Encapsulating Sulfur into a Gel-Derived Nitrogen-Doped Mesoporous and Microporous Carbon Sponge for High-Performance Lithium-Sulfur Batteries.

The practical application of Li-S batteries (LSBs) has long been impeded by the inefficient utilization of sulfur and slow kinetics. Utilizing conductive carbonaceous frameworks as a host scaffold presents an efficient and cost-effective approach to enhance sulfur utilization for redox reactions in LSBs. However, the interaction of pure carbon materials with lithium polysulfide intermediates (LiPSs) is limited to weak van der Waals forces. Hence, the development of an economical method for synthesizing heteroatom-doped carbon materials for sulfur fixation is of paramount importance. In this study, we introduce a hierarchical porous nitrogen-doped carbon sponge (NPCS) with an exceptionally high BET surface area of 3182.2 m2 g-1, achieved through a facile template-assisted polymerization method. The incorporation of inorganic salts, free radical polymerization, and deuteric freeze-drying techniques facilitates the formation of hierarchical pores within the NPCS. After sulfur fixation, the resulting S/NPCS electrode demonstrates remarkable electrochemical performance in LSBs. Specifically, it achieves an 80% sulfur utilization rate, maintains a high reversible specific capacity of 400 mA h g-1 even after 600 cycles at a demanding current density of 5.0 A g-1, and exhibits superior rate capability. It is believed that this work will inspire the rational design of cost-effective carbon-based electrodes for high-performance LSBs.

Health-related quality of life among cancer survivors: pre-existing chronic conditions are to be given priority.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to describe the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of cancer survivors in China by the five-level EuroQol-5-dimension (EQ-5D-5L) questionnaire and to explore the impact of the comorbidity of pre-existing chronic conditions on HRQoL in cancer survivors. METHODS: Data on cancer survivors were obtained from two cross-sectional surveys conducted in Shandong Province, China. The data of the Chinese general population, the Chinese diabetes population, the Chinese hypertension population, and the Chinese urban population from the published studies were used as the controls. The χ2 test was conducted to compare the incidence of five-dimensional problems between the study and control populations. The non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis test were performed to examine the differences in EQ-5D-5L utility scores. Besides, the Tobit regression model was used to examine the variables influencing the EQ-5D-5L utility score. RESULTS: One thousand fifty-one adult cancer survivors were included. Cancer survivors had significantly lower EQ-5D-5L utility scores (Z = - 15.939, P < 0.001) and EQ-VAS scores (Z = - 11.156, P < 0.001) than the general adult population. The average EQ-5D-5L utility score of hypertensive cancer survivors was lower than that of the hypertensive population (Z = - 1.610, P = 0.107), but the difference was not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: Compared to the general population, the HRQoL of cancer survivors was extremely poor in all dimensions of the EQ-5D-5L. Pre-existing chronic conditions had significant antecedent effects on the HRQoL of cancer survivors. Therefore, more attention should be paid to chronic diseases, and effective interventions should be adopted based on this.

Combined amplification-based single-molecule fluorescence in situ hybridization with immunofluorescence for simultaneous in situ detection of RNAs and proteins.

We present a combined amplification-based single-molecule fluorescence in situ hybridization and immunofluorescence (asmFISH-IF) method for the detection of multiple RNAs and proteins simultaneously in cells and formaldehyde-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissue sections. We showed that performing asmFISH before immunofluorescence gives a better IF signal than the opposite. Our asmFISH-IF method could help study the interplay of RNA and protein, helping to understand their functions.

The application of artificial intelligence technology in education influences Chinese adolescent's emotional perception.

Humans need to accurately infer the intentions and feelings of others to engage in successful social interaction. However, the application of artificial intelligence technology in Education (AIEd) forms a human-machine collaborative environment which changed the interaction relationship of individuals, it may have an affect on them. This study aimed to explore whether AIEd affects adolescents' emotional perception. Combined with the actual teaching situation and the result of the questionnaire, 1332 students recruited through random sampling from AI Curriculum Reform Demonstration Schools in Guangzhou participated in this study. Different emotional priming stimulative materials (sentences and situational pictures) were used in the experiments. The task was designed to investigate adolescents' reaction time to emotional faces (positive, negative). After eliminating blank data and invalid data with response time greater than 150 ms, 977 and 962 valid data were included in the statistical analysis in experiment 1 and experiment 2 respectively. Results show that AIEd has a negative effect on adolescents' emotional perception. Prior research has focused on theory to the exclusion of practical applications and the psychological impact of AIEd, thus this study makes an innovative contribution in exploring the impact of the application of artificial intelligence technology in education on adolescents' physical and mental development by using empirical research methods.

