Sulforaphane decreases oxidative stress and inhibits NLRP3 inflammasome activation in a mouse model of ulcerative colitis.

Excessive oxidative stress and NLRP3 inflammasome activation are considered the main drivers of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and inhibition of inflammasomes ameliorates clinical symptoms and morphological manifestations of IBD. Herein, we examined the roles of NLRP3 activation in IBD and modulation of NLRP3 by sulforaphane (SFN), a compound with multiple pharmacological activities that is extracted from cruciferous plants. To simulate human IBD, we established a mouse colitis model by administering dextran sodium sulfate in the drinking water. SFN (25, 50 mg·kg-1·d-1, ig) or the positive control sulfasalazine (500 mg/kg, ig) was administered to colitis-affected mice for 7 days. Model mice displayed pathological alterations in colon tissue as well as classic symptoms of colitis beyond substantial tissue inflammation. Expression of NLRP3, ASC, and caspase-1 was significantly elevated in the colonic epithelium. The expression of NLRP3 inflammasomes led to activation of downstream proteins and increases in the cytokines IL-18 and IL-1ß. SFN administration either fully or partially reversed these changes, thus restoring IL-18 and IL-1ß, substantially inhibiting NLRP3 activation, and decreasing inflammation. SFN alleviated the inflammation induced by LPS and NLRP3 agonists in RAW264.7 cells by decreasing the levels of reactive oxygen species. In summary, our results revealed the pathological roles of oxidative stress and NLRP3 in colitis, and indicated that SFN might serve as a natural NLRP3 inhibitor, thereby providing a new strategy for alternative colitis treatment.

Custom-tailored hole transport layer using oxalic acid for high-quality tin-lead perovskites and efficient all-perovskite tandems.

All-perovskite tandem solar cells (TSCs) have exhibited higher efficiencies than single-junction perovskite solar cells (PSCs) but still suffer from the unsatisfactory performance of low-bandgap (LBG) tin-lead (Sn-Pb) subcells. The inherent properties of PEDOT:PSS are crucial to high-performance Sn-Pb perovskite films and devices; however, the underlying mechanism has not been fully explored and revealed. Here, we report a facile oxalic acid treatment of PEDOT:PSS (OA-PEDOT:PSS) to precisely regulate its work function and surface morphology. OA-PEDOT:PSS shows a larger work function and an ordered reorientation and fiber-shaped film morphology with efficient hole transport pathways, leading to the formation of more ideal hole-selective contact with Sn-Pb perovskite for suppressing interfacial nonradiative recombination losses. Moreover, OA-PEDOT:PSS induces (100) preferred orientation growth of perovskite for higher-quality Sn-Pb films. Last, the OA-PEDOT:PSS-tailored LBG PSC yields an impressive efficiency of up to 22.56% (certified 21.88%), enabling 27.81% efficient all-perovskite TSC with enhanced operational stability.

Anterior cingulate cortex projections to the dorsal medial striatum underlie insomnia associated with chronic pain.

Chronic pain often leads to the development of sleep disturbances. However, the precise neural circuit mechanisms responsible for sleep disorders in chronic pain have remained largely unknown. Here, we present compelling evidence that hyperactivity of pyramidal neurons (PNs) in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) drives insomnia in a mouse model of nerve-injury-induced chronic pain. After nerve injury, ACC PNs displayed spontaneous hyperactivity selectively in periods of insomnia. We then show that ACC PNs were both necessary for developing chronic-pain-induced insomnia and sufficient to mimic sleep loss in naive mice. Importantly, combining optogenetics and electrophysiological recordings, we found that the ACC projection to the dorsal medial striatum (DMS) underlies chronic-pain-induced insomnia through enhanced activity and plasticity of ACC-DMS dopamine D1R neuron synapses. Our findings shed light on the pivotal role of ACC PNs in developing chronic-pain-induced sleep disorders.

Ligand-free Pd-catalyzed highly selective arylation of activated and unactivated alkenes via oxidative and reductive heck coupling.

