Using TBAg/PHA Ratio for Monitoring TB Treatment: A Prospective Multicenter Study.

The way to monitor tuberculosis (TB) treatment is extremely lacking in clinical practice. The aim of the study is to assess the role of the TBAg/PHA ratio in the treatment monitoring of TB. TB patients were followed up for 6 months and serial T-SPOT.TB (T-SPOT) assays were performed. In patients with successful treatment outcomes, the ESAT-6 sfc, CFP-10 sfc, and TBAg/PHA ratio all showed a decreased trend after the initiation of treatment. Conversely, PHA sfc showed an increased trend after 2 months of treatment. However, these indicators had moderate performance in distinguishing between before and after 6 months of treatment, and the AUC ranged from 0.702 to 0.839. Notably, the TBAg/PHA ratio in patients without risk factors was of important value in differentiation between before and after treatment. The optimal AUC of TBAg/PHA ratio reached up to 0.890. Patients with unsuccessful treatment outcomes showed persistently high levels of TBAg/PHA ratio. The TBAg/PHA ratio in patients after 6 months of treatment showed a certain potential in distinguishing between patients with successful and unsuccessful treatment outcomes. A further calculation of the TBAg/PHA ratio in T-SPOT assay has potential value in the treatment monitoring of TB, but further confirmation is needed.

Stabilizing LiNi0.8 Co0.15 Mn0.05 O2 Cathode by Doping Sulfate for Lithium-Ion Batteries.

Residual sulfate (SO4 2- ) in precursor Ni0.8 Co0.15 Mn0.05 (OH)2 (pre-NCM) is commonly regarded as being harmful to Li[Ni0.8 Co0.15 Mn0.05 ]O2 (NCM) performance, leading to significant performance losses and also hampering the electrode fabrication. Therefore, manufacturers try their best to lower sulfate contents in pre-NCM. However, how the sulfate affects the cathode materials is not systematically studied. To address these issues, NCM was synthesized with different amounts of intentionally added sulfate (NH4 )2 SO4 in pre-NCM. It was demonstrated that anionic SO4 2- doped in NCM could influence the grain size in sintering process and stabilize the layer structure during the charge-discharge process at a certain doping amount. The first-principles calculations suggested that the SO4 2- doped in the transition metal layer could effectively facilitate Li+ diffusion in the lattice. SO4 2- doping could reduce the energy barrier for Li+ migration and then suppress drastic contraction of the c axis during cycling. The phase transition of H2 to H3 caused by c axis contraction was suppressed and the cycling performance was enhanced. The capacity retention could reach 80.9 (0.2 C) and 80.4 % (1 C) after 380 and 240 cycles in coin cells, respectively. These findings illustrate that a certain amount of sulfate could be beneficial to NCM cathodes.

Electromagnetically induced transparency metamaterial with polarization independence and multi-transmission windows.

In this paper, an electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) metamaterial with the performances of polarization independence and multi-transmission windows is proposed. First, we design an EIT with a single transmission window, which is composed of an H-shaped structure and two split-ring resonators (SRRs). Then, by sequentially rotating the unit by 90°, a new EIT structure with rotational symmetry is obtained. The results show that the new EIT structure has the characteristics of polarization independence and multiple transmission windows, and each transmission window has a high maximum transmittance and group index. The first transmission window has a maximum group index of 88.9 and 98.9% maximum transmission. The maximum group indices of the second and third transmission windows are 117.9 and 215.3, and the peak transmissions are 89.9% and 97.4%, respectively. The multiple transmission windows with polarization independence widen the application scope of the proposed EIT metamaterial and are suitable for high-performance slow-wave devices with the above two requirements.

Analysis of unidirectional broadband absorption in one-dimensional superconductor photonic crystal with an asymmetric multiple-layered structure.

In this paper, the unidirectional absorption characteristics of one-dimensional (1D) superconducting photonic crystals (SPCs) with defect layers in the terahertz (THz) frequency region are theoretically analyzed by the transfer matrix method. The arrangement of such SPCs is an asymmetric multiple-layered structure (AB)ND(BA)M (N≠M). N, M are the stack numbers, respectively. The calculated results demonstrate that, in comparison with conventional 1D binary PCs, the unidirectional absorption region (UAR) of the proposed 1D SPCs can be significantly improved and the relative bandwidth can approximately reach over 20%. The effects of the parameters for the proposed SPCs on the UAR also are investigated. The computed results illustrate that the tailored and optimized UAR can be obtained in the THz regime by tuning those parameters and also demonstrate possible means to realize the THz unidirectional broadband absorber based on the SPCs.