X-ray Single Exposure Imaging and Image Processing of Objects with High Absorption Ratio.

The dynamic range of an X-ray digital imaging system is very important when detecting objects with a high absorption ratio. In this paper, a ray source filter is used to filter the low-energy ray components which have no penetrating power to the high absorptivity object to reduce the X-ray integral intensity. This enables the effective imaging of the high absorptivity objects and avoids the image saturation of low absorptivity objects, thus achieving single exposure imaging of high absorption ratio objects. However, this method will reduce the image contrast and weaken the image structure information. Therefore, this paper proposes a contrast enhancement method for X-ray images based on Retinex. Firstly, based on Retinex theory, the multi-scale residual decomposition network decomposes the image into an illumination component and a reflection component. Then, the contrast of the illumination component is enhanced through the U-Net model with the global-local attention mechanism, and the reflection component is enhanced in detail using the anisotropic diffused residual dense network. Finally, the enhanced illumination component and the reflected component are fused. The results show that the proposed method can effectively enhance the contrast in X-ray single exposure images of the high absorption ratio objects, and can fully display the structure information of images on devices with low dynamic range.

Environmental regulation and tourism industry development: evidence from China.

Tourism is a large, environment-dependent global industry. As an important policy tool for environmental protection, environmental regulation plays a significant role in development of the tourism industry. Using the panel data of 284 prefecture-level cities in China from 2004 to 2018, this paper innovatively analyzes the impact mechanism of environmental regulation on China's tourism development from the perspective of the integration of institutional and environmental economics. At the same time, this paper uses the instrumental variable two-stage least squares method (IV-2SLS) to solve the endogeneity problem of environmental regulation and China's tourism development, which makes the research conclusions more robust. The main results were as follows: (1) environmental regulation significantly promoted the development of the tourism industry. Specifically, tourist arrival (TA) and tourism revenue (TR) increased 8.79% and 8.64%, respectively, when the intensity of environmental regulation increased by 1%. This effect was still robust after applying a series of tests; (2) the impact of environmental regulation on the development of the tourism industry was heterogeneous for three aspects: the domestic and inbound tourism market, urban type, and urban location; (3) environmental regulation contributed to China's tourism industry development through industrial structure upgrading, technological innovation, and urban image promotion. Our findings offer valuable insight for the concerned authority and tourism sector to understand the positive role of environmental regulation in promoting high-quality development of the tourism industry by corresponding policy-making, industrial structure upgrading, technological innovation, and urban reputation building.

Single nucleotide polymorphisms in the GFR-related gene and the SNP-SNP interactions on the risk of diabetic kidney disease in Chinese Han population.

PURPOSE: Genetic susceptibility is an important pathogenic mechanism in diabetic kidney disease (DKD). However, the specific gene variant associated with DKD susceptibility remains unclear. Glomerular filtration rate (GFR), an important indicator for the process of DKD, has a heritable component. This study aimed to explore whether these GFR-related single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were associated with DKD. METHODS: GFR-related SNPs were collected from the Phenotype-Genotype Integrator (PheGenI) database. SNPs for population cohort analysis were selected following the criteria of complete records of eQTL and MAF > 5% in the Chinese Han population. Totally 498 subjects participated, including166 patients with DKD, 166 patients with T2DM, and 166 controls. The genotypes of SNPs were determined using a Sequenom MassARRAY system. Plink software was employed to analyze the SNP-SNP interactions. RESULTS: By screening the GFR-related SNPs recorded in the PheGenI database, four SNPs (rs1260326, rs17319721, rs35716097, and rs6420094) were finally selected to investigate the association with DKD. It was shown that one of the four SNPs was related to DKD. The G allele of SLC34A1 rs6420094 was associated with a decreased risk of DKD in DKD and T2DM groups (OR 0.716; P = 0.049). Genetic model analysis revealed that rs6420094 was a protective factor for DKD in T2DM in a dominant model and an additive model (P = 0.03; P = 0.032, respectively). Although rs17319721 was not associated with the risk of DKD, the SNP-SNP interactions between rs17319721 and rs6420094 predicted a significantly decreased risk of DKD (OR 0.464; P = 0.047). CONCLUSION: SLC34A1 rs6420094 was associated with a decreased DKD risk in the Chinese Han population. SNP-SNP interaction between rs17319721 and rs6420094 was associated with a lower risk of DKD.