In this work, an eco-friendly, green, efficient approach for oxidative and reductive Heck-Mizoroki (HM) reactions was developed, which offered acceptable yields from first-pass experiments. Mono-arylation was achieved without the use of ligands, directing groups, or prefunctionalized alkenes. Considering mild reaction conditions, good functional group compatibility, and great regioselectivity, the method can find broad applications in novel medicine and material development and discovery processes.

Class-Incremental Unsupervised Domain Adaptation via Pseudo-Label Distillation.

Class-Incremental Unsupervised Domain Adaptation (CI-UDA) requires the model can continually learn several steps containing unlabeled target domain samples, while the source-labeled dataset is available all the time. The key to tackling CI-UDA problem is to transfer domain-invariant knowledge from the source domain to the target domain, and preserve the knowledge of the previous steps in the continual adaptation process. However, existing methods introduce much biased source knowledge for the current step, causing negative transfer and unsatisfying performance. To tackle these problems, we propose a novel CI-UDA method named Pseudo-Label Distillation Continual Adaptation (PLDCA). We design Pseudo-Label Distillation module to leverage the discriminative information of the target domain to filter the biased knowledge at the class- and instance-level. In addition, Contrastive Alignment is proposed to reduce domain discrepancy by aligning the class-level feature representation of the confident target samples and the source domain, and exploit the robust feature representation of the unconfident target samples at the instance-level. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of PLDCA. Code is available at code.

Enantioselective Total Synthesis of (-)-Daphenylline.

A concise enantioselective total synthesis of (-)-daphenylline, a hexacyclic Daphniphyllum alkaloid with a unique benzene ring, was achieved in 14 steps. The synthesis commences with two chiral stereocenters, C2 and C18, readily installed via Carreira's Ir/amine dual-catalyzed allylation. The allylic bridgehead amine 6 was rapidly prepared through Wickens' photoredox-catalyzed hydrocarboxylation of olefin and CuBr2-catalyzed α-amination of ketone. The tetracycle 4 was formed via Pd-catalyzed reductive Heck reaction or, more concisely, by Krische's Rh-catalyzed reductive 1,6-enyne cyclization. In this synthesis, newly reported Wickens' photoredox-catalyzed hydrocarboxylation was used twice, and Friedel-Crafts acylation thrice.

Optimizing ZnO-Quantum Dot Interface with Thiol as Ligand Modification for High-Performance Quantum Dot Light-Emitting Diodes.

As the electron transport layer in quantum dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs), ZnO suffers from excessive electrons that lead to luminescence quenching of the quantum dots (QDs) and charge-imbalance in QLEDs. Therefore, the interplay between ZnO and QDs requires an in-depth understanding. In this study, DFT and COSMOSL simulations are employed to investigate the effect of sulfur atoms on ZnO. Based on the simulations, thiol ligands (specifically 2-hydroxy-1-ethanethiol) to modify the ZnO nanocrystals are adopted. This modification alleviates the excess electrons without causing any additional issues in the charge injection in QLEDs. This modification strategy proves to be effective in improving the performance of red-emitting QLEDs, achieving an external quantum efficiency of over 23% and a remarkably long lifetime T95 of >12 000 h at 1000 cd m-2. Importantly, the relationship between ZnO layers with different electronic properties and their effect on the adjacent QDs through a single QD measurement is investigated. These findings show that the ZnO surface defects and electronic properties can significantly impact the device performance, highlighting the importance of optimizing the ZnO-QD interface, and showcasing a promising ligand strategy for the development of highly efficient QLEDs.

Physiological and Pathological Roles of NTSR2 in Several Organs and Diseases (Review).

Neurotensin (NTS) and its receptors (NTSRs) have long been the subject of study and have shown to have a vital function in a variety of systems. They are specifically implicated in the development of tumors and have both oncogenic and anti-apoptotic effects. Neurotensin receptor 2 (NTSR2), like NTSR1, belongs to the G protein-coupled receptor family and has been linked to analgesia, mental disorders, and hematological cancers. However, several research reports have revealed that it exists in numerous different systems. As a result, it seems to be an extremely promising therapeutic target for a variety of diseases. As NTSR2 is particularly prevalent in the brain and has different distribution and developmental characteristics from NTSR1, it may play a specific role in the nervous system. The present review summarizes the expression and function of NTSR2 in different systems, to highlight its potential as a diagnostic tool or therapeutic target.

