Protein-nanoparticle co-assembly supraparticles for drug delivery: Ultrahigh drug loading and colloidal stability, and instant and complete lysosomal drug release.

Two frequent problems hindering clinical translation of nanomedicine are low drug loading and low colloidal stability. Previous efforts to achieve ultrahigh drug loading (>30 %) introduce new hurdles, including lower colloidal stability and others, for clinical translation. Herein, we report a new class of drug nano-carriers based on our recent finding in protein-nanoparticle co-assembly supraparticle (PNCAS), with both ultrahigh drug loading (58 % for doxorubicin, i.e., DOX) and ultrahigh colloidal stability (no significant change in hydrodynamic size after one year). We further show that our PNCAS-based drug nano-carrier possesses a built-in environment-responsive drug release feature: once in lysosomes, the loaded drug molecules are released instantly (<1 min) and completely (∼100 %). Our PNCAS-based drug delivery system is spontaneously formed by simple mixing of hydrophobic nanoparticles, albumin and drugs. Several issues related to industrial production are studied. The ultrahigh drug loading and stability of DOX-loaded PNCAS enabled the delivery of an exceptionally high dose of DOX into a mouse model of breast cancer, yielding high efficacy and no observed toxicity. With further developments, our PNCAS-based delivery systems could serve as a platform technology to meet the multiple requirements of clinical translation of nanomedicines.

Research Note: Factors influencing highly pathogenic avian influenza preventive behavior among live poultry market vendors.

In China, fresh food has always been a top priority and live poultry has been a staple in the diet for thousands of years. As a result, the live poultry market (LPM) remains a popular and important source for purchasing live poultry among the public. However, LPMs also play a crucial role in spreading and retaining highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) due to the high poultry movement and trade volume. Therefore, the preventive behavior of LPM vendors is essential in blocking the transmission of HPAI and reducing occupational exposure. Based on the health belief model, this study utilized structural equation modeling to examine the effect of risk perceptions on preventive behavior among vendors in the live poultry wholesale market (wLPM) and the live poultry retail market (rLPM) in Guangdong Province. The results indicated that perceived severity and perceived benefits positively influenced the wLPM vendors' ability to adopt preventive behavior (i.e., self-efficacy) while perceived barriers negatively affected self-efficacy in both wLPM and rLPM. Moreover, cues to action positively mediated the relationship between perceived severity, perceived benefits, and self-efficacy of wLPM and rLPM vendors. Cues to action also positively mediated the effect of perceived susceptibility among wLPM vendors. To promote preventive behavior among vendors, the market management companies and the government must provide timely and effective HPAI information through various channels and develop differentiated health campaigns according to the market types to raise vendors' awareness about HPAI.

The Analysis of Residents' Intention to Consume Pre-Made Dishes in China: A Grounded Theory.

The demand for pre-made dishes has increased in China. However, a detailed understanding of residents' intention to consume pre-made dishes is lacking in the existing studies. This research aims to investigate the consumer motives and intention to consume pre-made dishes. Through in-depth interviews and analysis, this research explores the factors influencing the residents' intention along the research steps of grounded theory. Fifty-one residents participated in semi-structured interviews via face-to-face or online interviews. Three motives for purchasing pre-made dishes were attitude, subjective norm, and perceived control. These were influenced by external factors, including environmental features and product features. Subjective characteristics are pre-existing characteristics of individuals themselves, including cooking skills, food skills, housework allocation, and eating attitudes, which play a moderating role in the relationship between external factors and consumer motives. Based on the six major categories, this study built a model of the formation mechanism of the consumer intention to consume pre-made dishes. It revealed the psychological attribution of residents' consumption of pre-made dishes. The finding of this study contributes to the understanding of the internal logic of PMDs' consumer intention formation. It would be a guide for researchers to map out appropriate business development strategies, and provide evidence for the government in formulating management policies.

A bispecific nanobody with high sensitivity/efficiency for simultaneous determination of carbaryl and its metabolite 1-naphthol in the soil and rice samples.

