Pt1.8Pd0.2CuGa Intermetallic Nanocatalysts with Enhanced Methanol Oxidation Performance for Efficient Hybrid Seawater Electrolysis.

Seawater electrolysis is a potentially cost-effective approach to green hydrogen production, but it currently faces substantial challenges for its high energy consumption and the interference of chlorine evolution reaction (ClER). Replacing the energy-demanding oxygen evolution reaction with methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) represents a promising alternative, as MOR occurs at a significantly low anodic potential, which cannot only reduce the voltage needed for electrolysis but also completely circumvents ClER. To this end, developing high-performance MOR catalysts is a key. Herein, a novel quaternary Pt1.8Pd0.2CuGa/C intermetallic nanoparticle (i-NP) catalyst is reported, which shows a high mass activity (11.13 A mgPGM -1), a large specific activity (18.13 mA cmPGM -2), and outstanding stability toward alkaline MOR. Advanced characterization and density functional theory calculations reveal that the introduction of atomically distributed Pd in Pt2CuGa intermetallic markedly promotes the oxidation of key reaction intermediates by enriching electron concentration around Pt sites, resulting in weak adsorption of carbon-containing intermediates and favorable adsorption of synergistic OH- groups near Pd sites. MOR-assisted seawater electrolysis is demonstrated, which continuously operates under 1.23 V for 240 h in simulated seawater and 120 h in natural seawater without notable degradation.

A Vascular Feature Detection and Matching Method Based on Dual-Branch Fusion and Structure Enhancement.

How to obtain internal cavity features and perform image matching is a great challenge for laparoscopic 3D reconstruction. This paper proposes a method for detecting and associating vascular features based on dual-branch weighted fusion vascular structure enhancement. Our proposed method is divided into three stages, including analyzing various types of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) images and designing a universal preprocessing framework to make our method generalized. We propose a Gaussian weighted fusion vascular structure enhancement algorithm using the dual-branch Frangi measure and MFAT (multiscale fractional anisotropic tensor) to address the structural measurement differences and uneven responses between venous vessels and microvessels, providing effective structural information for vascular feature extraction. We extract vascular features through dual-circle detection based on branch point characteristics, and introduce NMS (non-maximum suppression) to reduce feature point redundancy. We also calculate the ZSSD (zero sum of squared differences) and perform feature matching on the neighboring blocks of feature points extracted from the front and back frames. The experimental results show that the proposed method has an average accuracy and repeatability score of 0.7149 and 0.5612 in the Vivo data set, respectively. By evaluating the quantity, repeatability, and accuracy of feature detection, our method has more advantages and robustness than the existing methods.

Acupuncture therapy for gastric ulcer: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Gastric ulcer (GU) is a clinically common disease of the digestive system that adversely affects patients' quality of life and work ability. Although some articles have reported that acupuncture can improve the clinical symptoms of GU, the efficacy of acupuncture has not been scientifically or methodically evaluated. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture for the treatment of patients with gastric ulcers. METHODS: The following electronic databases will be searched from the respective dates of database inception to March 23, 2021: The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, EMBASE, MEDLINE, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Wanfang database, the Chinese Scientific Journal Database, and other sources. Randomized controlled trials comparing acupuncture with other interventions or sham acupuncture were included. Two independent researchers will perform article retrieval, duplication removal, screening, quality evaluation, and data analyses by Review Manager (V.5.3.5). Meta-analyzes, subgroup analysis, and/or descriptive analyses will be performed based on the included data conditions. RESULTS: The protocol of this study systematically assessed the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture for gastric ulcer patients. The primary outcome was the effective rate, and the secondary outcomes included negative conversing rate of Helicobacter pylori infection, untoward effect, recurrence rate, quality of life, and symptom scores. CONCLUSION: This study provides evidence of whether acupuncture is an effective and safe intervention for gastric ulcers. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42021251067.

Tree seedling richness, but not neighborhood composition, influences insect herbivory in a temperate deciduous forest community.

Insect herbivores can serve as important regulators of plant dynamics, but their impacts in temperate forest understories have received minimal attention at local scales. Here, we test several related hypotheses about the influence of plant neighborhood composition on insect leaf damage in southwestern Pennsylvania, USA. Using data on seedlings and adult trees sampled at 36 sites over an approximately 900 ha area, we tested for the effects of total plant density, rarefied species richness (i.e., resource concentration and dietary-mixing hypotheses), conspecific density (i.e., Janzen-Connell hypothesis), and heterospecific density (i.e., herd-immunity hypothesis), on the proportion of leaf tissue removed from 290 seedlings of 20 species. We also tested for the effects of generic- and familial-level neighborhoods. Our results showed that the proportion of leaf tissue removed ranged from zero to just under 50% across individuals, but was generally quite low (<2%). Using linear mixed models, we found a significant negative relationship between insect damage and rarefied species richness, but no relationship with neighborhood density or composition. In addition, leaf damage had no significant effect on subsequent seedling growth or survival, likely due to the low levels of damage experienced by most individuals. Our results provide some support for the resource concentration hypothesis, but suggest a limited role for insect herbivores in driving local-scale seedling dynamics in temperate forest understories.

Testing predictions of the Janzen-Connell hypothesis: a meta-analysis of experimental evidence for distance- and density-dependent seed and seedling survival.

The Janzen-Connell hypothesis proposes that specialist natural enemies, such as herbivores and pathogens, maintain diversity in plant communities by reducing survival rates of conspecific seeds and seedlings located close to reproductive adults or in areas of high conspecific density. Variation in the strength of distance- and density-dependent effects is hypothesized to explain variation in plant species richness along climatic gradients, with effects predicted to be stronger in the tropics than the temperate zone and in wetter habitats compared to drier habitats.We conducted a comprehensive literature search to identify peer-reviewed experimental studies published in the 40+ years since the hypothesis was first proposed. Using data from these studies, we conducted a meta-analysis to assess the current weight of evidence for the distance and density predictions of the Janzen-Connell hypothesis.Overall, we found significant support for both the distance- and density-dependent predictions. For all studies combined, survival rates were significantly reduced near conspecifics compared to far from conspecifics, and in areas with high densities of conspecifics compared to areas with low conspecific densities. There was no indication that these results were due to publication bias.The strength of distance and density effects varied widely among studies. Contrary to expectations, this variation was unrelated to latitude, and there was no significant effect of study region. However, we did find a trend for stronger distance and density dependence in wetter sites compared to sites with lower annual precipitation. In addition, effects were significantly stronger at the seedling stage compared to the seed stage.Synthesis. Our study provides support for the idea that distance- and density-dependent mortality occurs in plant communities world-wide. Available evidence suggests that natural enemies are frequently the cause of such patterns, consistent with the Janzen-Connell hypothesis, but additional studies are needed to rule out other mechanisms (e.g. intraspecific competition). With the widespread existence of density and distance dependence clearly established, future research should focus on assessing the degree to which these effects permit species coexistence and contribute to the maintenance of diversity in plant communities.