Conjugated Phosphonic Acids Enable Robust Hole Transport Layers for Efficient and Intrinsically Stable Perovskite Solar Cells.

High efficiency and long-term stability are the prerequisites for the commercialization of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, inadequate and non-uniform doping of hole transport layers (HTLs) still limits the efficiency improvements, while the intrinsic instability of HTLs caused by ion migration and accumulation is difficult to be addressed by external encapsulation. Here it is shown that the addition of a conjugated phosphonic acid (CPA) to the Spiro-OMeTAD benchmark HTL can greatly enhance the device efficiency and intrinsic stability. Featuring an optimal diprotic-acid structure, indolo(3,2-b)carbazole-5,11-diylbis(butane-4,1-diyl) bis(phosphonic acid) (BCZ) is developed to promote morphological uniformity and mitigate ion migration across both perovskite/HTL and HTL/Ag interfaces, leading to superior charge conductivity, reinforced ion immobilization, and remarkable film stability. The dramatically improved interfacial charge collection endows BCZ-based n-i-p PSCs with a champion power conversion efficiency of 24.51%. More encouragingly, the BCZ-based devices demonstrate remarkable stability under harsh environmental conditions by retaining 90% of initial efficiency after 3000 h in air storage. This work paves the way for further developing robust organic HTLs for optoelectronic devices.

Larger aggregate formed by self-assembly process of the mixture surfactants enhance the dissolution and oxidative removal of non-aqueous phase liquid contaminants in aquifer.

Surfactants can transfer non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) contaminants to the aqueous phase, and enhance the removal of the latter in groundwater. However, the extensive use of surfactants causes secondary contamination and increases the non-target consumption of oxidants. It is pressing to develop a surfactant with high phase transfer efficiency and sound compatibility with oxidants to minimize the use of surfactants for groundwater remediation. The phase transfer capability of different surfactants and their binary mixtures, their enhanced KMnO4 oxidation performance for NAPL contaminants as well as influencing factors were investigated to solve the above-mentioned question. The results showed that Tween20, SDBS and BS-12 perform best in terms of phase transfer capability among nonionic, anionic and amphoteric surfactants respectively, and only SDBS and BS-12 produce a synergistic effect among the binary mixtures. The CMC of SDBS/BS-12 was lower than its ideal CMC value, and the self-assembly process of SDBS/BS-12 also formed larger aggregates, which improved the phase transfer performance. Compared to other single surfactants, the removal efficiency of petroleum hydrocarbons in the aquifer sediments was raised by 7.4-33.8 % using the mixed surfactant. The SDBS/BS-12 mixture was compatible with KMnO4 and boosted the reaction of NAPL contaminants with KMnO4 by transferring from the NAPL phase to the aqueous phase. As a result, the NAPL toluene and phenanthrene removal efficiency increased from 37 % and 29 % to 80 % and 86 % respectively. Natural organic matters inhibited the phase transfer efficiency of the SDBS/BS-12 mixture, whereas anions and monovalent cations enhanced the phase transfer capability of the mixture. High-valent cations led to precipitation in the SDBS/BS-12, which could be eliminated by adding Na2Si2O5. The SDBS/BS-12 mixture delivered the same phase transfer efficiency with the dosage of 1.73-23.07 % of other single surfactants, and its cost was equivalent to 0.25-41.7 % of the latter, thus embracing bright application prospects.

The optimal puncture time point of prolonged occlusion flow-mediated dilatation in radial artery catheterization: a prospective observational study.