The simultaneous determination of carbaryl and its metabolite 1-naphthol is essential for risk assessment of pesticide exposure in agricultural and environmental samples. Herein, several bispecific nanobodies (BsNbs) with different lengths of hydrophilic linkers and junction sites were prepared and characterized for the simultaneous recognition of carbaryl and its metabolite 1-naphthol. It was found that the affinity of BsNbs to the analytes could be regulated by controlling linker length and linking terminal. Additionally, molecular simulation revealed that linker lengths affected the conformation of BsNbs, leading to alteration in sensitivity. The BsNb with G4S linker, named G4S-C-N-VHH, showing good thermal stability and sensitivity was used to develop a bispecific indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Bic-ELISA). The assay demonstrated a limit of detection of 0.8 ng/mL for carbaryl and 0.4 ng/mL for 1-naphthol in buffer system. Good recoveries from soil and rice samples were obtained, ranging from 80.0% to 112.7% (carbaryl) and 76.5%-110.8% (1-naphthol), respectively. Taken together, this study firstly provided a BsNb with high sensitivity and efficiency against environmental pesticide and its metabolite, and firstly used molecular dynamics simulation to explore the influence of linker on recognition. The results are valuable for the application of immunoassay with high efficiency in the fields of environment and agriculture.

Mechanism-Driven Technology Development for Solving the Intracellular Delivery Problem of Hard-To-Transfect Cells.

The so-called "hard-to-transfect cells" are well-known to present great challenges to intracellular delivery, but detailed understandings of the delivery behaviors are lacking. Recently, we discovered that vesicle trapping is a likely bottleneck of delivery into a type of hard-to-transfect cells, namely, bone-marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs). Driven by this insight, herein, we screened various vesicle trapping-reducing methods on BMSCs. Most of these methods failed in BMSCs, although they worked well in HeLa cells. In stark contrast, coating nanoparticles with a specific form of poly(disulfide) (called PDS1) nearly completely circumvented vesicle trapping in BMSCs, by direct cell membrane penetration mediated by thiol-disulfide exchange. Further, in BMSCs, PDS1-coated nanoparticles dramatically enhanced the transfection efficiency of plasmids of fluorescent proteins and substantially improved osteoblastic differentiation. In addition, mechanistic studies suggested that higher cholesterol content in plasma membranes of BMSCs might be a molecular-level reason for the greater difficulty of vesicle escape in BMSCs.

Food Fraud Vulnerability Assessment in the Chinese Baijiu Supply Chain.

As a representative of Chinese alcoholic drinks, baijiu has developed into a mass-consumption commodity. Its simple industrial chain makes it a suitable target for fraudsters. In order to understand the differences and potential factors of fraud vulnerability among groups at various levels, this study constructed a food fraud vulnerability assessment system for the Chinese baijiu supply chain based on routine activities theory. We examined the fraud vulnerability in the baijiu supply chain with data from 243 producers and 45 retailers by using the safe supply of affordable food everywhere (SSAFE) food fraud vulnerability assessment (FFVA) tool. The results indicate that fraud factors related to opportunities have an overall medium vulnerability, while those related to motivations and control measures have an overall medium-low vulnerability. In addition, there are significant differences in the perceived vulnerability of fraud factors across the supply chain. Moreover, retailers have overall higher fraud vulnerability in terms of opportunities and control measures than producers. The main reasons for the frequent occurrence of fraud in the baijiu industry are numerous technical opportunities, strong economic drivers, and insufficient control measures.

Drivers of Farmers' Intention to Use the Digital Agricultural Management System: Integrating Theory of Planned Behavior and Behavioral Economics.

China's fishery industry has national and international relevance whose aquaculture production accounts for more than 60 percent of the world's total aquaculture production. But the average amount of pesticides used per hectare in China is roughly five times of the world average. The abuse of chemical fertilizers and drugs has brought chronic, long-term, and cumulative harm to both human beings and environment. The digital agricultural management system should be adopted to reduce non-negligible environment pollution and the quality and safety risks of aquatic products. So, it is essential to understand the factors that may influence the adopting intention of this digital management approaches. The present study aimed to examine the adopting intention of farmers toward the digital agricultural management system using two theories-the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the behavioral economics-as the research framework. The population was composed of farmers in the provinces of Guangdong province in south China of whom 219 farmers were sampled with stratified random sampling technique. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data, and it was revealed that this research framework could potentially predict intention. And we observed that the two biased belief of availability bias and loss aversion bias can be the main predictive influence factors of responsible behaviors in adopting the digital agriculture management system, which highlights the importance of framing recommendations in terms of losses rather than gain may be more effective to increase farmers' intention to adopt the digital system on their farms.

CAW: A Remote-Sensing Scene Classification Network Aided by Local Window Attention.

Remote-sensing image scene data contain a large number of scene images with different scales. Traditional scene classification algorithms based on convolutional neural networks are difficult to extract complex spatial distribution and texture information in images, resulting in poor classification results. In response to the above problems, we introduce the vision transformer network structure with strong global modeling ability into the remote-sensing image scene classification task. In this paper, the parallel network structure of the local-window self-attention mechanism and the equivalent large convolution kernel is used to realize the spatial-channel modeling of the network so that the network has better local and global feature extraction performance. Experiments on the RSSCN7 dataset and the WHU-RS19 dataset show that the proposed network can improve the accuracy of scene classification. At the same time, the effectiveness of the network structure in remote-sensing image classification tasks is verified through ablation experiments, confusion matrix, and heat map results comparison.

