfural and HMF completely in 12 h, and all xylose within 96 h, resulting in a final ethanol concentration of 27.4 g/L and ethanol yield of 0.43 g ethanol/g sugar, corresponding to 85.1% of the maximal theoretical value. The results indicated that the co-culture of Y5 + CBS6054 was a satisfying combination for ethanol production from non-detoxified dilute-acid lignocellulosic hydrolysates. This co-culture showed a promising prospect for industrial application.