Previous studies have demonstrated prolonged occlusion flow-mediated dilatation (PO-FMD) could reduce cannulation failure rates and decrease radial artery pulsation loss during trans-radial coronary angiography. However, the time and degree of radial artery dilatation induced after PO-FMD were unclear. This study aimed to evaluate the degree and duration of the radial artery dilation after PO-FMD, and the time point at which the radial artery diameter is expanded to the maximum. This was a prospective observational study. According to the Chinese guideline on the primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases, 142 patients awaking from general anesthesia were divided into two groups: low-risk (LR) group and high-risk (HR) group. Firstly, the baseline radial artery diameter was measured on the left wrist using ultrasound in both groups. Subsequently, the radial artery diameters were obtained continuously at the same location for 5 min after PO-FMD. The baseline radial artery diameter, the maximum radial artery diameter, and the duration of radial artery dilation in the two groups were recorded. The time point at which the radial artery diameter is expanded to the maximum in the LR group and HR group was 26.49 ± 11.69 s and 46.27 ± 12.03 s, respectively (P < 0.01). The time of radial artery dilation and the percentage changes in arterial diameter in HR group were significantly lower than LR group (duration time: mean [mean ± standard]: 136.65 ± 31.55 s vs. 168.98 ± 33.27 s; percentage changes: median [interquartile range] 10.5 [8.6, 12.9] % vs. 15.2 [12.4, 19.0] %). In this study, the optimal puncture time point of PO-FMD in the LR group was 26 s, and in the HR group was 46 s. It would be helpful to guide the time point in radial artery catheterization after PO-FMD.Chinese Clinical Trial Registry identifier: ChiCTR2200066214.

Robust Commonsense Reasoning Against Noisy Labels Using Adaptive Correction.

Commonsense reasoning based on knowledge graphs (KGs) is a challenging task that requires predicting complex questions over the described textual contexts and relevant knowledge about the world. However, current methods typically assume clean training scenarios with accurately labeled samples, which are often unrealistic. The training set can include mislabeled samples, and the robustness to label noises is essential for commonsense reasoning methods to be practical, but this problem remains largely unexplored. This work focuses on commonsense reasoning with mislabeled training samples and makes several technical contributions: 1) we first construct diverse augmentations from knowledge and model, and offer a simple yet effective multiple-choice alignment method to divide the training samples into clean, semi-clean, and unclean parts; 2) we design adaptive label correction methods for the semi-clean and unclean samples to exploit the supervised potential of noisy information; and 3) finally, we extensively test these methods on noisy versions of commonsense reasoning benchmarks (CommonsenseQA and OpenbookQA). Experimental results show that the proposed method can significantly enhance robustness and improve overall performance. Furthermore, the proposed method is generally applicable to multiple existing commonsense reasoning frameworks to boost their robustness. The code is available at https://github.com/xdxuyang/CR_Noisy_Labels.

Untethered Soft Pneumatic Actuators with Embedded Multiple Sensing Capabilities.

Pneumatic soft robot attracts extensive attention because of its own characteristics. It has great application potential in medical and other fields. Although the recent improvement of the soft robot shows great potentials for delicate manipulations, the development of completely untethered pneumatic intelligent soft robots remains challenging. This article introduces a novel type of untethered soft pneumatic actuator with embedded multiple sensing capabilities. The untethered drive of the soft pneumatic actuator is achieved by near-infrared-induced liquid-gas phase transition. In addition, a soft conductive resin was developed to make flexible sensors. Embedded flexible sensors enable bending and temperature sensing of soft actuators. With Digital Light Processing three-dimensional printing, the rapid fabrication of soft actuators and flexible sensors was realized. This article demonstrates the potential of the proposed untethered soft actuators with embedded multiple sensing capabilities as an important contribution to the research of completely untethered intelligent soft robots.

Optimizing Road Safety: Advancements in Lightweight YOLOv8 Models and GhostC2f Design for Real-Time Distracted Driving Detection.

The rapid detection of distracted driving behaviors is crucial for enhancing road safety and preventing traffic accidents. Compared with the traditional methods of distracted-driving-behavior detection, the YOLOv8 model has been proven to possess powerful capabilities, enabling it to perceive global information more swiftly. Currently, the successful application of GhostConv in edge computing and embedded systems further validates the advantages of lightweight design in real-time detection using large models. Effectively integrating lightweight strategies into YOLOv8 models and reducing their impact on model performance has become a focal point in the field of real-time distracted driving detection based on deep learning. Inspired by GhostConv, this paper presents an innovative GhostC2f design, aiming to integrate the idea of linear transformation to generate more feature maps without additional computation into YOLOv8 for real-time distracted-driving-detection tasks. The goal is to reduce model parameters and computational load. Additionally, enhancements have been made to the path aggregation network (PAN) to amplify multi-level feature fusion and contextual information propagation. Furthermore, simple attention mechanisms (SimAMs) are introduced to perform self-normalization on each feature map, emphasizing feature maps with valuable information and suppressing redundant information interference in complex backgrounds. Lastly, the nine distinct distracted driving types in the publicly available SFDDD dataset were expanded to 14 categories, and nighttime scenarios were introduced. The results indicate a 5.1% improvement in model accuracy, with model weight size and computational load reduced by 36.7% and 34.6%, respectively. During 30 real vehicle tests, the distracted-driving-detection accuracy reached 91.9% during daylight and 90.3% at night, affirming the exceptional performance of the proposed model in assisting distracted driving detection when driving and contributing to accident-risk reduction.