Quantitative differentiation of malignant and benign thyroid nodules with multi-parameter diffusion-weighted imaging.

BACKGROUND: The value of conventional magnetic resonance imaging in the differential diagnosis of thyroid nodules is limited; however, the value of multi-parameter diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in the quantitative evaluation of thyroid nodules has not been well determined. AIM: To determine the utility of multi-parametric DWI including mono-exponential, bi-exponential, stretched exponential, and kurtosis models for the differentiation of thyroid lesions. METHODS: Seventy-nine patients (62 with benign and 17 with malignant nodules) underwent multi-b value diffusion-weighted imaging of the thyroid. Multiple DWI parameters were obtained for statistical analysis. RESULTS: Good agreement was found for diffusion parameters of thyroid nodules. Malignant lesions displayed lower diffusion parameters including apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), the true diffusion coefficient (D), the perfusion fraction (f), the distributed diffusion coefficient (DDC), the intravoxel water diffusion heterogeneity (α) and kurtosis model-derived ADC (Dapp), and higher apparent diffusional kurtosis (Kapp) than benign entities (all P < 0.01), except for the pseudodiffusion coefficient (D*) (P > 0.05). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of the ADC(0 and 1000) was not significantly different from that of the ADC(0 and 2000), ADC(0 to 2000), ADC(0 to 1000), D, DDC, Dapp and Kapp (all P > 0.05), but was significantly higher than the AUC of D*, f and α (all P < 0.05) for differentiating benign from malignant lesions. CONCLUSION: Multiple DWI parameters including ADC, D, f, DDC, α, Dapp and Kapp could discriminate benign and malignant thyroid nodules. The metrics including D, DDC, Dapp and Kapp provide additional information with similar diagnostic performance of ADC, combination of these metrics may contribute to differentiate benign and malignant thyroid nodules. The ADC calculated with higher b values may not lead to improved diagnostic performance.

Chinese Residents' Healthy Eating Intentions and Behaviors: Based on an Extended Health Belief Model.

Unhealthy eating is one cause of obesity and some chronic non-communicable diseases. This study introduces self-efficacy and health consciousness to construct an extended health belief model (HBM) to examine the factors influencing healthy eating intentions and behaviors of Chinese residents and explore the moderating effect of perceived barriers and the mediating effect of healthy eating intentions. Through the survey platform "Questionnaire Star", this study collected quantitative data from 1281 adults, and partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for confirmatory factor analysis, path analysis, importance-performance map analysis, and multi-group analysis. Results showed that perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, self-efficacy, and health consciousness had a significant positive effect on residents' healthy eating intentions. Perceived barriers had a significant negative effect on residents' healthy eating intentions. Healthy eating intentions had a significant positive effect on healthy eating behaviors. Perceived barriers played a significant negative moderating effect between healthy eating intentions and behaviors. Healthy eating intentions had a positive and significant mediating effect. The multi-group analysis showed that extended HBM has relative generalization ability. The extended HBM has good explanatory and predictive power for healthy diet and provides a new framework for understanding the influencing factors of individuals' healthy eating intentions and behaviors.

Probing the Intracellular Delivery of Nanoparticles into Hard-to-Transfect Cells.

Hard-to-transfect cells are cells that are known to present special difficulties in intracellular delivery of exogenous entities. However, the special transport behaviors underlying the special delivery problem in these cells have so far not been examined carefully. Here, we combine single-particle motion analysis, cell biology studies, and mathematical modeling to investigate nanoparticle transport in bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs), a technologically important type of hard-to-transfect cells. Tat peptide-conjugated quantum dots (QDs-Tat) were used as the model nanoparticles. Two different yet complementary single-particle methods, namely, pair-correlation function and single-particle tracking, were conducted on the same cell samples and on the same viewing stage of a confocal microscope. Our results reveal significant differences in each individual step of transport of QDs-Tat in BMSCs vs a commonly used model cell line, HeLa cells. Single-particle motion analysis demonstrates that vesicle escape and cytoplasmic diffusion are dramatically more difficult in BMSCs than in HeLa cells. Cell biology studies show that BMSCs use different biological pathways for the cellular uptake, vesicular transport, and exocytosis of QDs-Tat than HeLa cells. A reaction-diffusion-advection model is employed to mathematically integrate the individual steps of cellular transport and can be used to predict and design nanoparticle delivery in BMSCs. This work provides dissective, quantitative, and mechanistic understandings of nanoparticle transport in BMSCs. The investigative methods described in this work can help to guide the tailored design of nanoparticle-based delivery in specific types and subtypes of hard-to-transfect cells.