Single Infrared Image Stripe Removal via Residual Attention Network.

The non-uniformity of the readout circuit response in the infrared focal plane array unit detector can result in fixed pattern noise with stripe, which seriously affects the quality of the infrared images. Considering the problems of existing non-uniformity correction, such as the loss of image detail and edge blurring, a multi-scale residual network with attention mechanism is proposed for single infrared image stripe noise removal. A multi-scale feature representation module is designed to decompose the original image into varying scales to obtain more image information. The product of the direction structure similarity parameter and the Gaussian weighted Mahalanobis distance is used as the similarity metric; a channel spatial attention mechanism based on similarity (CSAS) ensures the extraction of a more discriminative channel and spatial feature. The method is employed to eliminate the stripe noise in the vertical and horizontal directions, respectively, while preserving the edge texture information of the image. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms four state-of-the-art methods by a large margin in terms of the qualitative and quantitative assessments. One hundred infrared images with different simulated noise intensities are applied to verify the performance of our method, and the result shows that the average peak signal-to-noise ratio and average structural similarity of the corrected image exceed 40.08 dB and 0.98, respectively.

Social network and tourism consumption by households: Evidence from China.

Tourism consumption is not only an important means by which to improve residents' sense of happiness but is also the main way to promote national economic development. In a traditional relational society such as China, it remains unclear how social network affects tourism consumption by households. Here, we evaluated the impact of the social network on tourism consumption by Chinese households using the data of 3254 samples from the China Family Panel Studies. The empirical results from the ordinary least square method showed that the social network promotes tourism consumption, which can be projected to increase by about 28% for every 1% increase in social network strength. This was further confirmed using the instrumental variable method to address the issue of endogenous social network formation, as well as other robustness checks. The impact of the social network on tourism consumption was heterogeneous. Compared with other residents, there were higher positive effects for high-income families, households with a head aged 35-44 years, urban families, and households in eastern China. The quantile regression results revealed that the impact of the social network was weakened with increasing tourism consumption by households. These results are crucial for policymakers, in that they could form good habits of tourism consumption and strengthen tourism market management, especially for the management of tourism negative events in the context of new media.

Analysis of Hazard Factors Affecting the Quality of Life for Lung Cancer Patients after Chemotherapy.

Objective: To explore the hazard factors affecting the quality of life for patients with lung cancer after chemotherapy, so as to provide evidence-based clinical proof to improve their quality of life. Methods: The clinic data of lung cancer patients treated with chemotherapy from November 2020 to November 2021 in our hospital were selected for retrospective analysis. A questionnaire survey was administered to 74 patients who met the inclusion criteria. The general condition questionnaire made by the department was used to analyzed the patients' demographic characteristics and disease status. The quality of life questionnaire for Chinese cancer patients receiving chemobiotherapy (QLQ-CCC) was used to evaluate the patients' quality of life. Results: The research objects selected for this study scored an average of (94.53 ± 22.65) points in the quality of life. It was found by logistic regression analysis that age, education level, marital status, pathological types, monthly family income, and metastasis were the independent influencing factors that lowered the quality of life of lung cancer patients after chemotherapy (P < 0.001). Conclusion: Chemotherapy can lead to a decline in the quality of life of lung cancer patients, and there are many factors at play. Therefore, medical and nursing staff should focus on the overall condition of patients when carrying out clinical treatment.

Visual Mismatch Negativity Reflects Enhanced Response to the Deviant: Evidence From Event-Related Potentials and Electroencephalogram Time-Frequency Analysis.