Blood-based biomarkers: diagnostic value in brain tumors (focus on gliomas).

Background: Brain tumors, especially gliomas, are known for high lethality. It is currently understood that the correlations of tumors with coagulation and inflammation have been gradually revealed. Objective: This study aimed to explore the potential value of several reported peripheral blood parameters as comprehensively as possible, with preoperative diagnosis and identification of brain tumors (focus on gliomas). Methods: Patients with central nervous system tumors (craniopharyngioma, ependymoma, spinal meningioma, acoustic neuroma, brain metastases, meningioma, and glioma) or primary trigeminal neuralgia admitted to our hospital were retrospectively analyzed. The results of the routine coagulation factor test, serum albumin test, and blood cell test in peripheral blood were recorded for each group of patients on admission. Neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), derived NLR (dNLR), platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), lymphocyte-monocyte ratio (LMR), prognostic nutritional index (PNI), the systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), pan-immune-inflammation value (PIV), and their pairings were calculated. Their ability to identify brain tumors and their correlation with glioma grade were analyzed. Results: A total of 698 patients were included in this retrospective case-control study. Glioma patients had higher NLR, SII, and PIV but lower LMR. The NLR in the brain metastasis group was lower than that in the control, meningioma, and acoustic neuroma groups, but the SII and PIV were higher than those in the ependymoma group. Fibrinogen, white blood cell count, neutrophil count, NLR, SII, and PIV in the GBM group were higher than those in the control group. In all comparisons, NLR and NLR + dNLR showed the greatest accuracy, with areas under the curve (AUCs) of 0.7490 (0.6482-0.8498) and 0.7481 (0.6457-0.8505), respectively. PIV, dNLR + PIV, and LMR + PIV ranked second, with AUCs of 0.7200 (0.6551-0.7849), 0.7200 (0.6526-0.7874), 0.7204 (0.6530-0.7878) and 0.7206 (0.6536-0.7875), respectively. Conclusion: NLR, PIV, and their combinations show high sensitivity and specificity in the diagnosis of brain tumors, especially gliomas. Overall, our results provide evidence for these convenient and reliable peripheral blood markers.

[Correlation between frailty and erectile dysfunction in elderly males].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the correlation of frailty with ED in Chinese elderly men. METHODS: This community-based study was conducted with a sample of 258 Chinese men aged 60 to 83 years old in Fuyang City, Anhui Province. All the participants completed a standard questionnaire on demographics, lifestyle, underlying diseases and medical and sexual histories. They also scored on the Chinese version of Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI) and International Index of Erectile Function-5 (IIEF-5). RESULTS: The incidence rates of ED and frailty in the elderly men were 85.27% and 75.58%, respectively. The ED patients, compared with the non-ED males, had a significantly older age (ï¼»71.25 ± 5.83ï¼½ vs ï¼»66.92 ± 5.44ï¼½ yr, P < 0.01) and higher body mass index (ï¼»24.37 ± 3.31ï¼½ vs ï¼»23.35 ± 2.97ï¼½ kg/m 2, P < 0.05), incidence of diabetes mellitus (38.0% vs 19.2%, P < 0.05) and TFI scores (8.61 ± 4.29 vs 5.95 ± 4.36, P < 0.05), but lower education and frequency of irregular intercourse (less than once a week) (all P<0.05). Multivariate analysis indicated that diabetes (OR：3.292，95% CI：1.236－8.768), irregular intercourse (OR：2.425，95% CI：1.114－5.279), and scores of frailty (OR：4.502，95% CI：1.905－10.640) were regarded as independent risk factors for ED (all P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: There is a strong correlation between ED and frailty in elderly men. Sexual health care for elderly ED patients should be more focused on the multidimensional assessment and treatment of senile frailty.