Production and Characterization of Biotinylated Anti-fenitrothion Nanobodies and Development of Sensitive Fluoroimmunoassay.

A simple and sensitive fluoroimmunoassay (FIA) based on a heavy-chain antibody (VHH) for rapid detection of fenitrothion was developed. A VHH library was constructed from an immunized alpaca, and one clone recognizing fenitrothion (namely, VHHjd8) was achieved after careful biopanning. It was biotinylated by fusing with the Avi tag and biotin ligase to obtain a fusion protein (VHHjd8-BT), showing both binding capacity to fenitrothion and the streptavidin poly-horseradish peroxidase conjugate (SA-polyHRP). Based on a competitive assay format, the absorbance spectrum of oxidized 3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine generated by SA-polyHRP overlapped the emission spectrum of carbon dots, which resulted in quenching of signals due to the inner-filter effect. The developed FIA showed an IC50 value of 1.4 ng/mL and a limit of detection of 0.03 ng/mL, which exhibited 15-fold improvement compared with conventional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The recovery test of FIA was validated by standard GC-MS/MS, and the results showed good consistency, indicating that the assay is an ideal tool for rapid screening of fenitrothion in bulk food samples.

Consumers' Food Safety Risk Communication on Social Media Following the Suan Tang Zi Accident: An Extended Protection Motivation Theory Perspective.

There are many hidden safety hazards in homemade food due to an absence of food preparation and storage knowledge, and this has led to many food safety incidents. The purpose of this study was to explore the influencing factors of consumers' food risk communication behavior on social media in northeast China, using the protection motivation theory. We integrate the Suan Tang Zi food poisoning accident and the protection motivation theory to develop a conceptual model to predict food safety risk communication on social media. We conducted a questionnaire which adapted measures from the existing Likert scales. A total of 789 respondents from northeast China participated in this study. We tested our hypotheses using a structural equation model. Results show that perceived severity, perceived vulnerability and self-efficacy have a significant influence on consumer protection motivation. Response efficacies have a positive impact on consumer protection motivation, but response barriers have a negative impact on consumer protection motivation. Additionally, information need and protection motivation of consumers have a significant impact on food safety risk communication on social media. Overall, the protection motivation theory accounted for 71% of the variance in food safety risk communication on social media. Practical implications and suggestions are proposed for the related stakeholders, as well as consumers, to encourage the public to participate in the food risk communication in this study. The research findings presented the social media as a kind of food risk communication channel contributes to consumers acquire accurate information on food quickly, in turn, reduce the probability of food poisoning in daily life. Protection motivation theory may provide some insights into how we can increase the rate of food safety risk communication on social media.

"On water" nano-Cu2O-catalyzed CO-free one-pot multicomponent cascade cyanation-annulation-aminolysis reaction toward phthalimides.

An efficient nano-Cu2O-catalyzed cascade multicomponent reaction of 2-halobenzoic acids and trimethylsilyl cyanide with diverse amines was developed using water as a solvent, affording versatile N-substituted phthalimide derivatives in moderate to excellent yields. This novel strategy features carbon monoxide gas-free, environmentally benign, one-pot multistep transformation, commercially available reagents, a cheap catalyst without any additives, wide functional group tolerance, and operational convenience.

The Moderation of Human Characteristics in the Control Mechanisms of Rumours in Social Media: The Case of Food Rumours in China.

Social networks are widely used as a fast and ubiquitous information-sharing medium. The mass spread of food rumours has seriously invaded public's healthy life and impacted food production. It can be argued that the government, companies, and the media have the responsibility to send true anti-rumour messages to reduce panic, and the risks involved in different forms of communication to the public have not been properly assessed. The manuscript develops an empirical analysis model from 683 food anti-rumour cases and 7,967 data of the users with top comments to test the influence of the strength of rumour/anti-rumour on rumour control. Furthermore, dividing the users into three categories, Leaders, Chatters, and General Public, and study the influence of human characteristics on the relationship between the strength of rumour/anti-rumour and rumour control by considering the different human characteristics as moderator variables. The results showed that anti-rumours have a significant positive impact on the control of rumours; the ambiguity of rumours has a significant negative impact on the Positive Comment Index (PCI) in rumour control. Further, the Leaders increased the overall level of PCI, but negatively adjusted the relationship between evidence and PCI; the Chatters and the General Public reduced the overall level of PCI, and Chatters weakened the relationship between the specific type of anti-rumour form and PCI while the General Public enhanced the relationship between the specific type of anti-rumour form and PCI. In the long run, the role of Leaders needs to be further improved, and the importance of the General Public is growing in the food rumour control process.