Design of a 3D-Porous Structure with Residual Carbon for High-Performance Ni-Rich Cathode Materials.

Recently, LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 has drawn much attention because of its high energy density. Here, 3D-porous LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 and the one with residual carbon have been synthesized using a resorcinol-formaldehyde-assisted sol-gel approach. Scanning electron microscopy images verify that the synthesized LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 possesses a 3D-porous morphology. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis and transmission electron microscopy-mapping images indicate the existence of residual carbon in the secondary particle of 3D-porous LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2. Furthermore, 3D-porous LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 with residual carbon exhibits outstanding electrochemical properties. At a current density of 1900 mA g-1, the 3D-porous LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 with residual carbon can still deliver a reversible capacity of 113 . Moreover, after 150 cycles at 0.2 C, the capacity retention of 3D-porous LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 with residual carbon reaches to 95%. The excellent electrochemical properties can be ascribed to the unique 3D-porous morphology and residual carbon in the secondary particle.

Robust Succinonitrile-Based Gel Polymer Electrolyte for Lithium-Ion Batteries Withstanding Mechanical Folding and High Temperature.

Fabrication of a gel polymer electrolyte containing succinonitrile (GPE-SN) with high mechanical strength is quite challenging because the SN electrolyte always suppresses the formation of polymer networks during in situ polymerization. In this work, a mechanically robust GPE-SN was successfully prepared by using a solution immersion method. During fabrication, the paste-like SN electrolyte was transformed into a liquid SN electrolyte with low viscosity by heating at 50 °C and then infiltrated into the UV-cured highly cross-linked polyurethane acrylate (PUA) skeleton. The resulted GPE-SN film exhibits superior tensile strength (6.5 MPa) compared to the one (0.5 MPa) prepared by in situ polymerization (GPE-SN-IN). The high mechanical strength of the GPE-SN-IM film enables the LiCoO2/Li4Ti5O12 film battery to withstand 100-cycle folding without electrolyte damage and capacity loss. Besides, the GPE-SN presents a high ionic conductivity (1.63 × 10-3 S·cm-1 at 25 °C), which is comparable to GPE with a commercial liquid electrolyte (GPE-LE). Because of good thermal stability of the GPE-SN, the LiCoO2/Li cell with this electrolyte shows better charge-discharge cycling stability than that with GPE-LE at high temperature (55 °C). Thus, the GPE-SN prepared by our method could be a promising polymer electrolyte offering better safety and reliability for lithium-ion batteries.

Synthesis of a novel series of diphenolic chromone derivatives as inhibitors of NO production in LPS-activated RAW264.7 macrophages.

A novel series of diphenolic chromone derivatives were synthesized and their inhibitory activity on nitric oxide (NO) production and cytotoxicity were evaluated using LPS-activated murine macrophages RAW264.7 assay and MTT method, respectively. Among these compounds, (5,7-dihydroxy-4-oxo-4H-chromen-3-yl) methyl esters (6b, 6c, 6f, 6g, and 6h) showed quite potent inhibitory activities with IC(50) values of 2.20, 3.48, 0.35, 0.80, and 0.61microM, respectively. The MTT results showed that all of the active compounds exhibited no cytotoxicity at the effective concentrations. The preliminary mechanism of the most potent compounds (6b, 6c, 6f, 6g, and 6h) was further examined based on the RT-PCR results and the compounds 6f, 6g, and 6h inhibited NO production by suppressing the expression of iNOS mRNA in a dose dependent manner. Furthermore, a computational analysis of physicochemical parameters revealed that the most of the compounds possessed drug-like properties.

Synthesis and evaluation of a novel series of quinoline derivatives with immunosuppressive activity.

A series of quinoline derivatives were synthesized and their immunosuppressive activity and cytotoxicity were evaluated with a T-cell functional assay and MTT method, respectively. Most of 5,7-dimethoxyquinolin-4-yl ortho-substituted benzoate derivatives (18, 22, 24, 28, 31 and 37) showed a quite stronger inhibitory activity compared to other analogs. Among the synthesized compounds, 5,7-dimethoxyquinolin-4-yl 2,6-dichlorobenzoate (22) and 5,7-dimethoxyquinolin-4-yl 4-methylbenzenesulfonate (40) exhibited a potent inhibitory activity without significant cytotoxicity at 10 microM concentration. The preliminary mechanism of the active compounds 22 and 40 was further clarified based on the fluorescence activated cell sorter (FACS) assay, and the compounds exerted immunosuppressive activity via inhibiting the T cell activation in a dose dependent manner.