Automatic detection of information changes in the visual environment is crucial for individual survival. Researchers use the oddball paradigm to study the brain's response to frequently presented (standard) stimuli and occasionally presented (deviant) stimuli. The component that can be observed in the difference wave is called visual mismatch negativity (vMMN), which is obtained by subtracting event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by the deviant from ERPs evoked by the standard. There are three hypotheses to explain the vMMN. The sensory fatigue (or refractoriness) hypothesis considers that weakened neural activity caused by repetition results in decreased ERPs of the standard. The memory trace hypothesis proposes that vMMN results from increased responses to the deviant. The predictive coding hypothesis attributes the difference to enhanced responses for deviants and suppression for standards. However, when distinguishing between these effects, previous researchers did not consider the effect of low-level features on the vMMN. In this experiment, we used face sequences composed of different emotions (e.g., neutral and fearful face) and presented an oddball sequence, a reverse oddball sequence, and an equiprobable sequence to participants. The deviant of the oddball sequence was subtracted from the standard of the oddball sequence, the reverse oddball sequence, and the same type of stimulus of the equiprobable sequence to get oddball-vMMN (vMMN1), reverse oddball-vMMN (vMMN2), and equiprobable-vMMN (vMMN3), respectively. The results showed no significant difference between vMMN2 and vMMN3 in 100-350 ms following stimulus onset, while the vMMN effect was significant, indicating that the probability of the standard did not affect vMMN, which supported the memory trace hypothesis. Additionally, the fearful-related vMMN were more negative than the neutral-related vMMN within the range of 100-150 ms, suggesting a negative bias. We analyzed the source location of different vMMNs. There was no significant difference in brain regions between different vMMNs. Time-frequency analysis showed that the deviant had stronger theta-band oscillatory than the standard (visual mismatch oscillatory responses, vMORs). However, there was no difference between vMORs2 and vMORs3, indicating that vMORs reflect an enhanced response to the deviant in terms of neural oscillation, supporting the memory trace hypothesis.

A Review on Recent Advances for Boosting Initial Coulombic Efficiency of Silicon Anodic Lithium Ion batteries.

Rechargeable silicon anode lithium ion batteries (SLIBs) have attracted tremendous attention because of their merits, including a high theoretical capacity, low working potential, and abundant natural sources. The past decade has witnessed significant developments in terms of extending the lifespan and maintaining high capacities of SLIBs. However, the detrimental issue of low initial Coulombic efficiency (ICE) toward SLIBs is causing more and more attention in recent years because ICE value is a core index in full battery design that profoundly determines the utilization of active materials and the weight of an assembled battery. Herein, a comprehensive review is presented of recent advances in solutions for improving ICE of SLIBs. From design perspectives, the strategies for boosting ICE of silicon anodes are systematically categorized into several aspects covering structure regulation, prelithiation, interfacial design, binder design, and electrolyte additives. The merits and challenges of various approaches are highlighted and discussed in detail, which provides valuable insights into the rational design and development of state-of-the-art techniques to deal with the deteriorative issue of low ICE of SLIBs. Furthermore, conclusions and future promising research prospects for lifting ICE of SLIBs are proposed at the end of the review.

Nanoparticle-based co-delivery of siRNA and paclitaxel for dual-targeting of glioblastoma.

Aim: To explore the therapeutic effect of nanoparticle-based dual-targeting delivery of antitumor agents for glioblastoma treatment. Materials & methods: A hepatitis B core protein-virus-like particle (VLP)-based dual-targeting delivery system was designed with the primary brain targeting peptide TGN for blood-brain barrier penetration and tumor vascular preferred ligand RGD (arginine-glycine-aspartic acid) for glioblastoma targeting. Chemo- and gene-therapeutic agents of paclitaxel and siRNA were co-packaged inside the vehicle. Results: The results demonstrated efficient delivery of the packaged agents to invasive tumor sites. The combination of chemo- and gene-therapies demonstrated synergistic antitumor effects through enhancing necrosis and apoptosis, as well as being able to inhibit tumor invasion with minimal cytotoxicity. Conclusion: Our hepatitis B core-VLP-based dual-targeting delivery of chemo- and gene-therapeutic agents possesses a synergistic antitumor effect for glioblastoma therapy.

Porous Ti/Zr Microspheres for Efficient Transfer Hydrogenation of Biobased Ethyl Levulinate to γ-Valerolactone.