A label-free reusable aptasensor for Alzheimer's disease.

To early effectively detect amyloid-beta (Aß) oligomers, a label-free reusable aptasensor was designed. This aptasensor based on a luminescent nanoscale lanthanum-based metal-organic framework (L-MOF)-armored single-stranded DNA antibody (MOF-armored-anti-DNA antibody) as signal tags and aptamer bound to magnetic beads (Apt-MB) as capture probe. The reusable aptasensor combines signal tag and capture probe with antigen-antibody interaction. When the reusable aptasensor is formed, the strong fluorescence intensity of L-MOF will "turn off" by photo-induced electron transfer from excited states to an unfilled d shell of iron cations on the nanoparticle surface. Upon the presence of Aß oligomers in serum samples, they can be especially distinguished with the Aß oligomers aptamer in capture probes and then signal tags are released into the solution for developing the fluorescence aptasensor under excitation/emission 365 nm/430 nm. Meanwhile, the aptamer was recovered from the complex of Aß oligomers/Apt-MB by heat treatment. When the temperature returns to room temperature, the recovered aptamer in the capture probe can once again bound to the MOF-armored-anti-DNA antibody for reuse. The label-free reusable aptasensor system detection has high sensitivity and selectivity toward Aß oligomers (LOD = 0.4 pg/mL) and an excellent linear range (0.001-100 ng/mL). This strategy is a fruitful step for the development of reusable aptasensor and may turn on new avenues for the applications of Aß oligomer detection in clinical diagnosis.Graphical abstract.

Food Safety Risk Information-Seeking Intention of WeChat Users in China.

Consumers' food safety risk information-seeking behavior plays a vital role in improving their food quality and safety awareness and preventing food safety risks. Based on the Risk Information Seeking and Processing Model (RISP), this paper empirically analyzes the food safety risk information-seeking intention of consumers in WeChat and influencing factors under the impact of food safety incidents. We use data from 774 WeChat users and apply the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. We also conduct multigroup analysis with demographic characteristics as moderating variables. The results demonstrated that: (1) Risk perception (p ≤ 0.01) has direct significant positive effects on consumers' intention to seek food safety information. Besides, higher risk perception (p ≤ 0.01) regarding food safety risks will make people feel more anxious and threatened, and then expand the gap between the information they need and the relevant knowledge they actually have (p ≤ 0.1), which will further stimulate them to seek more information (p ≤ 0.05). (2) Informational subjective norms (p ≤ 0.01) can not only directly affect consumers' information-seeking about food safety, but also indirectly affect consumers' intention through information insufficiency (p ≤ 0.01). (3) The more consumers trust the relevant channels (p ≤ 0.01), the stronger their intention to search for food safety risk information. Moreover, the multiple-group analysis also shows that the effects of consumers' gender, age, educational background, and average monthly earnings are different among different groups. Furthermore, implications are put forward for food safety risk communication efforts in China.

Acyl Cyanides as Bifunctional Reagent: Application in Copper-Catalyzed Cyanoamidation and Cyanoesterification Reaction.

Cu-catalyzed domino decyanation and cyanation reaction of acyl cyanides with amines or alcohols have been developed. The cyano sources were generated in situ via C-CN cleavage yielding the corresponding cyano substituted amides or esters in moderate to excellent yields. This approach features a cheap copper catalyst, domino decyanation and cyanation reaction, readily available starting materials, broad substrate scope, operational simplicity, and the potential for further transformation of the cyano group.

Avian Influenza-Factors Affecting Consumers' Purchase Intentions toward Poultry Products.

Recently, continuing outbreaks of avian influenza in China have not only caused great loss to the agricultural sector but also brought fear and distrust to consumers, seriously undermining consumer confidence in chicken products. We investigated consumers' purchase intentions during avian influenza outbreaks by examining a regionally representative sample of 330 consumers in Guangzhou. With respect to 7 kinds of attributes, the ordered logit analysis indicated that possible health threat and uncertainty of the origin of poultry products may cause concern among consumers and cause them to avoid purchasing chicken products. Media reports have a great influence on consumers' intentions to purchase chicken products during avian influenza outbreaks. Overall, this study suggests establishing an effective mechanism of public knowledge (of chicken products' safety and quality) enhancement, in order to curb misleading media reports during avian influenza outbreaks.