A multifunctional sensor for real-time monitoring and pro-healing of frostbite wounds.

Flexible epidermal sensors based on conductive hydrogels hold great promise for various applications, such as wearable electronics and personal healthcare monitoring. However, the integration of conductive hydrogel epidermal sensors into multiple applications remains challenging. In this study, a multifunctional PAAm/PEG/hydrolyzed keratin (Hereinafter referred to as HK)/MXene conductive hydrogel (PPHM hydrogel) was designed as a high-performance therapeutic all-in-one epidermal sensor. This sensor not only accelerates wound healing but also provides wearable human-computer interaction. The developed sensor possesses highly sensitive sensing properties (Gauge Factor = 4.82 at high strain), strong mechanical tensile properties (capable of achieving a maximum elongation at break of 600 %), rapid self-healing capability, stable self-adhesive capability, biocompatibility, freeze resistance at -20 °C, and adjustable photo-thermal conversion capability. This therapeutic all-in-one sensor can sensitively monitor human movements, enabling the detection of small electrophysiological signals for diagnosing relevant activities and diseases. Furthermore, using a rat frostbite model, we demonstrated that the composite hydrogel sensor can serve as an effective wound dressing to accelerate the healing process. This study serves as a valuable reference for the development of multifunctional flexible epidermal sensors for personal smart health monitoring. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: Accelerated wound healing reduces the risk of wound infection, and conductive hydrogel-based sensors can monitor physiological signals. The multifunctional application of conductive hydrogel sensors combined with wound diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities can meet personalized medical requirements for wound healing and sensor monitoring. The aim of this study is to develop a multifunctional hydrogel patch. The multifunctional hydrogel can be assembled into a flexible wearable high-performance diagnostic and therapeutic integrated sensor that can effectively accelerate the healing of frostbite wounds and satisfy the real-time monitoring of multi-application scenarios. We expect that this study will inform efforts to integrate wound therapy and sensor monitoring.

Achieving Ultrahigh Energy Storage Performance for NaNbO3-Based Lead-Free Antiferroelectric Ceramics via the Coupling of the Stable Antiferroelectric R Phase and Nanodomain Engineering.

NaNbO3(NN)-based lead-free eco-friendly antiferroelectric (AFE) ceramics with an extremely high maximum polarization (Pm) are believed to be a promising alternative to traditional lead-based ceramics. Nevertheless, the high energy dissipation resulting from the large polarization hysteresis, which arises from the AFE-ferroelectric (FE) phase transition, poses a great challenge to the application of this promising ceramic. Herein, an excellent recoverable energy storage density (Wrec) was attained by intentionally designing a (0.86 - x) NaNbO3-0.14CaTiO3-xBiMg2/3Nb1/3O3 (NN-CT-xBMN) relaxor antiferroelectric ceramic, attributed to the synergistic effect of the stable AFE R phase and nanodomain engineering to overcome the bottleneck. The obtained results illustrate that the inclusion of BMN causes the transition from AFE microdomains to nanodomains and stabilizes the relaxor AFE orthorhombic R phase, which generates a highly stable polarization field response with low hysteresis and delays the AFE-FE phase transition, thus improving energy storage density. As a consequence, a high Wrec of 5.41 J cm-3 with an excellent conversion efficiency η of 86.7% was obtained in the NN-CT-0.08BMN ceramic. Moreover, the NN-CT-0.08BMN ceramic exhibits superior stability in temperature (25-150 °C), frequency (1-600 Hz), and fatigue behavior (10°-104 cycles) together with a large current density (CD = 810 A cm-2), ultrahigh power density (PD = 118 MW cm-3), and ultrafast discharge rate (t0.9 < 0.7 µs). This superior energy storage density, coupled with outstanding stability, suggests that the NN-CT-0.08BMN ceramic has the potential to be a promising candidate for pulsed power applications and power electronics.