γ-Valerolactone (GVL) is one of the versatile platform molecules and biofuel additives derived from the lignocellulosic biomass. Herein, the efficient synthesis of GVL from biobased ethyl levulinate (EL) using alcohol as both H-donor and solvent without an external hydrogen source has been achieved over porous Ti/Zr microspheres. The catalysts (Ti x Zr y ) with different Ti/Zr molar ratios were synthesized using hexadecylamine (HDA) as a structure-directing agent via a sol-gel process combined with solvothermal treatment and characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, thermal gravimetric analysis, NH3/CO2-TPD, N2 adsorption-desorption, and pyridine-IR. A high GVL yield of 90.1% at 100% EL conversion was obtained at 180 °C for 6 h over Ti2Zr8 in 2-propanol. The microspheric and porous structure, enhanced surface areas, and acid/base contents by the proper introduction of Ti species into Zr oxide were demonstrated to be responsible for the pronounced performance. The microspheric Ti2Zr8 porous catalyst could be reused at least six times with no decrease in catalytic activity.

[Expressions of STAT3, p-STAT3 and E-cadherin in colorectal cancer and clinical implications].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the correlation of expressions of STAT3 and p-STAT3 with epithelial mesenchymal transition(EMT)-associated protein E-cadherin in colorectal cancer, and to examine the association of above expressions with tumor invasion and metastasis of colorectal cancer. METHODS: Immunohistochemistry assay ElivisionTM plus was used to detect the expressions of STAT3, p-STAT3 and E-cadherin protein in colorectal cancer tissue samples of 50 cases and their corresponding adjacent non-tumor tissues. Association of these protein expressions with tumor invasion and metastasis was analyzed with χ(2) test. Correlation of STAT3 and p-STAT3 with E-cadherin was analyzed with Spearman method. RESULTS: Positive expression rates of STAT3, p-STAT3 and E-cadherin protein in colorectal cancer tissues were 72%(36/50), 76%(38/50) and 26%(13/50), which were significantly higher compared to adjacent normal intestinal mucosa tissues [24%(12/50), 26%(13/50) and 68%(34/50), all P<0.05]. STAT3, p-STAT3 and E-cadherin expressions were associated with tumor differentiation, tumor invasion depth, tumor size, lymph node metastasis, TNM staging (all P<0.05). In colorectal cancer tissues, STAT3 protein expression was positively correlated with p-STAT3 expression. STAT3 and p-STAT3 expressions in colorectal cancer tissues were negatively correlated with E-cadherin expression(P<0.05). CONCLUSION: STAT3 and p-STAT3 may be involved in tumor EMT through inhibition of E-cadherin expression, leading to the development of colorectal cancer.

[Clinical value of 64-slice spiral 3-phase CT enhanced scanning for preoperative TNM staging assessment of gastric carcinoma].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the clinical value of 64-slice spiral 3-phase CT enhanced scanning for preoperative TNM staging assessment of gastric carcinoma. METHODS: A retrospective study was performed to review the 64-slice spiral 3-phase CT enhanced scanning of 120 patients with gastric cancer diagnosed by biopsy prior to operation and postoperative pathological reports. All the findings were reviewed by two senior radiologic diagnosticians separately and compared with pathological findings. RESULTS: The accuracy of 64-slice spiral CT enhanced scan was 79.2%(95/120) for T staging, 66.7%(10/15) for T1, 66.7%(14/21) for T2, 84.0%(42/50) for T3, and 85.3%(29/34) for T4. For gastric wall with single layer and multiple layers, the accuracy of CT enhanced scanning was 59.4%(19/32) and 81.8%(72/88) for T staging, and the difference was statistically significant(P<0.05). The accuracy of 64-slice spiral CT enhanced scan was 73.9%(85/115) for N staging, 75.5%(37/49) for N0, 70.3%(26/37) for N1, 75.9%(22/29) for N2. The accuracy of 64-slice spiral CT enhanced scanning was 89.2% for M staging. CONCLUSION: 64-slice spiral CT 3-phase enhanced scanning can monitor the invasion, lymphatic metastasis, and distant metastasis of gastric cancer dynamically, which may become an important examination item for the preoperative evaluation of gastric cancer.